This Essay affords an egregious instance of the predominance of genius, the dazzling splendour of imagery, and the seductive powers of eloquence. Never was penury of knowledge, and vulgarity of sentiment, so happily disguised. The reader feels his mind full, though he learns nothing, and when he meets it in its new array, no longer knows the talk of his mother and his nurse. When these wonder-working sounds sink into sense, and the doctrine of the Essay, disrobed of its ornaments, is left to the powers of its naked excellence, what shall we discover? That we are, in comparison with our Creator, very weak and ignorant,--that we do not uphold the chain of existence--and that we could not make one another with more skill than we are made. We may learn yet more,--that the arts of human life were copied from the instinctive operations of other animals,--that if the world be made for man, it may be said that man was made for geese.[735] To these profound principles of natural knowledge are added some moral instructions equally new,--that self interest, well understood, will produce social concord--that men are mutual gainers by mutual benefits--that evil is sometimes balanced by good--that human advantages are unstable and fallacious, of uncertain duration and doubtful effect--that our true honour is not to have a great part, but to act it well--that virtue only is our own--and that happiness is always in our power. Surely a man of no very comprehensive search may venture to say that he has heard all this before; but it was never till now recommended by such a blaze of embellishments, or such sweetness of melody. The vigorous contraction of some thoughts, the luxuriant amplification of others, the incidental illustrations, and sometimes the dignity, sometimes the softness of the verse, enchain philosophy, suspend criticism, and oppress judgment by overpowering pleasure. This is true of many paragraphs, yet if I had undertaken to exemplify Pope's felicity of composition before a rigid critic, I should not select the Essay on Man; for it contains more lines unsuccessfully laboured, more harshness of diction, more thoughts imperfectly expressed, more levity without elegance, and more heaviness without strength, than will easily be found in all his other works.--JOHNSON.