The very earliest of Pope’s productions gives indications of that sense and discretion, as well as wit, which afterwards so eminently distinguished him. The facility of expression is remarkable, and we find also that perfect balance of metre which he afterwards carried so far as to be wearisome. His pastorals were written in his sixteenth year, and their publication immediately brought him into notice. The following four verses from the first Pastoral are quite characteristic in their antithetic balance: You that, too wise for pride, too good for power, Enjoy the glory to be great no more, And carrying with you all the world can boast, To all the world illustriously are lost. The sentiment is affected, and reminds one of that future period of Pope’s correspondence with his friends, where Swift, his heart corroding with disappointed ambition at Dublin, Bolingbroke raising delusive turnips at his farm, and Pope pretending to disregard the lampoons which embittered his life, played together the solemn farce of affecting to despise the world which it would have agonized them to be forgotten by. In Pope’s next poem, the “Essay on Criticism,” the wit and poet become apparent. It is full of clear thoughts compactly expressed. In this poem, written when Pope was only twenty-one, occur some of those lines which have become proverbial, such as: A little learning is a dangerous thing; For fools rush in where angels fear to tread; True Wit is Nature to advantage dressed, What oft was thought, but ne’er so well expressed; For each ill author is as bad a friend. In all these we notice that terseness in which (regard being had to his especial range of thought) Pope has never been equaled. One cannot help being struck also with the singular _discretion_ which the poem gives evidence of. I do not know where to look for another author in whom it appeared so early; and considering the vivacity of his mind and the constantly besetting temptation of his wit, it is still more wonderful. In his boyish correspondence with poor old Wycherly, one would suppose him to be a man and Wycherly the youth. Pope’s understanding was no less vigorous than his fancy was lightsome and sprightly.