He says himself that at this early period, he
went through all the best critics; all the French, English and Latin
poems of any name; "Homer and some of the greater Greek poets in the
original," and Tasso and Ariosto in translations.
Pope at any rate acquired a wide knowledge of English poetry. Waller,
Spenser, and Dryden were, he says, his great favourites in the order
named, till he was twelve. Like so many other poets, he took infinite
delight in the _Faery Queen_; but Dryden, the great poetical luminary of
his own day, naturally exercised a predominant influence upon his mind.
He declared that he had learnt versification wholly from Dryden's works,
and always mentioned his name with reverence. Many scattered remarks
reported by Spence, and the still more conclusive evidence of frequent
appropriation, show him to have been familiar with the poetry of the
preceding century, and with much that had gone out of fashion in his
time, to a degree in which he was probably excelled by none of his
successors, with the exception of Gray. Like Gray he contemplated at one
time the history of English poetry which was in some sense executed by
Warton. It is characteristic, too, that he early showed a critical
spirit. From a boy, he says, he could distinguish between sweetness and
softness of numbers, Dryden exemplifying softness and Waller sweetness;
and the remark, whatever its value, shows that he had been analysing
his impressions and reflecting upon the technical secrets of his art.
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