They appear to deal him an even and regretful justice.

His good points, they put it in effect, being so many, how much blacker and more deplorable his meannesses and faults! They do not do this out of charity; there was very little of the milk of human kindness in Pope.
Deformity in his case, as in so many in truth and fiction, seemed to bring envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness in its train.

The method is employed simply because it gives the maximum satirical effect.
That is why Pope's epistle to Arbuthnot, with its characterisation of Addison, is the most damning piece of invective in our language.
_The Rape of the Lock_ is an exquisite piece of workmanship, breathing the very spirit of the time.

You can fancy it like some clock made by one of the Louis XIV.

craftsmen, encrusted with a heap of ormulu mock-heroics and impertinences and set perfectly to the time of day.
From no other poem could you gather so fully and perfectly the temper of the society in which our "classic" poetry was brought to perfection, its elegant assiduity in trifles, its brilliant artifice, its paint and powder and patches and high-heeled shoes, its measured strutting walk in life as well as in verse.