Chapter 39

[1403]Bolingbroke, Fragment 51: "A due use of our reason makes self-love and social coincide, or even become in effect the same."—Wakefield.[1404]Happiness is with Pope the sole end of life, and virtue is only a means. The means cannot be more binding than the end, and happiness is not obligatory and virtue is. A certain contempt, again, for pain and privation is heroic, but indifference to moral worth is degradation. Thus virtue is plainly an end in itself, and is superior, not subordinate, to happiness.[1405]Overlooked in the things which would yield it, and in other things magnified by the imagination, as is happily expressed by Young, when he says, Universal Passion, Sat. i., 238:None think the great unhappy but the great.[1406]Pope personified happiness at the beginning, but seems to have dropped that idea in the seventh line, where the deity is suddenly transformed into a plant, from whence this metaphor of a vegetable is carried on through the eleven succeeding lines till he suddenly returns to consider happiness again as a person, in the eighteenth line.—Warton.The change from a person to a thing commences at the third verse, where Pope calls happiness "that something," and he changes back to the person in the eighth verse, where he addresses happiness as "thou."[1407]MS.:O happiness! to which we all aspire,Winged with strong hope, and borne with full desire;That good, we still mistake, and still pursue,Still out of reach, yet ever in our view;That ease, for which in want, in wealth we sigh,That ease, for which we labour and we die;Tell me, ye sages, (sure 'tis yours to know),Tell in what mortal soul this ease may grow.[1408]"Is there," asks Mr. Croker, "any other authority for shine as a noun?" The noun is found in Milton, and Locke, and in much earlier writers, but Johnson says, "it is a word, though not unanalogical, yet ungraceful, and little used."[1409]"Flaming" is not an appropriate epithet for mines. The line calls up a false idea of splendour, and not a vision of subterranean gloom and desolation.[1410]Dryden, Æn. xii. 963:An iron harvest mounts, and still remains to mow.—Wakefield.Pope's image is not sufficiently distinctive. There is only one word, the epithet "iron," to indicate that he is speaking of military renown, and this epithet, drawn from the material of which swords are made, is also applicable to the sickle.[1411]"Say in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow," is the invocation addressed by Pope to Happiness. He now strangely answers his own inquiry in a tone of rebuke, as though it were preposterous to ask the question. "Where grows! where grows it not?"[1412]These lines follow in the MS.:Heav'n plants no vain desire in human kind,But what it prompts to seek, directs to find,From whom, so strongly pointing at the end,To hide the means it never could intend.Now since, whatever happiness we call,Subsists not in the good of one, but all,And whosoever would be blessed must bless,Virtue alone can form that happiness.A sentence in Hooker's Eccl. Pol., Book i. Chap. viii. Sect. 7, will explain Pope's idea in the last four lines: "If I cannot but wish to receive all good at every man's hand, how should I look to have any part of my desire satisfied, unless myself be careful to satisfy the like desire in other men?"[1413]"Sincere" in its present use is the opposite of "disingenuous," "deceptive," and has always a moral signification. Formerly it had the sense, which Pope gives it here, of "pure," "unadulterated," without any necessary ethical meaning. Thus Dryden, Palamon and Arcite, Bk. iii.And none can boast sincere felicity.Philemon Holland talks of "sincere vermillion," Arbuthnot of "sincere acid," and Hooker speaks of keeping the Scriptures "entire and sincere."[1414]This was flattery. Bolingbroke was notoriously a prey to factious rancour, and the pangs of disappointed ambition.[1415]Epicureans.—Pope.[1416]Stoics.—Pope.Pope's account of the epicureans is the exact opposite of the truth. He says they "placed bliss in action," whereas Seneca tells us, Benef. iv. 4: "Quæ maxima Epicure felicitas videtur, nihil agit." The poet's account of the stoics is equally wrong. Instead of placing "bliss in ease" they inculcated the sternest self-denial, and untiring efforts to fulfil all virtue.[1417]Epicureans.—Pope.[1418]Stoics.—Pope.The true stoic did not, as Pope asserts, "confess virtue vain." He contended that it was all-sufficient. Till the edition of 1743 this couplet was as follows:One grants his pleasure is but rest from pain;One doubts of all; one owns ev'n virtue vain.The two lines which conclude the paragraph, and which first appeared in the edition of 1743, were written at Warburton's suggestion. The object of the addition was to represent the credulous man who trusted everything as equally deceived with the sceptic who trusted in nothing. Of the last line there is a second version:One trusts the senses, and one doubts of all.[1419]Sceptics.—Pope.Pyrrho and his followers held that we can only know things as they appear, and not as they are. Thence they maintained that appearances must be absolutely indifferent, and that we could be equally happy in all conditions,—in sickness, for instance, Cicero, Fin. ii. 13, as in health. The one reality which Pyrrho admitted was virtue, and this he said (Cicero, Fin. iv. 16), was the supreme good which he who possessed had nothing left to desire.[1420]Pope's complaint, that the directions of the ancient moralists amounted to no more than that "happiness is happiness," arose from his ignorance of their tenets. The stoics and sceptics placed the supreme good in unconditional virtue, and the epicureans taught the precise doctrine of Pope himself, that pleasure is the goal, and virtue the road. The admonition, "take nature's path," which Pope would substitute for the teaching of these sects, was the maxim on which they all insisted.[1421]Pope has here adopted the sentiments of the Grecian sage who said, "That if we live according to nature we shall never be poor, and if we live according to opinion we shall never be rich."—Ruffhead.For opinion creates the fantastic wants of fashion and luxury.[1422]He means that happiness does not "dwell" in any "extreme" of wealth, rank, talent, etc., but that all "states," or classes of men "can reach it."[1423]MS.:True happiness, 'tis sacred truth I tell,Lies but in thinking, &c.The man who always "thinks right" is infallible in wisdom, and if he always "means well" he must act in obedience to his infallible convictions, when he will also be impeccable. There needs but this, says Pope, to secure happiness. He scoffs at the vague definitions of philosophers, and substitutes the luminous direction that we should be infallible in our views, and impeccable in our conduct.[1424]"The common sense" and "common ease" of which all the world have an equal share, cannot exceed the measure of sense and ease which falls to the lot of the most foolish and suffering of mankind. This is the same sort of equality that there is between the income of a pauper and a millionaire, since both have half-a-crown a week.[1425]The MS. adds:In no extreme lies real happiness,Not ev'n of good or wisdom in excess."Good" and "wisdom" in the last line might be supposed to mean something that was not true wisdom and goodness if Pope had not argued, ver. 259-268, that real wisdom was injurious to happiness. He would have the "right thinking" alloyed with error, and the "meaning well" with evil.[1426]That is, all which can "justly" or rightly be termed happiness.[1427]The image is drawn from a person leaning towards another, and listening to what he says. Pope took the expression from the simile of the compasses in Donne's Songs and Sonnets:And though it in the centre sit,Yet when the other far doth roam,It leans, and hearkens after it,And grows erect, as that comes home.[1428]The MS. goes on thus:'Tis not in self it can begin and end,The bliss of one must with another blend:The strongest, noblest pleasures of the mindAll hold of mutual converse with the kind.Can sensual lust, or selfish rapine, knowSuch as from bounty, love, or mercy flow?Of human nature wit its worst may write,We all revere it in our own despite.[1429]This couplet follows in the MS.:To rob another's is to lose our own,And the just bound once passed the whole is gone.[1430]MS.:inference if you make,That such are happier, 'tis a gross mistake.Say not, "Heav'n's here profuse, there poorly saves,And for one monarch makes a thousand slaves;"You'll find when causes and their ends are known,'Twas for the thousand heav'n has made that one.Ev'n mutual want to common blessings tends,One labours, one directs, and one defends,While double pay benevolence receives,Is blessed in what it takes, and what it gives.In what (heav'n's hand impartial to confess)Need men be equal but in happiness.The bliss of all, if heav'n's indulgent aim,He could not place in riches, pow'r or fame.In these suppose it placed, one greatly blessed,Others were hurt, impoverished, or oppressed;Or did they equally on all descend,If all were equal must not all contend?[1431]After ver. 66 in the MS.Tis peace of mind alone is at a stay:The rest mad fortune gives or takes away:All other bliss by accident's debarred,But virtue's, in the instant, a reward;In hardest trials operates the best,And more is relished as the more distressed.—Warburton.There is still another couplet in the MS.:Virtue's plain consequence is happiness,Or virtue makes the disappointment less.[1432]The exemplification of this truth, by a view of the equality of happiness in the several particular stations of life, was designed for the subject of a future Epistle.—Pope."Heaven's just balance" is made "equal," says this writer, because men are harassed with fears in proportion to their elevation, and amused with hopes in a state of distress. But a man may be good either in high or low rank; and God does not, to make the happiness of mankind equal, fill the heart of one with idle fears, and of the other with chimerical hopes.—Crousaz.[1433]Sir W. Temple, Works, vol. iii. p. 531: "Whether a good condition with fear of being ill, or an ill with hope of being well, pleases or displeases most." Pope's MS. goes on thus:How widely then at happiness we aimBy selfish pleasures, riches, pow'r or fame!Increase of these is but increase of pain,Wrong the materials, and the labour vain.[1434]He had in his mind Virgil's description, borrowed from Homer, of the attempt made by the giants, in their war against the gods, to scale the heavens by heaping Ossa upon Pelion, and Olympus upon Ossa. Pope took the expressions "sons of earth," and "mountains piled on mountains," from Dryden's translation, Geor. i. 374.[1435]"Still" is repeated to give force to the remonstrance. "Attempt still to rise, and Heaven will still survey your vain toil with laughter."[1436]An allusion to Psalm ii. 1, 4: "Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh."—Wakefield.[1437]MS.:The gods with laughter on the labour gaze,And bury such in the mad heaps they raise.[1438]"Nature" is a name for the second causes, or instruments, by which God works. Pope speaks as if nature's meaning was distinct from the meaning of God.[1439]By "mere mankind" Pope means man in his present earthly condition, and not the generality of mankind as distinguished from favoured mortals, for he says, ver. 77, that individuals can no more attain to any greater good than mankind at large.[1440]From Bolingbroke, Fragment 52: "Agreeable sensations, the series whereof constitutes happiness, must arise from health of body, tranquillity of mind, and a competency of wealth."[1441]The MS. adds,Behold the blessing then to none deniedBut through our vice, by error or by pride;Which nothing but excess can render vain,And then lost only when too much we gain.[1442]The sense of this ill-expressed line is, that bad men taste the gifts of fortune less than good men, in proportion as they obtain them by worse means. The couplet was originally thus in the MS.:The good, the bad may fortune's gifts possess;The bad acquire them worse, enjoy them less.[1443]"That" is put improperly for "those that."[1444]MS.:Secure to find, ev'n from the very worst,If vice and virtue want, compassion first.[1445]But are not the one frequently mistaken for the other? How many profligate hypocrites have passed for good?—Warton.Men not intrinsically virtuous have often had the good opinion of the world; the happiness they want is a good conscience.[1446]After ver. 92 in the MS.:Let sober moralists correct their speech,No bad man's happy: he is great, or rich.—Warburton.[1447]That is, "who fancy bliss allotted to vice."[1448]Lord Falkland was killed by a musket ball at the battle of Newbury, Sept. 20, 1643. Turenne was killed by a cannon ball, near Sassback, July 26, 1675. Sir Philip Sidney was mortally wounded by a bullet at Zutphen, Sept. 22, 1586, and died a few days afterwards. Sidney was 32 years of age at his death, Falkland 33, and Turenne 64.[1449]The Hon. Robert Digby, who died, aged 40, April 19, 1726. Pope wrote his epitaph.[1450]MS.:Brave Sidney falls amid the martial strife,Not that he's virtuous, but profuse of life.Not virtue snatched Arbuthnot's hopeful bloom,And sent thee, Craggs, untimely to the tomb.Say not 'tis virtue, but too soft a frame,That Walsh his race, and Scud'more ends her name.Think not their virtues, more though heav'n ne'er gave,Unites so many Digbys in a grave.Fierce love, not virtue, Falkland, was thy doom,Her grief, not virtue, nipped Louisa's bloom.The Arbuthnot mentioned here was Charles, a clergyman, and son of the celebrated physician. His death in 1732 was supposed to have been occasioned by the lingering effects of a wound he received in a duel he fought while at Oxford with a fellow-collegian, his rival in love. James Craggs died of the small-pox Feb. 14, 1721, aged 35. Virtue had certainly no share in his death, for he was licentious in private life, and in his public capacity accepted a bribe from the South Sea directors. Walsh died in 1708, at the age of 49. His virtue may be estimated by his confession that he had committed every folly in love, except matrimony. Lady Scudamore, widow of Sir James Scudamore, and daughter of the fourth Lord Digby, died of the small-pox, May 3, 1729, aged 44. She left only a daughter, who married, and hence Pope's expression, "Scud'more ends her name." The many Digbys united in one grave were the children of the fifth Lord, the father of the poet's friend, Robert. I do not know what is meant by the "fierce love" which was Falkland's "doom," nor can I identify the Louisa who died of grief.[1451]William, fifth Lord Digby, was 74 when this fourth Epistle was published in 1734, and he lived to be 92. He died December 1752.[1452]M. de Belsunce, was made bishop of Marseilles in 1709. In the plague of that city in 1720 he distinguished himself by his activity. He died at a very advanced age in 1755.—Warton.[1453]Some anonymous verses in Dryden's Miscellanies, vi. p. 76:When nature sickens, and with fainting breathStruggles beneath the bitter pangs of death.—Wakefield.[1454]Dryden, Virg. x. 1231:O Rhœbus! we have lived too long for me,If life and long were terms that could agree.—Wakefield.[1455]MS.:Yet hemmed with plagues, and breathing deathful air,Marseilles' good bishop still possess the chair;And long kind chance, or heav'n's more kind decree,Lends an old parent, etc.Pope's mother died June 7, 1733. She was said by the poet to be 93, but was only 91, if the register of her baptism, June 18, 1642, gives the year of her birth, which is doubtless the case, since an elder sister was baptised in 1641, and a younger in 1643.[1456]How change can admit, or nature let fall any evil, however short and rare it may be, under the government of an all-wise, powerful, and benevolent Creator, is hardly to be understood. These six lines are perhaps the most exceptionable in the whole poem in point both of sentiment and expression.—Warton.Pope's justification of the partial ill which is not a general good is, in substance, that Providence has not supreme dominion over his physical laws, that change and nature act independently of him, and vitiate his work. In place of ver. 113-16 the earlier editions have this couplet:God sends not ill, 'tis nature lets it fall,Or chance escape, and man improves it all.The notion that the disturbing operations of "chance" could explain the existence of evil was intrinsically absurd, and inconsistent with Ep. i., ver. 290, where Pope says that "all chance is direction." Chance is, in strictness, a nonentity, and merely signifies that the cause of an effect is unknown to us, or beyond our control. Neither supposition could apply to the Almighty. Warburton quotes a couplet from the MS., which could not be retained without a glaring contradiction, when Pope had discovered two other evil-doers besides man,—nature and chance:Of every evil, since the world beganThe real source is not in God, but man.[1457]This comparison of the favourites of the Almighty to the favourites of a weak prince is fallacious and revolting. Weak princes select their favourites from weak or vicious motives. The favourites of heaven are the righteous.[1458]Warburton says that Pope alluded to Empedocles. The story ran that he pretended to be a divinity, and threw himself into the crater of Ætna, that nobody might know what had become of him, and might conclude that he had been carried up into heaven. All the circumstances of his death are doubtful, and whether he was a calumniated sage, or a conceited madman, legends are not a proper illustration of God's dealings with mankind. Pope had originally written,T' explore Vesuvius if great Pliny aims,Shall the loud mountain call back all its flames?At the eruption of Vesuvius in 79, Pliny, the naturalist, was commanding the Roman fleet in the Gulf of Naples. He made for the coast in the neighbourhood of the volcano, till checked by the falling stones and ashes, he sailed to Stabiæ, and landed. In a few hours the tottering of the houses, shaken by the earthquake, warned him to fly, and according to his nephew he was overtaken by flames and sulphurous vapours, and suffocated. Stabiæ is ten miles from Vesuvius, and the flame and vapour could hardly have been propelled from the mountain.[1459]The forgetfulness to thunder supposes unconscious obliviousness, the recalling the fires conscious activity. The mountain would not at the same moment forget to keep up the irruption, and remember to restrain it.[1460]Wollaston, Religion of Nature, sect. v. prop. 18: "If a man's safety should depend upon winds or rains, must new motions be impressed upon the atmosphere?"[1461]Warton tells us in a note on one of Pope's letters to Bethel, that the latter was "celebrated in two fine lines in the Essay on Man on account of an asthma with which he was afflicted." I find in Ruffhead's Life a quotation from a letter of Pope's to Bethel, "then in Italy," and we may conclude that Bethel, being troubled with an asthma, visited Italy for relief, but that in crossing the sea the "motions of the sea and air" disagreed with him, as they do with most people.—Croker.[1462]"You," is Bolingbroke, to whom the epistle is addressed. A writer in the Adventurer, No. 63, quotes Wollaston, Religion of Nature, sect. v. prop. 18: "If a good man be passing by an infirm building, just in the article of falling, can it be expected that God should suspend the force of gravitation till he is gone by, in order to his deliverance?" The illustrations and language Pope copied from Wollaston are the objections of those who deny a special Providence, and Wollaston only stated the arguments to refute them.[1463]MS.:Or shall some ruin, as it nods to fall,For Chartres' brains reserve the hanging wall?No,—in a scene far higher heav'n impartsRewards for spotless hands, and honest hearts.The last couplet is a direct acknowledgment of a future state, and was probably omitted to avoid contradicting the infidel tenets of Bolingbroke.[1464]Christians have never raised the objection. They only say that since this world is not a kingdom of the just, reason, as well as revelation, teaches that there must be a kingdom to come.[1465]Bolingbroke, Fragment 57: "Christian divines complain that good men are often unhappy, and bad men happy. They establish a rule, and are not agreed about the application of it; for who are to be reputed good christians? Go to Rome, they are papists. Go to Geneva, they are calvinists. If particular providences are favourable to those of your communion they will be deemed unjust by every good protestant, and God will be taxed with encouraging idolatry and superstition. If they are favourable to those of any of our communions they will be deemed unjust by every good papist, and God will be taxed with nursing up heresy and schism."[1466]MS.:This way, I fear, your project too must fall,Will just what serves one good man serve 'em all?[1467]After ver. 142 in some editions:Give each a system, all must be at strife;What diff'rent systems for a man and wife?—Warburton.[1468]Young, Universal Passion, Sat. iii. 61.The very best ambitiously advise.MS.:The best in habits variously incline.[1469]MS.:E'en leave it as it is; this world, etc.[1470]He alludes to the complaint of Cato in Addison's tragedy, Act iv. Sc. 4:Justice gives way to force: the conquered worldIs Cæsar's; Cato has no business in it.And Act v. Sc. 1:This world was made for Cæsar."If," says Pope, "the world is made for ambitious men, such as Cæsar, it is also made for good men, like Titus." Extreme cases test principles, and to establish his position, that the virtuous in this life have always a larger share of enjoyments than the worldly, Pope should have dealt with some of the numerous instances in which the good have been condemned to tortures in consequence of their goodness.[1471]Remembering one evening that he had given nothing during the day, Titus exclaimed, "My friends, I have lost a day."[1472]Unquestionably it must be one of the rewards if Pope is right in maintaining that present happiness is proportioned to virtue. No more cruel mockery could be conceived than to act on his doctrine, and tell a virtuous mother, surrounded by starving children, that she and her little ones were quite as happy as the families who lived in abundance.[1473]MS.:Can God be just if virtue be unfed?Why, fool, is the reward of virtue bread?'Tis his who labours, his who sows the plain,'Tis his who threshes, or who grinds the grain.[1474]The MS. has two readings:Where madness fights for tyrants or for gain.Where folly fights for kings or drowns for gain.In the early editions Pope adopted the first version; in the later the second, with the change of "dives" for "drowns."[1475]"Why no king?" is equivalent to "why is he not any king?" The proper form would be "why not a king?"[1476]MS.:Then give him this, and that, and everything:Still the complaint subsists; he is no king.Outward rewards for inward worth are odd:Why then complain not that he is no god?Ver. 162 in the text is inconsistent with ver. 161. Pope supposes the good to rise in their demands until they rebel against receiving external rewards for internal merits, and insist that man should be a god, and earth a heaven, which heaven is one of the externals they have just indignantly repudiated.[1477]Pope is speaking of the good, and what good man ever did "ask and reason" according to Pope's representation?[1478]In a work of so serious a cast surely such strokes of levity, of satire, of ridicule, as also lines 204, 223, 276, however poignant and witty, are ill-placed and disgusting, are violations of that propriety which Pope in general so strictly observed.—Warton.[1479]MS.:But come, for virtue the just payment fix,For humble merit say a coach and six,For justice a Lord Chancellor's awful gown, &c.Pope showed his consciousness of the weakness of his cause by raising false issues. Virtue would not be rewarded by swords, gowns, and coaches, but is it rewarded by the cross, the stake, the rack, and the dungeon?[1480]This sarcasm was directed against George II. When Prince of Wales he quarrelled with his father, and patronised the opposition. On his accession to the throne he abandoned the opposition, to which Pope's friends belonged, and retained the ministers of George I.[1481]After ver. 172 in the MS.:Say, what rewards this idle world imparts,Or fit for searching heads or honest hearts.—Warburton.[1482]Heaven in this line has either improperly the double sense of a person and a place,—the God of heaven, and the kingdom of the blessed—or else "there" is a clumsy tautological excrescence to furnish a rhyme.[1483]These eight succeeding lines were not in former editions; and indeed none of them, especially lines 177 and 179, do any credit to the author.—Warton.From Warton's note it would appear that the lines were first printed in his own edition in 1797, whereas they were published in Pope's edition of 1743. The poet had then renounced Bolingbroke for Warburton, and ventured to admit that there was a heaven reserved for man.[1484]The "boy and man makes an individual" is not grammar.

[1403]Bolingbroke, Fragment 51: "A due use of our reason makes self-love and social coincide, or even become in effect the same."—Wakefield.

[1404]Happiness is with Pope the sole end of life, and virtue is only a means. The means cannot be more binding than the end, and happiness is not obligatory and virtue is. A certain contempt, again, for pain and privation is heroic, but indifference to moral worth is degradation. Thus virtue is plainly an end in itself, and is superior, not subordinate, to happiness.

[1405]Overlooked in the things which would yield it, and in other things magnified by the imagination, as is happily expressed by Young, when he says, Universal Passion, Sat. i., 238:None think the great unhappy but the great.

[1405]Overlooked in the things which would yield it, and in other things magnified by the imagination, as is happily expressed by Young, when he says, Universal Passion, Sat. i., 238:

None think the great unhappy but the great.

[1406]Pope personified happiness at the beginning, but seems to have dropped that idea in the seventh line, where the deity is suddenly transformed into a plant, from whence this metaphor of a vegetable is carried on through the eleven succeeding lines till he suddenly returns to consider happiness again as a person, in the eighteenth line.—Warton.The change from a person to a thing commences at the third verse, where Pope calls happiness "that something," and he changes back to the person in the eighth verse, where he addresses happiness as "thou."

The change from a person to a thing commences at the third verse, where Pope calls happiness "that something," and he changes back to the person in the eighth verse, where he addresses happiness as "thou."

[1407]MS.:O happiness! to which we all aspire,Winged with strong hope, and borne with full desire;That good, we still mistake, and still pursue,Still out of reach, yet ever in our view;That ease, for which in want, in wealth we sigh,That ease, for which we labour and we die;Tell me, ye sages, (sure 'tis yours to know),Tell in what mortal soul this ease may grow.

[1407]MS.:

O happiness! to which we all aspire,Winged with strong hope, and borne with full desire;That good, we still mistake, and still pursue,Still out of reach, yet ever in our view;That ease, for which in want, in wealth we sigh,That ease, for which we labour and we die;Tell me, ye sages, (sure 'tis yours to know),Tell in what mortal soul this ease may grow.

[1408]"Is there," asks Mr. Croker, "any other authority for shine as a noun?" The noun is found in Milton, and Locke, and in much earlier writers, but Johnson says, "it is a word, though not unanalogical, yet ungraceful, and little used."

[1409]"Flaming" is not an appropriate epithet for mines. The line calls up a false idea of splendour, and not a vision of subterranean gloom and desolation.

[1410]Dryden, Æn. xii. 963:An iron harvest mounts, and still remains to mow.—Wakefield.Pope's image is not sufficiently distinctive. There is only one word, the epithet "iron," to indicate that he is speaking of military renown, and this epithet, drawn from the material of which swords are made, is also applicable to the sickle.

[1410]Dryden, Æn. xii. 963:

An iron harvest mounts, and still remains to mow.—Wakefield.

Pope's image is not sufficiently distinctive. There is only one word, the epithet "iron," to indicate that he is speaking of military renown, and this epithet, drawn from the material of which swords are made, is also applicable to the sickle.

[1411]"Say in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow," is the invocation addressed by Pope to Happiness. He now strangely answers his own inquiry in a tone of rebuke, as though it were preposterous to ask the question. "Where grows! where grows it not?"

[1412]These lines follow in the MS.:Heav'n plants no vain desire in human kind,But what it prompts to seek, directs to find,From whom, so strongly pointing at the end,To hide the means it never could intend.Now since, whatever happiness we call,Subsists not in the good of one, but all,And whosoever would be blessed must bless,Virtue alone can form that happiness.A sentence in Hooker's Eccl. Pol., Book i. Chap. viii. Sect. 7, will explain Pope's idea in the last four lines: "If I cannot but wish to receive all good at every man's hand, how should I look to have any part of my desire satisfied, unless myself be careful to satisfy the like desire in other men?"

[1412]These lines follow in the MS.:

Heav'n plants no vain desire in human kind,But what it prompts to seek, directs to find,From whom, so strongly pointing at the end,To hide the means it never could intend.Now since, whatever happiness we call,Subsists not in the good of one, but all,And whosoever would be blessed must bless,Virtue alone can form that happiness.

A sentence in Hooker's Eccl. Pol., Book i. Chap. viii. Sect. 7, will explain Pope's idea in the last four lines: "If I cannot but wish to receive all good at every man's hand, how should I look to have any part of my desire satisfied, unless myself be careful to satisfy the like desire in other men?"

[1413]"Sincere" in its present use is the opposite of "disingenuous," "deceptive," and has always a moral signification. Formerly it had the sense, which Pope gives it here, of "pure," "unadulterated," without any necessary ethical meaning. Thus Dryden, Palamon and Arcite, Bk. iii.And none can boast sincere felicity.Philemon Holland talks of "sincere vermillion," Arbuthnot of "sincere acid," and Hooker speaks of keeping the Scriptures "entire and sincere."

And none can boast sincere felicity.

Philemon Holland talks of "sincere vermillion," Arbuthnot of "sincere acid," and Hooker speaks of keeping the Scriptures "entire and sincere."

[1414]This was flattery. Bolingbroke was notoriously a prey to factious rancour, and the pangs of disappointed ambition.

[1415]Epicureans.—Pope.

[1416]Stoics.—Pope.Pope's account of the epicureans is the exact opposite of the truth. He says they "placed bliss in action," whereas Seneca tells us, Benef. iv. 4: "Quæ maxima Epicure felicitas videtur, nihil agit." The poet's account of the stoics is equally wrong. Instead of placing "bliss in ease" they inculcated the sternest self-denial, and untiring efforts to fulfil all virtue.

[1416]Stoics.—Pope.

Pope's account of the epicureans is the exact opposite of the truth. He says they "placed bliss in action," whereas Seneca tells us, Benef. iv. 4: "Quæ maxima Epicure felicitas videtur, nihil agit." The poet's account of the stoics is equally wrong. Instead of placing "bliss in ease" they inculcated the sternest self-denial, and untiring efforts to fulfil all virtue.

[1417]Epicureans.—Pope.

[1418]Stoics.—Pope.The true stoic did not, as Pope asserts, "confess virtue vain." He contended that it was all-sufficient. Till the edition of 1743 this couplet was as follows:One grants his pleasure is but rest from pain;One doubts of all; one owns ev'n virtue vain.The two lines which conclude the paragraph, and which first appeared in the edition of 1743, were written at Warburton's suggestion. The object of the addition was to represent the credulous man who trusted everything as equally deceived with the sceptic who trusted in nothing. Of the last line there is a second version:One trusts the senses, and one doubts of all.

[1418]Stoics.—Pope.

The true stoic did not, as Pope asserts, "confess virtue vain." He contended that it was all-sufficient. Till the edition of 1743 this couplet was as follows:

One grants his pleasure is but rest from pain;One doubts of all; one owns ev'n virtue vain.

The two lines which conclude the paragraph, and which first appeared in the edition of 1743, were written at Warburton's suggestion. The object of the addition was to represent the credulous man who trusted everything as equally deceived with the sceptic who trusted in nothing. Of the last line there is a second version:

One trusts the senses, and one doubts of all.

[1419]Sceptics.—Pope.Pyrrho and his followers held that we can only know things as they appear, and not as they are. Thence they maintained that appearances must be absolutely indifferent, and that we could be equally happy in all conditions,—in sickness, for instance, Cicero, Fin. ii. 13, as in health. The one reality which Pyrrho admitted was virtue, and this he said (Cicero, Fin. iv. 16), was the supreme good which he who possessed had nothing left to desire.

[1419]Sceptics.—Pope.

Pyrrho and his followers held that we can only know things as they appear, and not as they are. Thence they maintained that appearances must be absolutely indifferent, and that we could be equally happy in all conditions,—in sickness, for instance, Cicero, Fin. ii. 13, as in health. The one reality which Pyrrho admitted was virtue, and this he said (Cicero, Fin. iv. 16), was the supreme good which he who possessed had nothing left to desire.

[1420]Pope's complaint, that the directions of the ancient moralists amounted to no more than that "happiness is happiness," arose from his ignorance of their tenets. The stoics and sceptics placed the supreme good in unconditional virtue, and the epicureans taught the precise doctrine of Pope himself, that pleasure is the goal, and virtue the road. The admonition, "take nature's path," which Pope would substitute for the teaching of these sects, was the maxim on which they all insisted.

[1421]Pope has here adopted the sentiments of the Grecian sage who said, "That if we live according to nature we shall never be poor, and if we live according to opinion we shall never be rich."—Ruffhead.For opinion creates the fantastic wants of fashion and luxury.

For opinion creates the fantastic wants of fashion and luxury.

[1422]He means that happiness does not "dwell" in any "extreme" of wealth, rank, talent, etc., but that all "states," or classes of men "can reach it."

[1423]MS.:True happiness, 'tis sacred truth I tell,Lies but in thinking, &c.The man who always "thinks right" is infallible in wisdom, and if he always "means well" he must act in obedience to his infallible convictions, when he will also be impeccable. There needs but this, says Pope, to secure happiness. He scoffs at the vague definitions of philosophers, and substitutes the luminous direction that we should be infallible in our views, and impeccable in our conduct.

[1423]MS.:

True happiness, 'tis sacred truth I tell,Lies but in thinking, &c.

The man who always "thinks right" is infallible in wisdom, and if he always "means well" he must act in obedience to his infallible convictions, when he will also be impeccable. There needs but this, says Pope, to secure happiness. He scoffs at the vague definitions of philosophers, and substitutes the luminous direction that we should be infallible in our views, and impeccable in our conduct.

[1424]"The common sense" and "common ease" of which all the world have an equal share, cannot exceed the measure of sense and ease which falls to the lot of the most foolish and suffering of mankind. This is the same sort of equality that there is between the income of a pauper and a millionaire, since both have half-a-crown a week.

[1425]The MS. adds:In no extreme lies real happiness,Not ev'n of good or wisdom in excess."Good" and "wisdom" in the last line might be supposed to mean something that was not true wisdom and goodness if Pope had not argued, ver. 259-268, that real wisdom was injurious to happiness. He would have the "right thinking" alloyed with error, and the "meaning well" with evil.

[1425]The MS. adds:

In no extreme lies real happiness,Not ev'n of good or wisdom in excess.

"Good" and "wisdom" in the last line might be supposed to mean something that was not true wisdom and goodness if Pope had not argued, ver. 259-268, that real wisdom was injurious to happiness. He would have the "right thinking" alloyed with error, and the "meaning well" with evil.

[1426]That is, all which can "justly" or rightly be termed happiness.

[1427]The image is drawn from a person leaning towards another, and listening to what he says. Pope took the expression from the simile of the compasses in Donne's Songs and Sonnets:And though it in the centre sit,Yet when the other far doth roam,It leans, and hearkens after it,And grows erect, as that comes home.

[1427]The image is drawn from a person leaning towards another, and listening to what he says. Pope took the expression from the simile of the compasses in Donne's Songs and Sonnets:

And though it in the centre sit,Yet when the other far doth roam,It leans, and hearkens after it,And grows erect, as that comes home.

[1428]The MS. goes on thus:'Tis not in self it can begin and end,The bliss of one must with another blend:The strongest, noblest pleasures of the mindAll hold of mutual converse with the kind.Can sensual lust, or selfish rapine, knowSuch as from bounty, love, or mercy flow?Of human nature wit its worst may write,We all revere it in our own despite.

[1428]The MS. goes on thus:

'Tis not in self it can begin and end,The bliss of one must with another blend:The strongest, noblest pleasures of the mindAll hold of mutual converse with the kind.Can sensual lust, or selfish rapine, knowSuch as from bounty, love, or mercy flow?Of human nature wit its worst may write,We all revere it in our own despite.

[1429]This couplet follows in the MS.:To rob another's is to lose our own,And the just bound once passed the whole is gone.

[1429]This couplet follows in the MS.:

To rob another's is to lose our own,And the just bound once passed the whole is gone.

[1430]MS.:inference if you make,That such are happier, 'tis a gross mistake.Say not, "Heav'n's here profuse, there poorly saves,And for one monarch makes a thousand slaves;"You'll find when causes and their ends are known,'Twas for the thousand heav'n has made that one.Ev'n mutual want to common blessings tends,One labours, one directs, and one defends,While double pay benevolence receives,Is blessed in what it takes, and what it gives.In what (heav'n's hand impartial to confess)Need men be equal but in happiness.The bliss of all, if heav'n's indulgent aim,He could not place in riches, pow'r or fame.In these suppose it placed, one greatly blessed,Others were hurt, impoverished, or oppressed;Or did they equally on all descend,If all were equal must not all contend?

[1430]MS.:

inference if you make,That such are happier, 'tis a gross mistake.Say not, "Heav'n's here profuse, there poorly saves,And for one monarch makes a thousand slaves;"You'll find when causes and their ends are known,'Twas for the thousand heav'n has made that one.Ev'n mutual want to common blessings tends,One labours, one directs, and one defends,While double pay benevolence receives,Is blessed in what it takes, and what it gives.In what (heav'n's hand impartial to confess)Need men be equal but in happiness.The bliss of all, if heav'n's indulgent aim,He could not place in riches, pow'r or fame.In these suppose it placed, one greatly blessed,Others were hurt, impoverished, or oppressed;Or did they equally on all descend,If all were equal must not all contend?

[1431]After ver. 66 in the MS.Tis peace of mind alone is at a stay:The rest mad fortune gives or takes away:All other bliss by accident's debarred,But virtue's, in the instant, a reward;In hardest trials operates the best,And more is relished as the more distressed.—Warburton.There is still another couplet in the MS.:Virtue's plain consequence is happiness,Or virtue makes the disappointment less.

[1431]After ver. 66 in the MS.

Tis peace of mind alone is at a stay:The rest mad fortune gives or takes away:All other bliss by accident's debarred,But virtue's, in the instant, a reward;In hardest trials operates the best,And more is relished as the more distressed.—Warburton.

There is still another couplet in the MS.:

Virtue's plain consequence is happiness,Or virtue makes the disappointment less.

[1432]The exemplification of this truth, by a view of the equality of happiness in the several particular stations of life, was designed for the subject of a future Epistle.—Pope."Heaven's just balance" is made "equal," says this writer, because men are harassed with fears in proportion to their elevation, and amused with hopes in a state of distress. But a man may be good either in high or low rank; and God does not, to make the happiness of mankind equal, fill the heart of one with idle fears, and of the other with chimerical hopes.—Crousaz.

[1432]The exemplification of this truth, by a view of the equality of happiness in the several particular stations of life, was designed for the subject of a future Epistle.—Pope.

"Heaven's just balance" is made "equal," says this writer, because men are harassed with fears in proportion to their elevation, and amused with hopes in a state of distress. But a man may be good either in high or low rank; and God does not, to make the happiness of mankind equal, fill the heart of one with idle fears, and of the other with chimerical hopes.—Crousaz.

[1433]Sir W. Temple, Works, vol. iii. p. 531: "Whether a good condition with fear of being ill, or an ill with hope of being well, pleases or displeases most." Pope's MS. goes on thus:How widely then at happiness we aimBy selfish pleasures, riches, pow'r or fame!Increase of these is but increase of pain,Wrong the materials, and the labour vain.

[1433]Sir W. Temple, Works, vol. iii. p. 531: "Whether a good condition with fear of being ill, or an ill with hope of being well, pleases or displeases most." Pope's MS. goes on thus:

How widely then at happiness we aimBy selfish pleasures, riches, pow'r or fame!Increase of these is but increase of pain,Wrong the materials, and the labour vain.

[1434]He had in his mind Virgil's description, borrowed from Homer, of the attempt made by the giants, in their war against the gods, to scale the heavens by heaping Ossa upon Pelion, and Olympus upon Ossa. Pope took the expressions "sons of earth," and "mountains piled on mountains," from Dryden's translation, Geor. i. 374.

[1435]"Still" is repeated to give force to the remonstrance. "Attempt still to rise, and Heaven will still survey your vain toil with laughter."

[1436]An allusion to Psalm ii. 1, 4: "Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh."—Wakefield.

[1437]MS.:The gods with laughter on the labour gaze,And bury such in the mad heaps they raise.

[1437]MS.:

The gods with laughter on the labour gaze,And bury such in the mad heaps they raise.

[1438]"Nature" is a name for the second causes, or instruments, by which God works. Pope speaks as if nature's meaning was distinct from the meaning of God.

[1439]By "mere mankind" Pope means man in his present earthly condition, and not the generality of mankind as distinguished from favoured mortals, for he says, ver. 77, that individuals can no more attain to any greater good than mankind at large.

[1440]From Bolingbroke, Fragment 52: "Agreeable sensations, the series whereof constitutes happiness, must arise from health of body, tranquillity of mind, and a competency of wealth."

[1441]The MS. adds,Behold the blessing then to none deniedBut through our vice, by error or by pride;Which nothing but excess can render vain,And then lost only when too much we gain.

[1441]The MS. adds,

Behold the blessing then to none deniedBut through our vice, by error or by pride;Which nothing but excess can render vain,And then lost only when too much we gain.

[1442]The sense of this ill-expressed line is, that bad men taste the gifts of fortune less than good men, in proportion as they obtain them by worse means. The couplet was originally thus in the MS.:The good, the bad may fortune's gifts possess;The bad acquire them worse, enjoy them less.

The good, the bad may fortune's gifts possess;The bad acquire them worse, enjoy them less.

[1443]"That" is put improperly for "those that."

[1444]MS.:Secure to find, ev'n from the very worst,If vice and virtue want, compassion first.

[1444]MS.:

Secure to find, ev'n from the very worst,If vice and virtue want, compassion first.

[1445]But are not the one frequently mistaken for the other? How many profligate hypocrites have passed for good?—Warton.Men not intrinsically virtuous have often had the good opinion of the world; the happiness they want is a good conscience.

[1445]But are not the one frequently mistaken for the other? How many profligate hypocrites have passed for good?—Warton.

Men not intrinsically virtuous have often had the good opinion of the world; the happiness they want is a good conscience.

[1446]After ver. 92 in the MS.:Let sober moralists correct their speech,No bad man's happy: he is great, or rich.—Warburton.

[1446]After ver. 92 in the MS.:

Let sober moralists correct their speech,No bad man's happy: he is great, or rich.—Warburton.

[1447]That is, "who fancy bliss allotted to vice."

[1448]Lord Falkland was killed by a musket ball at the battle of Newbury, Sept. 20, 1643. Turenne was killed by a cannon ball, near Sassback, July 26, 1675. Sir Philip Sidney was mortally wounded by a bullet at Zutphen, Sept. 22, 1586, and died a few days afterwards. Sidney was 32 years of age at his death, Falkland 33, and Turenne 64.

[1449]The Hon. Robert Digby, who died, aged 40, April 19, 1726. Pope wrote his epitaph.

[1450]MS.:Brave Sidney falls amid the martial strife,Not that he's virtuous, but profuse of life.Not virtue snatched Arbuthnot's hopeful bloom,And sent thee, Craggs, untimely to the tomb.Say not 'tis virtue, but too soft a frame,That Walsh his race, and Scud'more ends her name.Think not their virtues, more though heav'n ne'er gave,Unites so many Digbys in a grave.Fierce love, not virtue, Falkland, was thy doom,Her grief, not virtue, nipped Louisa's bloom.The Arbuthnot mentioned here was Charles, a clergyman, and son of the celebrated physician. His death in 1732 was supposed to have been occasioned by the lingering effects of a wound he received in a duel he fought while at Oxford with a fellow-collegian, his rival in love. James Craggs died of the small-pox Feb. 14, 1721, aged 35. Virtue had certainly no share in his death, for he was licentious in private life, and in his public capacity accepted a bribe from the South Sea directors. Walsh died in 1708, at the age of 49. His virtue may be estimated by his confession that he had committed every folly in love, except matrimony. Lady Scudamore, widow of Sir James Scudamore, and daughter of the fourth Lord Digby, died of the small-pox, May 3, 1729, aged 44. She left only a daughter, who married, and hence Pope's expression, "Scud'more ends her name." The many Digbys united in one grave were the children of the fifth Lord, the father of the poet's friend, Robert. I do not know what is meant by the "fierce love" which was Falkland's "doom," nor can I identify the Louisa who died of grief.

[1450]MS.:

Brave Sidney falls amid the martial strife,Not that he's virtuous, but profuse of life.Not virtue snatched Arbuthnot's hopeful bloom,And sent thee, Craggs, untimely to the tomb.Say not 'tis virtue, but too soft a frame,That Walsh his race, and Scud'more ends her name.Think not their virtues, more though heav'n ne'er gave,Unites so many Digbys in a grave.Fierce love, not virtue, Falkland, was thy doom,Her grief, not virtue, nipped Louisa's bloom.

The Arbuthnot mentioned here was Charles, a clergyman, and son of the celebrated physician. His death in 1732 was supposed to have been occasioned by the lingering effects of a wound he received in a duel he fought while at Oxford with a fellow-collegian, his rival in love. James Craggs died of the small-pox Feb. 14, 1721, aged 35. Virtue had certainly no share in his death, for he was licentious in private life, and in his public capacity accepted a bribe from the South Sea directors. Walsh died in 1708, at the age of 49. His virtue may be estimated by his confession that he had committed every folly in love, except matrimony. Lady Scudamore, widow of Sir James Scudamore, and daughter of the fourth Lord Digby, died of the small-pox, May 3, 1729, aged 44. She left only a daughter, who married, and hence Pope's expression, "Scud'more ends her name." The many Digbys united in one grave were the children of the fifth Lord, the father of the poet's friend, Robert. I do not know what is meant by the "fierce love" which was Falkland's "doom," nor can I identify the Louisa who died of grief.

[1451]William, fifth Lord Digby, was 74 when this fourth Epistle was published in 1734, and he lived to be 92. He died December 1752.

[1452]M. de Belsunce, was made bishop of Marseilles in 1709. In the plague of that city in 1720 he distinguished himself by his activity. He died at a very advanced age in 1755.—Warton.

[1453]Some anonymous verses in Dryden's Miscellanies, vi. p. 76:When nature sickens, and with fainting breathStruggles beneath the bitter pangs of death.—Wakefield.

[1453]Some anonymous verses in Dryden's Miscellanies, vi. p. 76:

When nature sickens, and with fainting breathStruggles beneath the bitter pangs of death.—Wakefield.

[1454]Dryden, Virg. x. 1231:O Rhœbus! we have lived too long for me,If life and long were terms that could agree.—Wakefield.

[1454]Dryden, Virg. x. 1231:

O Rhœbus! we have lived too long for me,If life and long were terms that could agree.—Wakefield.

[1455]MS.:Yet hemmed with plagues, and breathing deathful air,Marseilles' good bishop still possess the chair;And long kind chance, or heav'n's more kind decree,Lends an old parent, etc.Pope's mother died June 7, 1733. She was said by the poet to be 93, but was only 91, if the register of her baptism, June 18, 1642, gives the year of her birth, which is doubtless the case, since an elder sister was baptised in 1641, and a younger in 1643.

[1455]MS.:

Yet hemmed with plagues, and breathing deathful air,Marseilles' good bishop still possess the chair;And long kind chance, or heav'n's more kind decree,Lends an old parent, etc.

Pope's mother died June 7, 1733. She was said by the poet to be 93, but was only 91, if the register of her baptism, June 18, 1642, gives the year of her birth, which is doubtless the case, since an elder sister was baptised in 1641, and a younger in 1643.

[1456]How change can admit, or nature let fall any evil, however short and rare it may be, under the government of an all-wise, powerful, and benevolent Creator, is hardly to be understood. These six lines are perhaps the most exceptionable in the whole poem in point both of sentiment and expression.—Warton.Pope's justification of the partial ill which is not a general good is, in substance, that Providence has not supreme dominion over his physical laws, that change and nature act independently of him, and vitiate his work. In place of ver. 113-16 the earlier editions have this couplet:God sends not ill, 'tis nature lets it fall,Or chance escape, and man improves it all.The notion that the disturbing operations of "chance" could explain the existence of evil was intrinsically absurd, and inconsistent with Ep. i., ver. 290, where Pope says that "all chance is direction." Chance is, in strictness, a nonentity, and merely signifies that the cause of an effect is unknown to us, or beyond our control. Neither supposition could apply to the Almighty. Warburton quotes a couplet from the MS., which could not be retained without a glaring contradiction, when Pope had discovered two other evil-doers besides man,—nature and chance:Of every evil, since the world beganThe real source is not in God, but man.

Pope's justification of the partial ill which is not a general good is, in substance, that Providence has not supreme dominion over his physical laws, that change and nature act independently of him, and vitiate his work. In place of ver. 113-16 the earlier editions have this couplet:

God sends not ill, 'tis nature lets it fall,Or chance escape, and man improves it all.

The notion that the disturbing operations of "chance" could explain the existence of evil was intrinsically absurd, and inconsistent with Ep. i., ver. 290, where Pope says that "all chance is direction." Chance is, in strictness, a nonentity, and merely signifies that the cause of an effect is unknown to us, or beyond our control. Neither supposition could apply to the Almighty. Warburton quotes a couplet from the MS., which could not be retained without a glaring contradiction, when Pope had discovered two other evil-doers besides man,—nature and chance:

Of every evil, since the world beganThe real source is not in God, but man.

[1457]This comparison of the favourites of the Almighty to the favourites of a weak prince is fallacious and revolting. Weak princes select their favourites from weak or vicious motives. The favourites of heaven are the righteous.

[1458]Warburton says that Pope alluded to Empedocles. The story ran that he pretended to be a divinity, and threw himself into the crater of Ætna, that nobody might know what had become of him, and might conclude that he had been carried up into heaven. All the circumstances of his death are doubtful, and whether he was a calumniated sage, or a conceited madman, legends are not a proper illustration of God's dealings with mankind. Pope had originally written,T' explore Vesuvius if great Pliny aims,Shall the loud mountain call back all its flames?At the eruption of Vesuvius in 79, Pliny, the naturalist, was commanding the Roman fleet in the Gulf of Naples. He made for the coast in the neighbourhood of the volcano, till checked by the falling stones and ashes, he sailed to Stabiæ, and landed. In a few hours the tottering of the houses, shaken by the earthquake, warned him to fly, and according to his nephew he was overtaken by flames and sulphurous vapours, and suffocated. Stabiæ is ten miles from Vesuvius, and the flame and vapour could hardly have been propelled from the mountain.

T' explore Vesuvius if great Pliny aims,Shall the loud mountain call back all its flames?

At the eruption of Vesuvius in 79, Pliny, the naturalist, was commanding the Roman fleet in the Gulf of Naples. He made for the coast in the neighbourhood of the volcano, till checked by the falling stones and ashes, he sailed to Stabiæ, and landed. In a few hours the tottering of the houses, shaken by the earthquake, warned him to fly, and according to his nephew he was overtaken by flames and sulphurous vapours, and suffocated. Stabiæ is ten miles from Vesuvius, and the flame and vapour could hardly have been propelled from the mountain.

[1459]The forgetfulness to thunder supposes unconscious obliviousness, the recalling the fires conscious activity. The mountain would not at the same moment forget to keep up the irruption, and remember to restrain it.

[1460]Wollaston, Religion of Nature, sect. v. prop. 18: "If a man's safety should depend upon winds or rains, must new motions be impressed upon the atmosphere?"

[1461]Warton tells us in a note on one of Pope's letters to Bethel, that the latter was "celebrated in two fine lines in the Essay on Man on account of an asthma with which he was afflicted." I find in Ruffhead's Life a quotation from a letter of Pope's to Bethel, "then in Italy," and we may conclude that Bethel, being troubled with an asthma, visited Italy for relief, but that in crossing the sea the "motions of the sea and air" disagreed with him, as they do with most people.—Croker.

[1462]"You," is Bolingbroke, to whom the epistle is addressed. A writer in the Adventurer, No. 63, quotes Wollaston, Religion of Nature, sect. v. prop. 18: "If a good man be passing by an infirm building, just in the article of falling, can it be expected that God should suspend the force of gravitation till he is gone by, in order to his deliverance?" The illustrations and language Pope copied from Wollaston are the objections of those who deny a special Providence, and Wollaston only stated the arguments to refute them.

[1463]MS.:Or shall some ruin, as it nods to fall,For Chartres' brains reserve the hanging wall?No,—in a scene far higher heav'n impartsRewards for spotless hands, and honest hearts.The last couplet is a direct acknowledgment of a future state, and was probably omitted to avoid contradicting the infidel tenets of Bolingbroke.

[1463]MS.:

Or shall some ruin, as it nods to fall,For Chartres' brains reserve the hanging wall?No,—in a scene far higher heav'n impartsRewards for spotless hands, and honest hearts.

The last couplet is a direct acknowledgment of a future state, and was probably omitted to avoid contradicting the infidel tenets of Bolingbroke.

[1464]Christians have never raised the objection. They only say that since this world is not a kingdom of the just, reason, as well as revelation, teaches that there must be a kingdom to come.

[1465]Bolingbroke, Fragment 57: "Christian divines complain that good men are often unhappy, and bad men happy. They establish a rule, and are not agreed about the application of it; for who are to be reputed good christians? Go to Rome, they are papists. Go to Geneva, they are calvinists. If particular providences are favourable to those of your communion they will be deemed unjust by every good protestant, and God will be taxed with encouraging idolatry and superstition. If they are favourable to those of any of our communions they will be deemed unjust by every good papist, and God will be taxed with nursing up heresy and schism."

[1466]MS.:This way, I fear, your project too must fall,Will just what serves one good man serve 'em all?

[1466]MS.:

This way, I fear, your project too must fall,Will just what serves one good man serve 'em all?

[1467]After ver. 142 in some editions:Give each a system, all must be at strife;What diff'rent systems for a man and wife?—Warburton.

[1467]After ver. 142 in some editions:

Give each a system, all must be at strife;What diff'rent systems for a man and wife?—Warburton.

[1468]Young, Universal Passion, Sat. iii. 61.The very best ambitiously advise.MS.:The best in habits variously incline.

[1468]Young, Universal Passion, Sat. iii. 61.

The very best ambitiously advise.

MS.:

The best in habits variously incline.

[1469]MS.:E'en leave it as it is; this world, etc.

[1469]MS.:

E'en leave it as it is; this world, etc.

[1470]He alludes to the complaint of Cato in Addison's tragedy, Act iv. Sc. 4:Justice gives way to force: the conquered worldIs Cæsar's; Cato has no business in it.And Act v. Sc. 1:This world was made for Cæsar."If," says Pope, "the world is made for ambitious men, such as Cæsar, it is also made for good men, like Titus." Extreme cases test principles, and to establish his position, that the virtuous in this life have always a larger share of enjoyments than the worldly, Pope should have dealt with some of the numerous instances in which the good have been condemned to tortures in consequence of their goodness.

[1470]He alludes to the complaint of Cato in Addison's tragedy, Act iv. Sc. 4:

Justice gives way to force: the conquered worldIs Cæsar's; Cato has no business in it.

And Act v. Sc. 1:

This world was made for Cæsar.

"If," says Pope, "the world is made for ambitious men, such as Cæsar, it is also made for good men, like Titus." Extreme cases test principles, and to establish his position, that the virtuous in this life have always a larger share of enjoyments than the worldly, Pope should have dealt with some of the numerous instances in which the good have been condemned to tortures in consequence of their goodness.

[1471]Remembering one evening that he had given nothing during the day, Titus exclaimed, "My friends, I have lost a day."

[1472]Unquestionably it must be one of the rewards if Pope is right in maintaining that present happiness is proportioned to virtue. No more cruel mockery could be conceived than to act on his doctrine, and tell a virtuous mother, surrounded by starving children, that she and her little ones were quite as happy as the families who lived in abundance.

[1473]MS.:Can God be just if virtue be unfed?Why, fool, is the reward of virtue bread?'Tis his who labours, his who sows the plain,'Tis his who threshes, or who grinds the grain.

[1473]MS.:

Can God be just if virtue be unfed?Why, fool, is the reward of virtue bread?'Tis his who labours, his who sows the plain,'Tis his who threshes, or who grinds the grain.

[1474]The MS. has two readings:Where madness fights for tyrants or for gain.Where folly fights for kings or drowns for gain.In the early editions Pope adopted the first version; in the later the second, with the change of "dives" for "drowns."

[1474]The MS. has two readings:

Where madness fights for tyrants or for gain.Where folly fights for kings or drowns for gain.

In the early editions Pope adopted the first version; in the later the second, with the change of "dives" for "drowns."

[1475]"Why no king?" is equivalent to "why is he not any king?" The proper form would be "why not a king?"

[1476]MS.:Then give him this, and that, and everything:Still the complaint subsists; he is no king.Outward rewards for inward worth are odd:Why then complain not that he is no god?Ver. 162 in the text is inconsistent with ver. 161. Pope supposes the good to rise in their demands until they rebel against receiving external rewards for internal merits, and insist that man should be a god, and earth a heaven, which heaven is one of the externals they have just indignantly repudiated.

[1476]MS.:

Then give him this, and that, and everything:Still the complaint subsists; he is no king.Outward rewards for inward worth are odd:Why then complain not that he is no god?

Ver. 162 in the text is inconsistent with ver. 161. Pope supposes the good to rise in their demands until they rebel against receiving external rewards for internal merits, and insist that man should be a god, and earth a heaven, which heaven is one of the externals they have just indignantly repudiated.

[1477]Pope is speaking of the good, and what good man ever did "ask and reason" according to Pope's representation?

[1478]In a work of so serious a cast surely such strokes of levity, of satire, of ridicule, as also lines 204, 223, 276, however poignant and witty, are ill-placed and disgusting, are violations of that propriety which Pope in general so strictly observed.—Warton.

[1479]MS.:But come, for virtue the just payment fix,For humble merit say a coach and six,For justice a Lord Chancellor's awful gown, &c.Pope showed his consciousness of the weakness of his cause by raising false issues. Virtue would not be rewarded by swords, gowns, and coaches, but is it rewarded by the cross, the stake, the rack, and the dungeon?

[1479]MS.:

But come, for virtue the just payment fix,For humble merit say a coach and six,For justice a Lord Chancellor's awful gown, &c.

Pope showed his consciousness of the weakness of his cause by raising false issues. Virtue would not be rewarded by swords, gowns, and coaches, but is it rewarded by the cross, the stake, the rack, and the dungeon?

[1480]This sarcasm was directed against George II. When Prince of Wales he quarrelled with his father, and patronised the opposition. On his accession to the throne he abandoned the opposition, to which Pope's friends belonged, and retained the ministers of George I.

[1481]After ver. 172 in the MS.:Say, what rewards this idle world imparts,Or fit for searching heads or honest hearts.—Warburton.

[1481]After ver. 172 in the MS.:

Say, what rewards this idle world imparts,Or fit for searching heads or honest hearts.—Warburton.

[1482]Heaven in this line has either improperly the double sense of a person and a place,—the God of heaven, and the kingdom of the blessed—or else "there" is a clumsy tautological excrescence to furnish a rhyme.

[1483]These eight succeeding lines were not in former editions; and indeed none of them, especially lines 177 and 179, do any credit to the author.—Warton.From Warton's note it would appear that the lines were first printed in his own edition in 1797, whereas they were published in Pope's edition of 1743. The poet had then renounced Bolingbroke for Warburton, and ventured to admit that there was a heaven reserved for man.

[1483]These eight succeeding lines were not in former editions; and indeed none of them, especially lines 177 and 179, do any credit to the author.—Warton.

From Warton's note it would appear that the lines were first printed in his own edition in 1797, whereas they were published in Pope's edition of 1743. The poet had then renounced Bolingbroke for Warburton, and ventured to admit that there was a heaven reserved for man.

[1484]The "boy and man makes an individual" is not grammar.

Back to Index Next