of the facts, were to prosecute the inquest.  And the general impression from such an inquest would be, that Pope never delineated a character, nor uttered a sentiment, nor breathed an aspiration, which he would not willingly have recast, have retracted, have abjured or trampled underfoot with the curses assigned to heresy, if by such an act he could have added a hue of brilliancy to his colouring or a new depth to his shadows.  There is nothing he would not have sacrificed, not the most solemn of his opinions, nor the most pathetic memorial from his personal experience, in return for a sufficient consideration, which consideration meant always with him poetic effect.  It is not, as too commonly is believed, that he was reckless of other people’s feelings; so far from that, he had a morbid facility in his kindness; and in cases where he had no reason to suspect any lurking hostility, he showed even a paralytic benignity.  But, simply and constitutionally, he was incapable of a sincere thought or a sincere emotion.  Nothing that ever he uttered, were it even a prayer to God, but he had a fancy for reading it backwards.  And he was evermore false, not as loving or preferring falsehood, but as one who could not in his heart perceive much real difference between what people affected to call falsehood, and what they affected to call truth.

THE END