He is a trained critic, and is "nothing if not
critical." His coolness is a real coolness, not the effect of any
"toning down" for the occasion, as we may suspect to have been the case
with Mr. Froude and Mr. Goldwin Smith. His knowledge is accurate, his
judgments are sound, his taste is seldom at fault, his style is
faultless and colorless, he never attempts what he is unable to do well
and without any appearance of strain. Though he may have given more
attention to the literature of the eighteenth century than to that of
any other period, one feels that he might safely have been entrusted
with the preparation of any volume of this series. It was probably from
a sense of fitness, not by mere chance, that he was selected to write
the initial volume, which pitched the key for those that were to
follow, and that so far he is the only writer who has been called upon
for a second contribution.
His task in the present instance has been much less easy and simple
than that which he before undertook. In the case of Johnson he had only
to select and condense from material so copious and authentic as left
no question of fact or problem of criticism unsettled. Pope's career,
on the other hand, after all the research that has been spent upon it,
is full of obscurities; his character, while it invites, seems to
evade, analysis; even his rank and exact position in literature cannot
be said to be conclusively determined.
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