Essay on Man
lacks the bright humor and imaginative artistry of
The Rape of the Lock,
and the lively portraiture, vigorous satire, and strong personal note of the
Moral Epistles
and
Imitations of Horace
. Pope is at his best when he is dealing with a concrete world of men and women as they lived and moved in the London of his day; he is at his worst when he is attempting to seize and render abstract ideas.
Yet the
Essay on Man