arguments have been used to prove that he was not a poet at all. One English critic believed he had settled the question forever when he described Pope as "a musical rocking-horse." Again and again the world has been told that Pope has disappeared from the sky of literature, but the world looks up, and behold, there is the star shining just as before. Many scholars and many poets have scoffed at his translations of {198} Homer, but generations of English school-boys have learned to love the "Iliad" because of the way in which Pope has told them the story; and as to the telling of a story, the judgment of a school-boy sometimes counts for more than the judgment of a sage. Pope's "Iliad" and "Odyssey" are certainly not for those who can read the great originals in their own tongue, or even for those who have a taste strong and refined enough to enjoy the severe fidelity of a prose translation. But Pope has brought the story of Achilles' wrath, and Helen's pathetic beauty, and Hector's fall, and Priam's agony home to the hearts of millions for whom they would otherwise have no life. We have no intention of writing a critical dissertation on the poetry of Pope. One fact may, however, be remarked and recorded concerning it. After Shakespeare, and possibly Milton, no English poet is so much quoted from as Pope. Lines and phrases of his have passed into the common vernacular of our daily life. We talk Pope, many of us, as the too-often cited _bourgeois gentilhomme_ of Moliere talked prose, without knowing it. There is hardly a line of "The Rape of the Lock" or "The Dunciad" that has not thus passed into the habitual conversation of our lives. This of itself would not prove that Pope was a great poet, but it is a striking testimony to his extraordinary popularity, and his style is not that which of itself would seem calculated to insure popularity. The very smoothness and perfection of his verse make it seem to many ears nothing better than a melodious monotony. Pope had not imagination enough to be a great poet of the highest order--the order of creative power. He had marvellous fancy, which sometimes, as in "The Rape of the Lock" and in passages of the fierce "Dunciad," rose to something like imagination. Every good Christian ought no doubt to lament that a man of such noble gifts should have had also such a terrible gift of hate. But even a very good Christian could hardly help admitting that it must have been all for the best, seeing that only for that passion of hatred we should never have had "The Dunciad." {199} CHAPTER XXXIV. "THE FORTY-FIVE." [Sidenote: 1720--Birth of "Prince Charlie"]