sonal jealousies of rival writers like Harvey and Nash, Dryden and Shadwell. In the person of Pope we see an image of Literature, asserting itself as an independent force in the State, in the face of all the obstacles presented by rank, station, and privilege; in his grotesque exaggeration of the real proportions of his subject there is a lively image of the weaknesses so often found in the purely literary character, its vanity, its sensitive irritability, and its self-love; Grub Strect reflects the rancorous envy which is certain to attend all literary success. In these respects the satire will always possess an interest far transcending its actual theme, and will point a moral, though of a kind very different from that which Pope sought to enforce.

CHAPTER XI.

THE ESSAY ON MAN' AND THE MORAL ESSAYS.'

Bolingbroke's influence on Pope-Epistle to Burlington on 'Taste-Character of Timon-Epistle to Bathurst on 'The Use of Riches'-Reason for the Anonymous Publication of the Essay on Man'-Merits and Defects of the Essay.

It is highly characteristic of Pope, that while he was pursuing the objects of his vengeance with deadly animosity, he was meditating what he flattered himself was "a temperate yet not inconsistent, and a short yet not imperfect system of ethics."

The Essay on Man' occupies a position among Pope's works analogous to that of the 'Essay on Criticism.' As the latter was the product of general forces operating throughout Europe in the sphere of taste and imagination, so the 'Essay on Man' reflects the influences which since the Reformation, had determined in England the direction of religious thought. As to the origin of the particular form in which Pope has embodied the ideas of his time, opinion has been much divided. Some have ascribed it entirely to the individual influence of Bolingbroke. Lord Bathurst declared that he had read the whole scheme of the poem drawn up in a series of propositions by Bolingbroke, which Pope was to enlarge, illustrate, and turn into verse. Mr. Pattison, on the other hand, believed that the subject of the poem was imposed on Pope from without by the general tendency of national thought, and that as he entered on his task without sympathy and understanding, the result, philosophically speaking, was a medley of confused

''The Design of the Essay on Man.'

theories. The truth seems to lie midway between these two opinions. Bolingbroke undoubtedly contributed a large part of the matter of the poem: as much more was derived from various other writers of the period, who had speculated in the same direction: but when all Pope's philosophical obligations are admitted, the fact remains that the Essay on Man' is a poem, and a poem of a highly original and characteristic kind; and, this being so, it is plain that, in all essential points, the creation must have proceeded from the poet's own mind. The history of the growth of the conception and execution of this work, and of the 'Moral Essays' which are so closely related to it, may be easily gathered from Pope's correspondence with Bolingbroke, Richardson, and Caryll.

Bolingbroke's acquaintance with Pope before his exile was apparently slight. The latter was in all probability introduced to him by Swift after the publication of Windsor Forest,' and they met as fellow members of the Scriblerus Club. But Bolingbroke's thoughts were at that period too much absorbed in party politics to allow him to bestow much of his time upon one who had still to establish his reputation as a poet. While he resided in France no letters passed between him and Pope. In 1723, however, through the mediation of the Duchess of Kendal, he was allowed to return to his native country. In the autumn of that year he came over to England to make preparations for his permanent residence there, and he naturally took the opportunity of renewing his acquaintance with Pope, now beyond question the most celebrated man of letters of the day. Some months after his return to France he wrote to the poet exhorting him not to be content with translation, but "to write what will deserve to be translated three thousand years hence into languages as yet perhaps unformed." Pope had heard of Bolingbroke's researches into philosophy during his exile, and had asked him some questions on the subject. The other replied:

"After saying so much to you about yourself, I must say a word or two in answer to a paragraph of your letter which concerns me. First,

then, I would assure you, that I profess no system of philosophy whatever, for I know none which has not been pushed beyond the bounds of nature and truth. Secondly, far from despising the world, I admire the work, and I adore the author,-ille opifex rerum, you Greeks call him δημιουργός. At physical evils I confess that I tremble, but as long as I possess the use of my reason I shall not murmur. Moral evils, the effect of that mala ratio, as Cotta methinks with great impropriety calls error, we may avoid, or we may bear. That stock of them to which I was predestinated, is I hope pretty nearly spent, and I am willing to think that I have neither borne them unworthily nor neglected to draw some advantage from them. Give me leave in the third and last place to assure you that I have studied neither the Fathers nor the Councils. I began late to read, and later to think. It behoved me therefore to husband my time." 1

Bolingbroke had in fact never attempted serious study till he was past forty. During his enforced leisure at La Source, however, he read much both of history and philosophy, and the effects are seen in his letters to Pope and to others, which are written in a tone of philosophic indifference scantily disguising the feelings of disappointed ambition. Pope's reply to the above letter is no less characteristic. He had made his position in life easy by his translation of the Iliad;' and though he was contemplating an addition to his fortune by the translation of the Odyssey,' the sense of his independence was so strong upon him, that in answer to Bolingbroke's exhortations to original composition, his rhetorical instinct makes him cry out, almost in the words of the Epistle to Arbuthnot,' "Heavens! was I born for nothing but to write?"

"I am already arrived to an age which more awakens my diligence to live satisfactorily, than to write unsatisfactorily to myself; more to consult my happiness than my fame; or, in default of happiness, my quiet."

Yet, while he appears to have a mind thus vacant for philosophy, the spirit of the 'Dunciad' moves him to say:

1 Letter of Bolingbroke to Pope of February 18, 1724.

Letter of Pope to Bolingbroke of April 9, 1724.

"Neither do I think the examples of the best writers in our time and nation would have the prevalence over the bad ones, which your lordship observes them to have had in the Roman times. A state constantly divided into various factions and interests, occasions an eternal swarm of bad writers. Some of these will be encouraged by the government equally if not superiorly to the good ones, because the latter will rarely, if ever, dip their pens for such ends. And these are sure to be cried up and followed by one-half of the kingdom, and consequently possessed of no small degree of reputation. Our English style is more corrupted by the party writers, than by any other cause whatever. They are read, and will be read, and approved in proportion to their degree of merit, much more than any other set of authors in any science, as men's passions and interests are stronger and surer than their tastes and judgments."'

A little before this correspondence Bolingbroke and Pope had sent a joint letter to Swift, in which they discoursed with self-complacency on their philosophic content. The Dean saw through their professions:

"I have no very strong faith," he wrote in reply, "in your pretenders to retirement. You are not of an age for it, nor have gone through either good or bad fortune enough to go into a corner, and form conclusions de contemptu mundi et fugå sæculi,-unless a poet grows weary of too much applause, as ministers do of too much weight of business":

In 1725 Walpole brought in a Bill restoring Bolingbroke's estates, but the part of the act of attainder imposing on him political disabilities still remained in force. He now settled at Dawley, his country seat, where, while meditating factious intrigues, he affected to have buried himself as in "an agreeable sepulchre." Still playing the part of the retired philo. sopher, he hunted, made hay, and grew, as Pope says, 'a great divine.' He was surrounded with an illustrious and admiring circle, to whom he delivered himself as an oracle. "He possessed," says Lord Chesterfield, "such a flowing happiness of expression that even his most familiar conversations, if taken down in writing, would have borne the press without the least correction either as to method or

1 Letter of Pope to Bolingbroke of April 9, 1724.

Letter from Swift to Pope of September 20, 1723.