Page images
PDF
EPUB

ENGLISH CLASSICS

SELECT WORKS OF POPE

ESSAY ON MAN

[merged small][merged small][graphic][merged small][subsumed][merged small][merged small]

Alexander POPE

ESSAY ON MAN

EDITED BY

MARK PATTISON, B. D.

Oxford

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

MDCCCLXIX

[All rights reserved]

15452:36 15447.80

The Gift of

Mrs. Ezra Abbot,

of Cambridge,

Jan. 21, 1885.

8221

INTRODUCTORY.

THE Essay on Man consists of four Epistles addressed to Lord Bolingbroke. It is but a portion of a large poem contemplated, but not completed. Hence the title imperfectly describes its contents. It is less a treatise on Man than on the moral order of the world of which man is a part. The Essay is a vindication of Providence. The appearances of evil in the world arise from our seeing only a part of the whole. Excesses and contrary qualities are means by which the harmony of the system is procured. The ends of Providence are answered even by our errors and imperfections. God designs happiness to be equal, but realises it through general laws. Virtue only constitutes a happiness which is universally attainable. This happiness through virtue is only reached in society, or social order, which is only a part of the general order. The perfection of virtue is a conformity to the order of Providence here crowned by the hope of full satisfaction hereafter.

The argument of the Essay on Man is said by Johnson, Lives of the Poets, Pope, to have been supplied to Pope by Bolingbroke. Johnson relied on a statement made by Joseph Warton, Genius and Writings of Pope, 2. 58, that Lord Bathurst (died 1777) had repeatedly assured him that he had read the whole scheme of the poem in the handwriting of Bolingbroke, and that Pope did no more than put it into verse. See Boswell; Life of Johnson, Letter 355. Lord Bathurst, however, was either mistaken or was misunderstood. It is possible that what Lord Bathurst saw were the Fragments or Minutes of Essays, now included in Lord Bolingbroke's printed Works. These Fragments were occasional scraps

« PreviousContinue »