His task in the present instance has been much less easy and simple than that which he before undertook.  In the case of Johnson he had only to select and condense from material so copious and authentic as left no question of fact or problem of criticism unsettled.  Pope’s career, on the other hand, after all the research that has been spent upon it, is full of obscurities; his character, while it invites, seems to evade, analysis; even his rank and exact position in literature cannot be said to be conclusively determined.  It is needless to say that Mr. Stephen has been diligent and skilful in examining and summarizing whatever facts relating to his subject have been brought to light by recent or early investigation; that he weighs all the evidence with strict impartiality, and, when it is insufficient, is content to suspend judgment without resorting to conjecture; or that his views both on points of conduct and literary questions, if not marked by any striking originality, show clear and vigorous thinking and are stated in a way that provokes no impatience or captious dissent.  The interest of the narrative is well sustained, and the general impression left by it that of a report made by an expert on documents that needed to be thoroughly sifted in order that the issues which had been raised might be succinctly set forth and fully apprehended.  Further than this Mr. Stephen does not pretend to go.  His report is preliminary, not final.  No matter previously left uncertain is here determined.  Instead of an added knowledge, we are only made more sensible of our former ignorance.  Pope’s figure, far from coming more distinctly into view, seems to have receded and grown more vague.  Certain traits have perhaps been made more noticeable than before, but those essential elements of character which would define, explain, reconcile, and enable us to conceive the combination as a unit, have eluded observation.

This is, of course, a natural result of the gaps and contradictions in the evidence, the lack especially of those minute details which are not only necessary links, but often the most suggestive features, in a record of facts or delineation of character.  And if it be urged that a deeper insight would have in some measure supplied this deficiency, the answer can only be that we have no right to expect from any man the exercise of powers which he does not possess or affect to possess—­powers which, in a case like this, would need to be of the finest and rarest kind.  We may, however, fairly regret that Mr. Stephen has not availed himself of a resource that lay within his reach for making the accessories of his picture more brilliant and effective, with the possible incidental result of throwing a stronger light on the principal figure.  Whatever else may be debated about Pope, no one would deny that he was pre-eminently the man of his time—­not only its most conspicuous figure, but the very embodiment of its ideals.  He suited it and it suited him.