Chapter 40

[1485]Thus till the edition of 1743:For riches, can they give, but to the just,His own contentment, or another's trust?[1486]We see in the world, alas! too many examples of riches giving repute and trust, content and pleasure to the worthless and profligate.—Warton.[1487]Dryden:Let honour and preferment go for gold,But glorious beauty isn't to be sold.The MS. adds:Were health of mind and body purchased here,'Twere worth the cost; all else is bought too dear.[1488]The man, that is, who is the lover of human kind, and the object of their love.[1489]No rational believer in Providence ever did suppose that to have less than a thousand a year was a mark of God's hatred, or ever doubted that the sufferings of good men in this life were consistent with the dispensations of wisdom and mercy. Pope began by undertaking to prove that happiness was independent of externals, and drops into the separate and indubitable proposition that earthly happiness and the blessing of God are not dependent upon the possession of a thousand a year.[1490]This seems not to be proper; the words "flaunt" and "flutter" might with more propriety have changed places.—Johnson.The satirical aggravation here is conducted with great dexterity by an interchange of terms: the gaudy word "flaunt" properly belongs to the sumptuous dress, and that of "flutter" to the tattered garment.—Wakefield.Wakefield did not perceive that the language no longer fitted the facts; for though flimsy rags flutter, the stiff brocade did not. Pope avoided the inconsistency in his first draught:Oft of two brothers one shall be surveyedFlutt'ring in rags, one flaunting in brocade.[1491]This must be understood as if Pope had written, "The cobbler is aproned."[1492]MS.:What differs more, you cry, than gown and hood?A wise man and a fool, a bad and good.The miserable rhyme in the text had the authority of a pun in Shakespeare, 3 Henry VI. Act v. Sc. 6:Why what a peevish fool was that of CreteThat taught his son the office of a fowl?And yet, for all his wings, the fool was drowned.[1493]He alluded to Philip V. of Spain, who resigned his crown to his son, Jan. 10, 1724, and retired to a monastery. The son died in August, and on Sept. 5, 1724, Philip reascended the throne. Weak-minded, hard-hearted, superstitious, and melancholy mad, he was a just instance of a man who owed all his consideration to the trappings of royalty.[1494]That is, the rest is mere outside appearance,—the leather of the cobbler's apron, or the prunella of the clergyman's gown. Prunella was a species of woollen stuff.[1495]Cordonis the French term for the ribbon of the orders of knighthood; but in England the ribbons are never called "strings," nor would Pope have used the term unless he had wanted a rhyme for "kings." The concluding phrase of the couplet was aimed at the supposed influence of the mistresses of George II.[1496]Cowley, Translation of Hor. Epist. i. 10:To kings or to the favourites of kings.—Hurd.[1497]In the MS. thus:The richest blood, right-honourably old,Down from Lucretia to Lucretia rolled,May swell thy heart and gallop in thy breast,Without one dash of usher or of priest:Thy pride as much despise all other prideAs Christ-church once all colleges beside.—Warburton.[1498]A bad rhyme to the preceding word "race." It is taken from Boileau, Sat. v.:Et si leur sang tout pur, ainsi que leur noblesse,Est passé jusqu'à vous de Lucrèce en Lucrèce.—Warton.The bad rhyme did not appear till the edition of 1743. The couplet had previously stood as follows:Thy boasted blood, a thousand years or soMay from Lucretia to Lucretia flow.[1499]Hall, Sat. iii.:Or tedious bead rolls of descended blood,From father Japhet since Deucalion's flood.—Wakefield.[1500]There are two other versions of this couplet in the MS.:But to make wits of fools, and chiefs of cowards,What can? not all the pride of all the Howards.And,But make one wise, or loved, or happy man,Not all the pride of all the Howards can.[1501]Pope took the phrase from Mandeville, Fable of the Bees, vol. i., p. 26: "Who can forbear laughing when he thinks on all the great men that have been so serious on the subject of that Macedonian madman?" Warton protests against the application of the term to Alexander the Great, and adds that Charles XII. of Sweden "deserved not to be joined with him." The objection is well-founded, for Pope not only compared them in their rage for war, but said that neither "looked further than his nose," which was true of Charles XII., and false of Alexander, who mingled grand schemes of civilisation with his selfish lust of dominion.[1502]"To find an enemy of all mankind," signifies to find some one who is an enemy of all mankind, whereas Pope means to say that heroes desire to find all mankind their enemies. He exaggerated the "strangeness" of the conqueror's "purpose." The making enemies is incidental to the purpose, but is not itself the end.[1503]The idea expressed in this line is put more clearly by Johnson in his description of Charles XII:Peace courts his hand, but spreads her charms in vain,"Think nothing gained," he cries, "till nought remain."[1504]There is something so familiar, nay even vulgar, in these two lines as renders them very unworthy of our author.—Ruffhead.[1505]That is, "the politic and wise" are "no less alike" than the heroes, of whom he had said, ver. 219, that they had all the same characteristics.[1506]Shakespeare, Richard II. Act i. Sc. 3: "The sly, slow hours."[1507]"'Tis phrase absurd" is one of those departures from pure English which would only be endurable in familiar poetry.[1508]The pronunciation of "great" was not uniform in Pope's day. "When I published," says Johnson, "the plan for my Dictionary, Lord Chesterfield told me that the word 'great' should be pronounced so as to rhyme to 'state,' and Sir William Yonge sent me word that it should be pronounced so as to rhyme to 'seat,' and that none but an Irishman would pronounce it 'grait.'" Pope, in this epistle, and elsewhere, has made "great" rhyme to both sounds.[1509]Marcus Aurelius, who regulated his life by the lofty principles of the Stoics, was bornA.D.121 and died 180. The man, says Pope, who aims at noble ends by noble means is great, whether he attains his end or fails, whether he reigns like Aurelius or perishes like Socrates.[1510]Considering the manner in which Socrates was put to death, the word "bleed" seems to be improperly used.—Warton.[1511]Wollaston, Religion of Nature, sect. v. prop. 19: "Fame lives but in the breath of the people."[1512]Is depreciating the passion for fame consistent with the doctrine before advanced, Epist. ii. ver. 290, that "not a vanity is giv'n in vain?"—Warton.[1513]This is said to Bolingbroke.[1514]Celebrated men are aware that their reputation spreads wide, and whether fame is valuable or worthless, "all that is felt of it" does not "begin and end in the small circle of friends and foes."[1515]The men of renown,—the Shakespeares, Bacons, and Newtons,—can never be "empty shades" while we have the works which were the fruit of their prodigious intellects. When the wealth of a great mind is preserved to posterity we possess a principal part of the man, and if in the next world he takes no cognisance of his fame in this, it is we that are the empty shades to him; he is a substance and a power to us.[1516]Wakefield says that "but for his political bias Pope would have written, 'A Marlb'rough living.'" But Marlborough died in 1722, and the point of Pope's line consisted in opposing the example of a living man to a dead.[1517]The "wit" is not to be taken here in its narrow modern sense of a jester. Pope is deriding fame in general, and divides famous men into two classes,—"heroes and the wise." The wise, such as Shakespeare, Bacon, and Newton, are compared to feathers, which are flimsy and showy; and the heroes, who are the scourges of mankind, are compared to rods.[1518]"Honest" was formerly used in a less confined sense than at present, but the word has never been adequate to designate "the noblest work of God."[1519]Pope has hitherto spoken of all fame. He now speaks of bad fame, and this was never supposed to be an element of happiness.[1520]He alludes to the disinterment of the bodies of Cromwell, Bradshaw, and Ireton on Jan. 30, 1661, the anniversary of the execution of Charles I. The putrid corpses were hung for the day upon a gibbet at Tyburn, were decapitated at night, and the heads fixed on the front of Westminster Hall. The trunks were buried in a hole dug near the gibbet.[1521]Marcellus was an opponent of Cæsar, and a partisan of Pompey. After the battle of Pharsalia he retired to Mitylene, was pardoned by Cæsar at the request of the senate, and assassinated by an attendant on his way back to Rome. His moral superiority over Cæsar is conjecture. Warton mentions that "by Marcellus Pope was said to mean the Duke of Ormond," a man of small abilities, and a tool of Bolingbroke and Oxford. He fled from England at the death of Queen Anne, joined the court of the Pretender, and being attainted had to pass the rest of his life abroad. He died at Madrid, Nov. 16, 1745, aged 94. One version of the couplet in the MS. has the names of Walpole, and the jacobite member of parliament, Shippen:And more contentment honest Sh[ippen] feelsThan W[alpole] with a senate at his heels.[1522]So Lord Lansdowne of Cato:More loved, more praised, more envied in his doom,Than Cæsar trampling on the rights of Rome.—Wakefield.[1523]"Superior parts" are ranked by Pope among "external goods," which is a palpable error. Nothing can be less external to a man than his mind.[1524]Which does not hinder our advancing with delight from truth to truth, nor are we depressed because, to quote Pope's language, Epist. i. ver. 71, "our knowledge is measured to our state and place."[1525]In the interests of charity, humility, and self-improvement, it were to be wished that this was the universal result of superior intelligence.[1526]Pope objects that wise men are "condemned to drudge," which is not an evil peculiar to the tasks of wise men, and so immensely does the pleasure of mental exercise preponderate over the weariness, that a taste for philosophy, letters, and science is one of the surest preservatives against the tedium of life. He objects that the wise have no one to second or judge them rightly, which never happens. The most neglected genius wins disciples from the beginning, who make up in weight what they want in number, and were the adherents fewer, the capacity which conceives important truths would be self-sustained from the consciousness that truth is mighty and will prevail.[1527]The allusion is to Bolingbroke's patriotic pretensions, and political impotence. The cause of his want of success is reversed by Pope. He was understood well enough, and nobody trusted him in consequence. His selfish, unprincipled ambition was too transparent.[1528]To a person that was praising Dr. Balguy's admirable discourses on the Vanity and Vexation of our Pursuits after Knowledge, he replied, "I borrowed the whole from ten lines of the Essay on Man, ver. 259-268, and I only enlarged upon what the poet had expressed with such marvellous conciseness, penetration, and precision." He particularly admired ver. 266.—Warton.The exclamation "painful pre-eminence," is from Addison's Cato, Act iii. Sc. 5, where Cato applies the phrase to his own situation.[1529]This line is inconsistent with ver. 261-2. A man who feels painfully his own ignorance and faults is not "above life's weakness." The line is also inconsistent with ver. 310. No one can be above life's weakness who is not transcendent in virtue, and then he cannot be above "life's comfort," since Pope says, that "virtue alone is happiness below." The melancholy picture, again, which the passage presents of the species of martyrdom endured by Bolingbroke from his intellectual pre-eminence, is inconsistent with ver. 18, where Pope says that perfect happiness has fled from kings to dwell with St. John.[1530]"Call" for "call forth."[1531]Lord Umbra may have stood for a dozen insignificant peers who had the ribbon of some order. Sir Billy was Sir William Yonge, who was made a Knight of the Bath when the order was revived in May, 1725. "Without having done anything," says Lord Hervey, "out of the common track of a ductile courtier, and a parliamentary tool, his name was proverbially used to express everything pitiful, corrupt, and contemptible." His one talent was a fluency which sounded like eloquence, and meant nothing, and this ready flow of specious language, unaccompanied by solid reasoning or conviction, and always exerted on behalf of his patron, Walpole, rendered his unconditional subserviency conspicuous.[1532]Mr. Croker suggests that Gripus and his wife may be Mr. Wortley Montagu and Lady Mary. Pope accused them both of greed for money.[1533]Oldham:The greatest, bravest, wittiest of mankind.—Bowles.[1534]From Cowley, Translation of Virgil:Charmed with the foolish whistlings of a name.—Hurd.[1535]This resembles some lines in Roscommon's Essay:That wretch, in spite of his forgotten rhymes,Condemned to live to all succeeding times.—Wakefield.Pope's examples would not bear out his language unless Bacon and Cromwell were generally reprobated, whereas both have distinguished champions and innumerable adherents.[1536]MS.:In one man's fortune, mark and scorn them all.The "ancient story" was a pretence which Pope inserted when he turned the invective against the Duke of Marlborough into a general satire upon a class.[1537]Mr. Croker asks "who was happy to ruin and betray?—the favourite or the sovereign?" The language is confused, but "their" in the next line refers to those who "ruin" and "betray," and shows that the favourites were meant. They were happy to ruin those—the kings, to betray these—the queens. The couplet made part of the attack upon the Duke of Marlborough, and the words of ver. 290 were borrowed from Burnet, who said in his defence of the Duke, "that he was in no contrivance to ruin or betray" James II. While, however, he was a trusted officer in the army of James he entered into a secret league with the Prince of Orange, and deserted to him on his landing. The accusation of lying in the arms of a queen, and afterwards betraying her, alludes, says Wakefield, to Marlborough's youthful intrigue with the Duchess of Cleveland, the mistress of Charles II., and we need not reject the interpretation because the mistress of a king is not a queen, or because there is no ground for believing that Marlborough betrayed her. Pope constantly sacrificed accuracy of language to glitter of style, and historic truth to satirical venom.[1538]In the MS. "great * * grows," that is, great Churchill or Marlbro'.—Croker.[1539]MS.:One equal course how guilt and greatness ran.[1540]This couplet and the next have a view to his supposed peculation as commander-in-chief, and his prolongation of the war on this account.—Wakefield.The charges were the calumnies of an infuriated faction. His military career while he was commander-in-chief was free from reproach. He was never known to sanction an act of wanton harshness, or to exceed the recognised usages of war. The pretence that he prolonged the contest for the sake of gain does not require a refutation, for his accusers could never produce a fragment of colourable evidence in support of the allegation. The Duke of Wellington ridiculed the notion, and said that however much Marlborough might have loved money he must have loved his military reputation more. The poet, who denounced him as a man "stained with blood," and "infamous for plundered provinces," could, at ver. 100, call Turenne "god-like," though he gave the atrocious command to pillage and burn the Palatinate, and turned it into a smouldering desert. "Habit," says Sismondi, "had rendered him insensible to the sufferings of the people, and he subjected them to the most cruel inflictions."[1541]MS.:Let gathered nations next their chief behold,How blessed with conquest, yet more blessed with gold:Go then, and steep thy age in wealth and ease,Stretched on the spoils of plundered provinces.[1542]"Acts of fame" are not the best means of "sanctifying" wealth. True charity is unostentatious.[1543]Wakefield quotes Horace, Od. ii. 2, or, as Creech puts it in his translation, silver has no brightness,Unless a moderate use refine,A value give, and make it shine.[1544]Dryden, Virg. Æn. iv. 250:But called it marriage, by that specious nameTo veil the crime, and sanctify the shame.—Wakefield.[1545]Originally, "Ambition, avarice, and th' imperious" etc., for Marlborough was never the dupe of a "greedy minion."[1546]"Storied halls" are halls painted with stories or histories, as in Milton, Il Penseroso, ver. 159:And storied windows richly dightCasting a dim religious light.The walls and ceiling of the saloon at Blenheim are painted with figures and trophies, and some rooms are hung with tapestry commemorating the great sieges and battles of the Duke. The tapestry, which was manufactured in the Netherlands, and was a present from the Dutch, is described by Dyer in The Fleece, Book iii. ver. 499-517.[1547]Addison's Verses on the Play-House:A lofty fabric does the sight invade,And stretches o'er the waves a pompous shade.—Wakefield.[1548]Pope may mean that nothing affords happiness which infringes virtue, and this would contradict the conclusion of the second epistle, where he dwells upon the continuous happiness we derive from follies and vanities. Or he may mean that virtue is by itself complete happiness, whatever else may be our circumstances, which would contradict ver. 119, where he says that the "virtuous son is ill at ease" when he inherits a "dire disease" from his profligate father.[1549]The allusion here seems to be to the pole, or central point, of a spherical body, which, during the rotatory motion of every other part, continues immoveable and at rest.—Wakefield.The "human bliss" does not "stand still," unless we believe that the virtuous man suffers nothing when his virtue subjects him to scorn, persecution, and tortures.[1550]"It" in this couplet and the next stands for virtuous "merit."[1551]Merchant of Venice, Act iv. Sc. 1:it is twice blessed;It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.[1552]Immortality must be the "end" which it will be "unequalled joy to gain," and yet "no pain to lose," since the annihilated will not be conscious of the loss. Lord Byron expressed the same idea in a letter, Dec 8, 1821: "Indisputably, the believers in the gospel have a advantage over all others,—for this simple reason, that, if true, they will have their reward hereafter, and if there be no hereafter, they can be but with the infidel in his eternal sleep, having had the assistance of an exalted hope through life." Pope and Byron leave out of their reckoning the sufferings to which christians are constantly exposed through their homage to christianity.[1553]After ver. 316 in the MS.:Ev'n while it seems unequal to dispose,And chequers all the good man's joys with woes,'Tis but to teach him to support each state,With patience this, with moderation that;And raise his base on that one solid joy,Which conscience gives, and nothing can destroy.—Warburton.The sense in the first line is not completed. Virtue "seems unequal to dispose" something, but we are not told what.[1554]This is the Greek expression, πλατυς γελως, broad or wide laughter, derived, I presume, from the greater aperture of the mouth in loud laughter.—Wakefield.[1555]MS.:More pleasing, then, humanity's soft tearsThan all the mirth unfeeling folly wears.There are numerous grades of character between "unfeeling folly" and christian excellence, and many gratifications of the earthly-minded are assuredly more pleasant for the time than the sharp and ennobling pangs of suffering virtue.[1556]MS.:Which not by starts, and from without acquired,Is all ways exercised, and never tired.[1557]Is it so impossible that a "wish" should "remain" when Pope has just said that virtue is "never elated while one oppressed man" exists? Or has virtue in tears, ver. 320, no wish for that happiness which Pope says, ver. 1, is "our being's end and aim?" Or is the "wish" for "more virtue" fulfilled by the act of wishing, without frequent failure, and perpetual conflict, and prolonged self-denial?[1558]"The good" is singular, and stands for "the good man," as is required by the verbs "takes," "looks," "pursues," etc., up to the end of the paragraph.[1559]Creech's Horace, Epist. i. 1, ver. 23:But if you ask me now what sect I own,I swear a blind obedience unto none.—Wakefield.[1560]Bolingbroke's Letters to Pope: "The modest enquirer follows nature, and nature's God."—Wakefield.[1561]MS.:Let us, my S[t. John], this plain truth confess,Good nature makes, and keeps our happiness;And faith and morals end as they began,All in the love of God, and love of man.In his second epistle Pope maintains that we are born with the germ of an unalterable ruling passion which grows with our growth, and swallows up every other passion. Among these ruling passions he specifies spleen, hate, fear, anger, etc., which are dispensed by fate, absorb the entire man, and of necessity exclude love. Here, on the contrary, we are told, ver. 327-340, that "the sole bliss heaven could onallbestow," is the virtue which "ends in love of God and love of man."[1562]He hopes, indeed, for another life, but he does not from hence infer the absolute necessity of it, in order to vindicate the justice and goodness of God.—Warton.[1563]The "other kind" is the animal creation, which, says Pope, has not been given any abortive instinct. Nature, which furnishes the impulse, never fails to provide appropriate objects for its gratification.[1564]The meaning of this couplet comes out clearer in the prose explanation which Pope has written on his MS.: "God implants a desire of immortality, which at least proves he would have us think of, and expect it, and he gives no appetite in vain to any creature. As God plainly gave this hope, or instinct, it is plain man should entertain it. Hence flows his greatest hope, and greatest incentive to virtue."[1565]"His greatest virtue" is benevolence; "his greatest bliss" the hope of a happy eternity. Nature connects the two, for the bliss depends on the virtue.[1566]Pope exalts the duty of "benevolence," which, ver. 371, causes "earth to smile with boundless bounty blessed." But bounty cannot benefit the recipients, if the poet is right in maintaining that happiness is independent of externals.[1567]Warton remarks that this simile, which is copied from Chaucer, was used by Pope in two other places,—The Temple of Fame, ver. 436, and the Dunciad, ii. ver. 407.[1568]Waller, Divine Love, Canto v.:A love so unconfinedWith arms extended would embrace mankind.Self-love would cease, or be dilated, whenWe should behold as many selfs as men.—Wakefield.[1569]MS.:To rise from individuals to the wholeIs the true progress of the god-like soul.The first impression the soft passions make,Like the small pebble in the limpid lake,Begets a greater and a greater still,The circle widening till the whole it fill;Till God and man, and brute and reptile kindAll wake, all move, all agitate his mind;Earth with his bounteous overflows is blessed;Heav'n pleased beholds its image in his breast.Parent or friend first touch the virtuous mind,His country next, and next all human kind.[1570]In the MS. thus:And now transported o'er so vast a plain,While the winged courser flies with all her rein,While heav'n-ward now her mounting wing she feels,Now scattered fools fly trembling from her heels,Wilt thou, my St. John! keep her course in sight,Confine her fury, and assist her flight?—Warburton.The exaggerated estimate which Pope had formed of the Essay on Man is apparent from this passage. With respect to the poetry, "the winged courser flew with all her rein;" with respect to the argument, "scattered fools flew trembling" from its crushing power.[1571]"Stoops to man's low passions or ascends to the glorious ends" for which those passions have been given.[1572]"Did he rise with temper," asks the writer of A Letter to Mr. Pope, 1735, "when he drove furiously out of the kingdom the Duke of Marlborough? or did he fall with dignity when he fled from justice, and joined the Pretender?" Lord Hervey asserts, and many circumstances confirm his testimony, that Bolingbroke "was elate and insolent in power, dejected and servile in disgrace."

[1485]Thus till the edition of 1743:For riches, can they give, but to the just,His own contentment, or another's trust?

[1485]Thus till the edition of 1743:

For riches, can they give, but to the just,His own contentment, or another's trust?

[1486]We see in the world, alas! too many examples of riches giving repute and trust, content and pleasure to the worthless and profligate.—Warton.

[1487]Dryden:Let honour and preferment go for gold,But glorious beauty isn't to be sold.The MS. adds:Were health of mind and body purchased here,'Twere worth the cost; all else is bought too dear.

[1487]Dryden:

Let honour and preferment go for gold,But glorious beauty isn't to be sold.

The MS. adds:

Were health of mind and body purchased here,'Twere worth the cost; all else is bought too dear.

[1488]The man, that is, who is the lover of human kind, and the object of their love.

[1489]No rational believer in Providence ever did suppose that to have less than a thousand a year was a mark of God's hatred, or ever doubted that the sufferings of good men in this life were consistent with the dispensations of wisdom and mercy. Pope began by undertaking to prove that happiness was independent of externals, and drops into the separate and indubitable proposition that earthly happiness and the blessing of God are not dependent upon the possession of a thousand a year.

[1490]This seems not to be proper; the words "flaunt" and "flutter" might with more propriety have changed places.—Johnson.The satirical aggravation here is conducted with great dexterity by an interchange of terms: the gaudy word "flaunt" properly belongs to the sumptuous dress, and that of "flutter" to the tattered garment.—Wakefield.Wakefield did not perceive that the language no longer fitted the facts; for though flimsy rags flutter, the stiff brocade did not. Pope avoided the inconsistency in his first draught:Oft of two brothers one shall be surveyedFlutt'ring in rags, one flaunting in brocade.

[1490]This seems not to be proper; the words "flaunt" and "flutter" might with more propriety have changed places.—Johnson.

The satirical aggravation here is conducted with great dexterity by an interchange of terms: the gaudy word "flaunt" properly belongs to the sumptuous dress, and that of "flutter" to the tattered garment.—Wakefield.

Wakefield did not perceive that the language no longer fitted the facts; for though flimsy rags flutter, the stiff brocade did not. Pope avoided the inconsistency in his first draught:

Oft of two brothers one shall be surveyedFlutt'ring in rags, one flaunting in brocade.

[1491]This must be understood as if Pope had written, "The cobbler is aproned."

[1492]MS.:What differs more, you cry, than gown and hood?A wise man and a fool, a bad and good.The miserable rhyme in the text had the authority of a pun in Shakespeare, 3 Henry VI. Act v. Sc. 6:Why what a peevish fool was that of CreteThat taught his son the office of a fowl?And yet, for all his wings, the fool was drowned.

[1492]MS.:

What differs more, you cry, than gown and hood?A wise man and a fool, a bad and good.

The miserable rhyme in the text had the authority of a pun in Shakespeare, 3 Henry VI. Act v. Sc. 6:

Why what a peevish fool was that of CreteThat taught his son the office of a fowl?And yet, for all his wings, the fool was drowned.

[1493]He alluded to Philip V. of Spain, who resigned his crown to his son, Jan. 10, 1724, and retired to a monastery. The son died in August, and on Sept. 5, 1724, Philip reascended the throne. Weak-minded, hard-hearted, superstitious, and melancholy mad, he was a just instance of a man who owed all his consideration to the trappings of royalty.

[1494]That is, the rest is mere outside appearance,—the leather of the cobbler's apron, or the prunella of the clergyman's gown. Prunella was a species of woollen stuff.

[1495]Cordonis the French term for the ribbon of the orders of knighthood; but in England the ribbons are never called "strings," nor would Pope have used the term unless he had wanted a rhyme for "kings." The concluding phrase of the couplet was aimed at the supposed influence of the mistresses of George II.

[1496]Cowley, Translation of Hor. Epist. i. 10:To kings or to the favourites of kings.—Hurd.

[1496]Cowley, Translation of Hor. Epist. i. 10:

To kings or to the favourites of kings.—Hurd.

[1497]In the MS. thus:The richest blood, right-honourably old,Down from Lucretia to Lucretia rolled,May swell thy heart and gallop in thy breast,Without one dash of usher or of priest:Thy pride as much despise all other prideAs Christ-church once all colleges beside.—Warburton.

[1497]In the MS. thus:

The richest blood, right-honourably old,Down from Lucretia to Lucretia rolled,May swell thy heart and gallop in thy breast,Without one dash of usher or of priest:Thy pride as much despise all other prideAs Christ-church once all colleges beside.—Warburton.

[1498]A bad rhyme to the preceding word "race." It is taken from Boileau, Sat. v.:Et si leur sang tout pur, ainsi que leur noblesse,Est passé jusqu'à vous de Lucrèce en Lucrèce.—Warton.The bad rhyme did not appear till the edition of 1743. The couplet had previously stood as follows:Thy boasted blood, a thousand years or soMay from Lucretia to Lucretia flow.

[1498]A bad rhyme to the preceding word "race." It is taken from Boileau, Sat. v.:

Et si leur sang tout pur, ainsi que leur noblesse,Est passé jusqu'à vous de Lucrèce en Lucrèce.—Warton.

The bad rhyme did not appear till the edition of 1743. The couplet had previously stood as follows:

Thy boasted blood, a thousand years or soMay from Lucretia to Lucretia flow.

[1499]Hall, Sat. iii.:Or tedious bead rolls of descended blood,From father Japhet since Deucalion's flood.—Wakefield.

[1499]Hall, Sat. iii.:

Or tedious bead rolls of descended blood,From father Japhet since Deucalion's flood.—Wakefield.

[1500]There are two other versions of this couplet in the MS.:But to make wits of fools, and chiefs of cowards,What can? not all the pride of all the Howards.And,But make one wise, or loved, or happy man,Not all the pride of all the Howards can.

[1500]There are two other versions of this couplet in the MS.:

But to make wits of fools, and chiefs of cowards,What can? not all the pride of all the Howards.

And,

But make one wise, or loved, or happy man,Not all the pride of all the Howards can.

[1501]Pope took the phrase from Mandeville, Fable of the Bees, vol. i., p. 26: "Who can forbear laughing when he thinks on all the great men that have been so serious on the subject of that Macedonian madman?" Warton protests against the application of the term to Alexander the Great, and adds that Charles XII. of Sweden "deserved not to be joined with him." The objection is well-founded, for Pope not only compared them in their rage for war, but said that neither "looked further than his nose," which was true of Charles XII., and false of Alexander, who mingled grand schemes of civilisation with his selfish lust of dominion.

[1502]"To find an enemy of all mankind," signifies to find some one who is an enemy of all mankind, whereas Pope means to say that heroes desire to find all mankind their enemies. He exaggerated the "strangeness" of the conqueror's "purpose." The making enemies is incidental to the purpose, but is not itself the end.

[1503]The idea expressed in this line is put more clearly by Johnson in his description of Charles XII:Peace courts his hand, but spreads her charms in vain,"Think nothing gained," he cries, "till nought remain."

[1503]The idea expressed in this line is put more clearly by Johnson in his description of Charles XII:

Peace courts his hand, but spreads her charms in vain,"Think nothing gained," he cries, "till nought remain."

[1504]There is something so familiar, nay even vulgar, in these two lines as renders them very unworthy of our author.—Ruffhead.

[1505]That is, "the politic and wise" are "no less alike" than the heroes, of whom he had said, ver. 219, that they had all the same characteristics.

[1506]Shakespeare, Richard II. Act i. Sc. 3: "The sly, slow hours."

[1507]"'Tis phrase absurd" is one of those departures from pure English which would only be endurable in familiar poetry.

[1508]The pronunciation of "great" was not uniform in Pope's day. "When I published," says Johnson, "the plan for my Dictionary, Lord Chesterfield told me that the word 'great' should be pronounced so as to rhyme to 'state,' and Sir William Yonge sent me word that it should be pronounced so as to rhyme to 'seat,' and that none but an Irishman would pronounce it 'grait.'" Pope, in this epistle, and elsewhere, has made "great" rhyme to both sounds.

[1509]Marcus Aurelius, who regulated his life by the lofty principles of the Stoics, was bornA.D.121 and died 180. The man, says Pope, who aims at noble ends by noble means is great, whether he attains his end or fails, whether he reigns like Aurelius or perishes like Socrates.

[1510]Considering the manner in which Socrates was put to death, the word "bleed" seems to be improperly used.—Warton.

[1511]Wollaston, Religion of Nature, sect. v. prop. 19: "Fame lives but in the breath of the people."

[1512]Is depreciating the passion for fame consistent with the doctrine before advanced, Epist. ii. ver. 290, that "not a vanity is giv'n in vain?"—Warton.

[1513]This is said to Bolingbroke.

[1514]Celebrated men are aware that their reputation spreads wide, and whether fame is valuable or worthless, "all that is felt of it" does not "begin and end in the small circle of friends and foes."

[1515]The men of renown,—the Shakespeares, Bacons, and Newtons,—can never be "empty shades" while we have the works which were the fruit of their prodigious intellects. When the wealth of a great mind is preserved to posterity we possess a principal part of the man, and if in the next world he takes no cognisance of his fame in this, it is we that are the empty shades to him; he is a substance and a power to us.

[1516]Wakefield says that "but for his political bias Pope would have written, 'A Marlb'rough living.'" But Marlborough died in 1722, and the point of Pope's line consisted in opposing the example of a living man to a dead.

[1517]The "wit" is not to be taken here in its narrow modern sense of a jester. Pope is deriding fame in general, and divides famous men into two classes,—"heroes and the wise." The wise, such as Shakespeare, Bacon, and Newton, are compared to feathers, which are flimsy and showy; and the heroes, who are the scourges of mankind, are compared to rods.

[1518]"Honest" was formerly used in a less confined sense than at present, but the word has never been adequate to designate "the noblest work of God."

[1519]Pope has hitherto spoken of all fame. He now speaks of bad fame, and this was never supposed to be an element of happiness.

[1520]He alludes to the disinterment of the bodies of Cromwell, Bradshaw, and Ireton on Jan. 30, 1661, the anniversary of the execution of Charles I. The putrid corpses were hung for the day upon a gibbet at Tyburn, were decapitated at night, and the heads fixed on the front of Westminster Hall. The trunks were buried in a hole dug near the gibbet.

[1521]Marcellus was an opponent of Cæsar, and a partisan of Pompey. After the battle of Pharsalia he retired to Mitylene, was pardoned by Cæsar at the request of the senate, and assassinated by an attendant on his way back to Rome. His moral superiority over Cæsar is conjecture. Warton mentions that "by Marcellus Pope was said to mean the Duke of Ormond," a man of small abilities, and a tool of Bolingbroke and Oxford. He fled from England at the death of Queen Anne, joined the court of the Pretender, and being attainted had to pass the rest of his life abroad. He died at Madrid, Nov. 16, 1745, aged 94. One version of the couplet in the MS. has the names of Walpole, and the jacobite member of parliament, Shippen:And more contentment honest Sh[ippen] feelsThan W[alpole] with a senate at his heels.

And more contentment honest Sh[ippen] feelsThan W[alpole] with a senate at his heels.

[1522]So Lord Lansdowne of Cato:More loved, more praised, more envied in his doom,Than Cæsar trampling on the rights of Rome.—Wakefield.

[1522]So Lord Lansdowne of Cato:

More loved, more praised, more envied in his doom,Than Cæsar trampling on the rights of Rome.—Wakefield.

[1523]"Superior parts" are ranked by Pope among "external goods," which is a palpable error. Nothing can be less external to a man than his mind.

[1524]Which does not hinder our advancing with delight from truth to truth, nor are we depressed because, to quote Pope's language, Epist. i. ver. 71, "our knowledge is measured to our state and place."

[1525]In the interests of charity, humility, and self-improvement, it were to be wished that this was the universal result of superior intelligence.

[1526]Pope objects that wise men are "condemned to drudge," which is not an evil peculiar to the tasks of wise men, and so immensely does the pleasure of mental exercise preponderate over the weariness, that a taste for philosophy, letters, and science is one of the surest preservatives against the tedium of life. He objects that the wise have no one to second or judge them rightly, which never happens. The most neglected genius wins disciples from the beginning, who make up in weight what they want in number, and were the adherents fewer, the capacity which conceives important truths would be self-sustained from the consciousness that truth is mighty and will prevail.

[1527]The allusion is to Bolingbroke's patriotic pretensions, and political impotence. The cause of his want of success is reversed by Pope. He was understood well enough, and nobody trusted him in consequence. His selfish, unprincipled ambition was too transparent.

[1528]To a person that was praising Dr. Balguy's admirable discourses on the Vanity and Vexation of our Pursuits after Knowledge, he replied, "I borrowed the whole from ten lines of the Essay on Man, ver. 259-268, and I only enlarged upon what the poet had expressed with such marvellous conciseness, penetration, and precision." He particularly admired ver. 266.—Warton.The exclamation "painful pre-eminence," is from Addison's Cato, Act iii. Sc. 5, where Cato applies the phrase to his own situation.

The exclamation "painful pre-eminence," is from Addison's Cato, Act iii. Sc. 5, where Cato applies the phrase to his own situation.

[1529]This line is inconsistent with ver. 261-2. A man who feels painfully his own ignorance and faults is not "above life's weakness." The line is also inconsistent with ver. 310. No one can be above life's weakness who is not transcendent in virtue, and then he cannot be above "life's comfort," since Pope says, that "virtue alone is happiness below." The melancholy picture, again, which the passage presents of the species of martyrdom endured by Bolingbroke from his intellectual pre-eminence, is inconsistent with ver. 18, where Pope says that perfect happiness has fled from kings to dwell with St. John.

[1530]"Call" for "call forth."

[1531]Lord Umbra may have stood for a dozen insignificant peers who had the ribbon of some order. Sir Billy was Sir William Yonge, who was made a Knight of the Bath when the order was revived in May, 1725. "Without having done anything," says Lord Hervey, "out of the common track of a ductile courtier, and a parliamentary tool, his name was proverbially used to express everything pitiful, corrupt, and contemptible." His one talent was a fluency which sounded like eloquence, and meant nothing, and this ready flow of specious language, unaccompanied by solid reasoning or conviction, and always exerted on behalf of his patron, Walpole, rendered his unconditional subserviency conspicuous.

[1532]Mr. Croker suggests that Gripus and his wife may be Mr. Wortley Montagu and Lady Mary. Pope accused them both of greed for money.

[1533]Oldham:The greatest, bravest, wittiest of mankind.—Bowles.

[1533]Oldham:

The greatest, bravest, wittiest of mankind.—Bowles.

[1534]From Cowley, Translation of Virgil:Charmed with the foolish whistlings of a name.—Hurd.

[1534]From Cowley, Translation of Virgil:

Charmed with the foolish whistlings of a name.—Hurd.

[1535]This resembles some lines in Roscommon's Essay:That wretch, in spite of his forgotten rhymes,Condemned to live to all succeeding times.—Wakefield.Pope's examples would not bear out his language unless Bacon and Cromwell were generally reprobated, whereas both have distinguished champions and innumerable adherents.

[1535]This resembles some lines in Roscommon's Essay:

That wretch, in spite of his forgotten rhymes,Condemned to live to all succeeding times.—Wakefield.

Pope's examples would not bear out his language unless Bacon and Cromwell were generally reprobated, whereas both have distinguished champions and innumerable adherents.

[1536]MS.:In one man's fortune, mark and scorn them all.The "ancient story" was a pretence which Pope inserted when he turned the invective against the Duke of Marlborough into a general satire upon a class.

[1536]MS.:

In one man's fortune, mark and scorn them all.

The "ancient story" was a pretence which Pope inserted when he turned the invective against the Duke of Marlborough into a general satire upon a class.

[1537]Mr. Croker asks "who was happy to ruin and betray?—the favourite or the sovereign?" The language is confused, but "their" in the next line refers to those who "ruin" and "betray," and shows that the favourites were meant. They were happy to ruin those—the kings, to betray these—the queens. The couplet made part of the attack upon the Duke of Marlborough, and the words of ver. 290 were borrowed from Burnet, who said in his defence of the Duke, "that he was in no contrivance to ruin or betray" James II. While, however, he was a trusted officer in the army of James he entered into a secret league with the Prince of Orange, and deserted to him on his landing. The accusation of lying in the arms of a queen, and afterwards betraying her, alludes, says Wakefield, to Marlborough's youthful intrigue with the Duchess of Cleveland, the mistress of Charles II., and we need not reject the interpretation because the mistress of a king is not a queen, or because there is no ground for believing that Marlborough betrayed her. Pope constantly sacrificed accuracy of language to glitter of style, and historic truth to satirical venom.

[1538]In the MS. "great * * grows," that is, great Churchill or Marlbro'.—Croker.

[1539]MS.:One equal course how guilt and greatness ran.

[1539]MS.:

One equal course how guilt and greatness ran.

[1540]This couplet and the next have a view to his supposed peculation as commander-in-chief, and his prolongation of the war on this account.—Wakefield.The charges were the calumnies of an infuriated faction. His military career while he was commander-in-chief was free from reproach. He was never known to sanction an act of wanton harshness, or to exceed the recognised usages of war. The pretence that he prolonged the contest for the sake of gain does not require a refutation, for his accusers could never produce a fragment of colourable evidence in support of the allegation. The Duke of Wellington ridiculed the notion, and said that however much Marlborough might have loved money he must have loved his military reputation more. The poet, who denounced him as a man "stained with blood," and "infamous for plundered provinces," could, at ver. 100, call Turenne "god-like," though he gave the atrocious command to pillage and burn the Palatinate, and turned it into a smouldering desert. "Habit," says Sismondi, "had rendered him insensible to the sufferings of the people, and he subjected them to the most cruel inflictions."

[1540]This couplet and the next have a view to his supposed peculation as commander-in-chief, and his prolongation of the war on this account.—Wakefield.

The charges were the calumnies of an infuriated faction. His military career while he was commander-in-chief was free from reproach. He was never known to sanction an act of wanton harshness, or to exceed the recognised usages of war. The pretence that he prolonged the contest for the sake of gain does not require a refutation, for his accusers could never produce a fragment of colourable evidence in support of the allegation. The Duke of Wellington ridiculed the notion, and said that however much Marlborough might have loved money he must have loved his military reputation more. The poet, who denounced him as a man "stained with blood," and "infamous for plundered provinces," could, at ver. 100, call Turenne "god-like," though he gave the atrocious command to pillage and burn the Palatinate, and turned it into a smouldering desert. "Habit," says Sismondi, "had rendered him insensible to the sufferings of the people, and he subjected them to the most cruel inflictions."

[1541]MS.:Let gathered nations next their chief behold,How blessed with conquest, yet more blessed with gold:Go then, and steep thy age in wealth and ease,Stretched on the spoils of plundered provinces.

[1541]MS.:

Let gathered nations next their chief behold,How blessed with conquest, yet more blessed with gold:Go then, and steep thy age in wealth and ease,Stretched on the spoils of plundered provinces.

[1542]"Acts of fame" are not the best means of "sanctifying" wealth. True charity is unostentatious.

[1543]Wakefield quotes Horace, Od. ii. 2, or, as Creech puts it in his translation, silver has no brightness,Unless a moderate use refine,A value give, and make it shine.

[1543]Wakefield quotes Horace, Od. ii. 2, or, as Creech puts it in his translation, silver has no brightness,

Unless a moderate use refine,A value give, and make it shine.

[1544]Dryden, Virg. Æn. iv. 250:But called it marriage, by that specious nameTo veil the crime, and sanctify the shame.—Wakefield.

[1544]Dryden, Virg. Æn. iv. 250:

But called it marriage, by that specious nameTo veil the crime, and sanctify the shame.—Wakefield.

[1545]Originally, "Ambition, avarice, and th' imperious" etc., for Marlborough was never the dupe of a "greedy minion."

[1546]"Storied halls" are halls painted with stories or histories, as in Milton, Il Penseroso, ver. 159:And storied windows richly dightCasting a dim religious light.The walls and ceiling of the saloon at Blenheim are painted with figures and trophies, and some rooms are hung with tapestry commemorating the great sieges and battles of the Duke. The tapestry, which was manufactured in the Netherlands, and was a present from the Dutch, is described by Dyer in The Fleece, Book iii. ver. 499-517.

[1546]"Storied halls" are halls painted with stories or histories, as in Milton, Il Penseroso, ver. 159:

And storied windows richly dightCasting a dim religious light.

The walls and ceiling of the saloon at Blenheim are painted with figures and trophies, and some rooms are hung with tapestry commemorating the great sieges and battles of the Duke. The tapestry, which was manufactured in the Netherlands, and was a present from the Dutch, is described by Dyer in The Fleece, Book iii. ver. 499-517.

[1547]Addison's Verses on the Play-House:A lofty fabric does the sight invade,And stretches o'er the waves a pompous shade.—Wakefield.

[1547]Addison's Verses on the Play-House:

A lofty fabric does the sight invade,And stretches o'er the waves a pompous shade.—Wakefield.

[1548]Pope may mean that nothing affords happiness which infringes virtue, and this would contradict the conclusion of the second epistle, where he dwells upon the continuous happiness we derive from follies and vanities. Or he may mean that virtue is by itself complete happiness, whatever else may be our circumstances, which would contradict ver. 119, where he says that the "virtuous son is ill at ease" when he inherits a "dire disease" from his profligate father.

[1549]The allusion here seems to be to the pole, or central point, of a spherical body, which, during the rotatory motion of every other part, continues immoveable and at rest.—Wakefield.The "human bliss" does not "stand still," unless we believe that the virtuous man suffers nothing when his virtue subjects him to scorn, persecution, and tortures.

[1549]The allusion here seems to be to the pole, or central point, of a spherical body, which, during the rotatory motion of every other part, continues immoveable and at rest.—Wakefield.

The "human bliss" does not "stand still," unless we believe that the virtuous man suffers nothing when his virtue subjects him to scorn, persecution, and tortures.

[1550]"It" in this couplet and the next stands for virtuous "merit."

[1551]Merchant of Venice, Act iv. Sc. 1:it is twice blessed;It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.

[1551]Merchant of Venice, Act iv. Sc. 1:

it is twice blessed;It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.

[1552]Immortality must be the "end" which it will be "unequalled joy to gain," and yet "no pain to lose," since the annihilated will not be conscious of the loss. Lord Byron expressed the same idea in a letter, Dec 8, 1821: "Indisputably, the believers in the gospel have a advantage over all others,—for this simple reason, that, if true, they will have their reward hereafter, and if there be no hereafter, they can be but with the infidel in his eternal sleep, having had the assistance of an exalted hope through life." Pope and Byron leave out of their reckoning the sufferings to which christians are constantly exposed through their homage to christianity.

[1553]After ver. 316 in the MS.:Ev'n while it seems unequal to dispose,And chequers all the good man's joys with woes,'Tis but to teach him to support each state,With patience this, with moderation that;And raise his base on that one solid joy,Which conscience gives, and nothing can destroy.—Warburton.The sense in the first line is not completed. Virtue "seems unequal to dispose" something, but we are not told what.

[1553]After ver. 316 in the MS.:

Ev'n while it seems unequal to dispose,And chequers all the good man's joys with woes,'Tis but to teach him to support each state,With patience this, with moderation that;And raise his base on that one solid joy,Which conscience gives, and nothing can destroy.—Warburton.

The sense in the first line is not completed. Virtue "seems unequal to dispose" something, but we are not told what.

[1554]This is the Greek expression, πλατυς γελως, broad or wide laughter, derived, I presume, from the greater aperture of the mouth in loud laughter.—Wakefield.

[1555]MS.:More pleasing, then, humanity's soft tearsThan all the mirth unfeeling folly wears.There are numerous grades of character between "unfeeling folly" and christian excellence, and many gratifications of the earthly-minded are assuredly more pleasant for the time than the sharp and ennobling pangs of suffering virtue.

[1555]MS.:

More pleasing, then, humanity's soft tearsThan all the mirth unfeeling folly wears.

There are numerous grades of character between "unfeeling folly" and christian excellence, and many gratifications of the earthly-minded are assuredly more pleasant for the time than the sharp and ennobling pangs of suffering virtue.

[1556]MS.:Which not by starts, and from without acquired,Is all ways exercised, and never tired.

[1556]MS.:

Which not by starts, and from without acquired,Is all ways exercised, and never tired.

[1557]Is it so impossible that a "wish" should "remain" when Pope has just said that virtue is "never elated while one oppressed man" exists? Or has virtue in tears, ver. 320, no wish for that happiness which Pope says, ver. 1, is "our being's end and aim?" Or is the "wish" for "more virtue" fulfilled by the act of wishing, without frequent failure, and perpetual conflict, and prolonged self-denial?

[1558]"The good" is singular, and stands for "the good man," as is required by the verbs "takes," "looks," "pursues," etc., up to the end of the paragraph.

[1559]Creech's Horace, Epist. i. 1, ver. 23:But if you ask me now what sect I own,I swear a blind obedience unto none.—Wakefield.

[1559]Creech's Horace, Epist. i. 1, ver. 23:

But if you ask me now what sect I own,I swear a blind obedience unto none.—Wakefield.

[1560]Bolingbroke's Letters to Pope: "The modest enquirer follows nature, and nature's God."—Wakefield.

[1561]MS.:Let us, my S[t. John], this plain truth confess,Good nature makes, and keeps our happiness;And faith and morals end as they began,All in the love of God, and love of man.In his second epistle Pope maintains that we are born with the germ of an unalterable ruling passion which grows with our growth, and swallows up every other passion. Among these ruling passions he specifies spleen, hate, fear, anger, etc., which are dispensed by fate, absorb the entire man, and of necessity exclude love. Here, on the contrary, we are told, ver. 327-340, that "the sole bliss heaven could onallbestow," is the virtue which "ends in love of God and love of man."

[1561]MS.:

Let us, my S[t. John], this plain truth confess,Good nature makes, and keeps our happiness;And faith and morals end as they began,All in the love of God, and love of man.

In his second epistle Pope maintains that we are born with the germ of an unalterable ruling passion which grows with our growth, and swallows up every other passion. Among these ruling passions he specifies spleen, hate, fear, anger, etc., which are dispensed by fate, absorb the entire man, and of necessity exclude love. Here, on the contrary, we are told, ver. 327-340, that "the sole bliss heaven could onallbestow," is the virtue which "ends in love of God and love of man."

[1562]He hopes, indeed, for another life, but he does not from hence infer the absolute necessity of it, in order to vindicate the justice and goodness of God.—Warton.

[1563]The "other kind" is the animal creation, which, says Pope, has not been given any abortive instinct. Nature, which furnishes the impulse, never fails to provide appropriate objects for its gratification.

[1564]The meaning of this couplet comes out clearer in the prose explanation which Pope has written on his MS.: "God implants a desire of immortality, which at least proves he would have us think of, and expect it, and he gives no appetite in vain to any creature. As God plainly gave this hope, or instinct, it is plain man should entertain it. Hence flows his greatest hope, and greatest incentive to virtue."

[1565]"His greatest virtue" is benevolence; "his greatest bliss" the hope of a happy eternity. Nature connects the two, for the bliss depends on the virtue.

[1566]Pope exalts the duty of "benevolence," which, ver. 371, causes "earth to smile with boundless bounty blessed." But bounty cannot benefit the recipients, if the poet is right in maintaining that happiness is independent of externals.

[1567]Warton remarks that this simile, which is copied from Chaucer, was used by Pope in two other places,—The Temple of Fame, ver. 436, and the Dunciad, ii. ver. 407.

[1568]Waller, Divine Love, Canto v.:A love so unconfinedWith arms extended would embrace mankind.Self-love would cease, or be dilated, whenWe should behold as many selfs as men.—Wakefield.

[1568]Waller, Divine Love, Canto v.:

A love so unconfinedWith arms extended would embrace mankind.Self-love would cease, or be dilated, whenWe should behold as many selfs as men.—Wakefield.

[1569]MS.:To rise from individuals to the wholeIs the true progress of the god-like soul.The first impression the soft passions make,Like the small pebble in the limpid lake,Begets a greater and a greater still,The circle widening till the whole it fill;Till God and man, and brute and reptile kindAll wake, all move, all agitate his mind;Earth with his bounteous overflows is blessed;Heav'n pleased beholds its image in his breast.Parent or friend first touch the virtuous mind,His country next, and next all human kind.

[1569]MS.:

To rise from individuals to the wholeIs the true progress of the god-like soul.The first impression the soft passions make,Like the small pebble in the limpid lake,Begets a greater and a greater still,The circle widening till the whole it fill;Till God and man, and brute and reptile kindAll wake, all move, all agitate his mind;Earth with his bounteous overflows is blessed;Heav'n pleased beholds its image in his breast.Parent or friend first touch the virtuous mind,His country next, and next all human kind.

[1570]In the MS. thus:And now transported o'er so vast a plain,While the winged courser flies with all her rein,While heav'n-ward now her mounting wing she feels,Now scattered fools fly trembling from her heels,Wilt thou, my St. John! keep her course in sight,Confine her fury, and assist her flight?—Warburton.The exaggerated estimate which Pope had formed of the Essay on Man is apparent from this passage. With respect to the poetry, "the winged courser flew with all her rein;" with respect to the argument, "scattered fools flew trembling" from its crushing power.

[1570]In the MS. thus:

And now transported o'er so vast a plain,While the winged courser flies with all her rein,While heav'n-ward now her mounting wing she feels,Now scattered fools fly trembling from her heels,Wilt thou, my St. John! keep her course in sight,Confine her fury, and assist her flight?—Warburton.

The exaggerated estimate which Pope had formed of the Essay on Man is apparent from this passage. With respect to the poetry, "the winged courser flew with all her rein;" with respect to the argument, "scattered fools flew trembling" from its crushing power.

[1571]"Stoops to man's low passions or ascends to the glorious ends" for which those passions have been given.

[1572]"Did he rise with temper," asks the writer of A Letter to Mr. Pope, 1735, "when he drove furiously out of the kingdom the Duke of Marlborough? or did he fall with dignity when he fled from justice, and joined the Pretender?" Lord Hervey asserts, and many circumstances confirm his testimony, that Bolingbroke "was elate and insolent in power, dejected and servile in disgrace."

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