Johnson, in the Life, has given Watts' opinion of Pope's poetical diction.
Ruffhead's "Life of Pope."
In the Life Johnson says, "Expletives he very early rejected from his verses; but he now and then admits an epithet rather commodious than important. Each of the six first lines of the "Iliad" might lose two syllables with very little diminution of the meaning; and sometimes, after all his art and labour, one verse seems to be made for the sake of another.
He has a few double rhymes, but always, I think, unsuccessfully, except one, in the Rape of the Lock.—"Life of Pope."
Mrs. Thrale, in a note on this passage, mentions the couplet Johnson meant, for she asked him: it is
The meeting points the fatal lock dissever
From the fair head—for ever and for ever.
Lanzi, Storia Pittorica, v. 85.
D'Argenville, Vies des Peintres, ii. 46.
The curious reader of taste may refer to Fuseli's Second Lecture for a diatribe against what he calls "the Electic School; which, by selecting the beauties, correcting the faults, supplying the defects, and avoiding the extremes of the different styles, attempted to form a perfect system." He acknowledges the greatness of the Caracci; yet he laughs at the mere copying the manners of various painters into one picture. But perhaps—I say it with all possible deference—our animated critic forgot for a moment that it was no mechanical imitation the Caracci inculcated: nature and art were to be equally studied, and secondo il nativo talento e la propria sua disposizione. Barry distinguishes with praise and warmth. "Whether," says he, "we may content ourselves with adopting the manly plan of art pursued by the Caracci and their school at Bologna, in uniting the perfections of all the other schools; or whether, which I rather hope, we look farther into the style of design upon our own studies after nature; whichever of these plans the nation might fix on," &c., ii. 518. Thus, three great names, Du Fresnoy, Fuseli, and Barry, restricted their notions of the Caracci plan to a mere imitation of the great masters; but Lanzi, in unfolding Lodovico's project, lays down as his first principle the observation of nature, and, secondly, the imitation of the great masters; and all modified by the natural disposition of the artist.
D'Argenville, Vies des Peintres, ii. 47-68.