Note 159 — AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM.
Reading edition
Dryden's preface to All for Love: "Expressions are a modest clothing of our thoughts, as breeches and petticoats are for our bodies." Pope's couplet should have been more in accordance with his precept. "Still" is an expletive to piece out the line, and upon this superfluous word, he has thrown the emphasis of the rhyme, which, in its turn, is mean and imperfect.