The wits, the beaux, the fine ladies, the Grub Street
drudges of the reign of Anne, whatever be the fidelity or other merits
of the portraitures, are more familiar to us in the satires of Pope
than as reflected in any other mirror. For these reasons Pope is one of
the last men who can be studied to advantage from a single point of
view or in a detached position. We need to understand not only his
personal relations but his general affinities with the men and events
of his time--of that world, at least, of which he was the centre. True,
the period is better known to readers generally than almost any other.
But it is not a copious accumulation of facts or a labored
analysis--for which there would have been no space--that we miss in Mr.
Stephen's book, but such groupings and irradiating touches as might
have given us a vivid glimpse, if only a glimpse, of the whole field.
Yet in lamenting that this much is not given us we are perhaps making
the mistake before noticed, of demanding from a given source what it
could not supply. We are driven back, therefore, on the reflection how
much the slightest things in art depend on inspiration, on original
power--how immeasurable the distance is between the man of culture and
the man of genius.
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