His merits are of a kind not likely to be affected by time; a lively fancy, a power of satire almost unrivalled, and a skill in using words so consummate that there is no poet, excepting Shakespeare, who has left his mark upon the language so strongly. The loss to us if Pope's verse were to become extinct cannot readily be measured. He has said in the best words what we all know and feel, but cannot express, and has made that classical which in weaker hands would be commonplace. His sensibility to the claims of his art is exquisite, the adaptation of his style to his subject shows the hand of a master, and if these are not the highest gifts of a poet, they are gifts to which none but a poet can lay claim. FOOTNOTES: [11] Some qualification may be made to these statements. Pope took pleasure in landscape gardening on the English plan, as opposed to the formality of the French and Dutch systems, and the design of the Prince of Wales's garden is said to have been copied from the poet's at Twickenham. [12] Elwin and Courthope's _Pope_, vol. ii. p. 160. [13] See the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. [14] Elwin and Courthope's _Pope_, vol. v., p. 195. [15] 'Lady Mary,' says Byron, 'was greatly to blame in that quarrel for having encouraged Pope.... She should have remembered her own line, '"He comes too near who comes to be denied."' [16] _Studies in English Literature_, p. 47.--_Stanford._ [17] Quin (1693-1766) was the famous actor, and Patterson was Thomson's deputy in the surveyor-generalship of the Leeward Isles, and ultimately his successor. [18] The Earl of Peterborough, the meteor-like brilliancy of whose actions forms one of the most striking chapters in the history of his time. [19] _Life of Pope_, p. 216. [20] 'Pope and Swift,' says Dr. Johnson, 'had an unnatural delight in ideas physically impure, such as every other tongue utters with unwillingness, and of which every ear shrinks from the mention.' [21] Clarendon Press, Oxford. [22] No doubt many distinguished foreigners who appreciated the beauty of the poem had read it in the original. [23] Stephen's _Pope_, p. 163. [24] _Lectures on Art_, p. 70, Oxford. CHAPTER II. PRIOR, GAY, YOUNG, BLAIR, THOMSON. [Sidenote: Matthew Prior (1664-1721).]