honest man, and a good catholic, might be indifferent what the world called him, while he knew his own religion, and his own integrity.1 A man, that can write in this Age, may: but he really will find that he writes to fools, and it is now a most unreasonable demand to cry Qui legit intelligat. The town is now very full of a new poem entitled an Essay on Man, attributed I think with reason, to a divine. It has merit in my opinion, but not so much as they give it. At least, it is incorrect, and has some inaccuracies in the expressions,one or two of an unhappy kind, for they may cause the author's sense to be turned, contrary to what I think his intention, a little unorthodoxically. Nothing is so plain as that he quits his proper subject, this present world, to assert his belief of a future state, and yet there is an if, instead of a since, that would overthrow his meaning; and, at the end, he uses the words "God, the soul of the world," which, at the first glance, may be taken "My head and heart thus flowing through my quill, Like good Erasmus, in an honest mean, In moderation placing all my glory, While tories call me whig, and whigs a tory." -Im. Hor. Sat. ii. 1. The first part of the Essay on Man was published anonymously in Febru ary; and Pope, who was accustomed to say what was convenient without much regard to what was true, has here, by implication, disclaimed the authorship.-E. 8"If to be perfect in a certain state, What matter here or there, or soon or late ?" Pope omitted the lines in several editions subsequent to the first, but he afterwards restored them. No one could have interpreted them as suggesting a doubt of the immortality of man, if the belief in a future state had not been spoken of in the context rather as a hope given to satisfy us here than as the assurance of a reality. The studied ambiguity of the passage was prob. ably adopted by Pope to please his prompter, Bolingbroke; while, on the other hand, he was anxious to vindicate the orthodoxy of the poem to his christian friend, Caryll.-E. HIS MOTHER'S DEATH. 483 for heathenism; while his whole paragraph proves him quite christian in his System, from man up to seraphim.1 I want to know your opinion of it after twice or thrice reading. I give you my thoughts very candidly of it, though I find there is a sort of faction to set up the author and his piece in opposition to me and my little things, which, I confess, are not of so much importance as to the subject, but I hope they conduce to morality in their way; which way is, at least, more generally to be understood, and the seasoning of satire makes it more palatable to the generality. Adieu. TO MR. RICHARDSON. Twickenham, June 10, 1733. As I know you and I naturally desire to see one another, I hoped that this day our wishes would have met, and brought you hither. And this for the very reason which, possibly, might hinder you coming-that my poor mother is dead. I thank God, her death was as easy as her life was innocent, and, as it cost her not a groan, or even a sigh, there is yet upon her countenance such an expression of tranquility, nay, almost of pleasure, that it is even amiable to behold it. It would afford the finest image of a saint expired that ever painting drew; and it would be the greatest obligation that ever that obliging Art 1" All are but parts of one stupendous Whole, The reader will look in the paragraph in vain for any of those vindications of the christian system to which Pope refers. The passage might have been written by a Greek or Roman philosopher.-E. Mrs. Pope died the 7th of June, 1733, aged ninety-three.-Warburton. could ever bestow on a friend, if you would come and sketch it for me.1 I am sure, if there be no very prevalent obstacle, you will leave any common business to do this, and I hope to see you this evening, as late as you will, or to-morrow morning as early, before this winter-flower is faded. I will defer her interment till to-morrow night. I know you love me, or I could not have written this-I could not, at this time, have written at all. Adieu! May you die as happily! To MR. HUGH BETHEL, Aug. 9, 1733. You might well think me negligent or forgetful of you, if true friendship and sincere esteem were to be measured by common favours and compliments. The truth is, I could not write then, without saying something of my own condition, and of my loss of so old and so deserving a parent, which really would have troubled you; or I must have kept a silence on that head, which would not have suited that freedom and sincere opening of the heart, which is due to you from me. I am now pretty well: but my home is uneasy to me still, and I am therefore wandering about all this summer. I was but four days at Twickenham since the occasion that made it so melancholy. I have been a fortnight in Essex, and am now at Dawley (whose master is your servant), and going to Cirencester to Lord Bathurst. I shall also see Southampton with Lord 1 A drawing was accordingly made, and a print has been engraved from it, in which she is called, by mistake, "daughter of Sam. Cooper, painter."-K. This etching appears in Mr. Elwin's Works of Pope, ed. 1872. FINISHING HIS ESSAY ON MAN. 485 Peterborough. The Court and Twitenham I shall forsake to. gether. I wish I did not leave our friend, who deserves more quiet, and more health and happiness than can be found in such a family. The rest of my acquaintances are tolerably happy in their various ways of life-whether Court, Country, or Townand Mr. Cleland is as well in the Park as if he were in Paradise. I heartily hope Yorkshire is the same to you; and that no evil, moral or physical, may come near you. I have now but too much melancholy leisure, and no other care but to finish my Essay on Man. There may be in it one line that may offend you, I fear; and yet I will not alter or omit it, unless you come to town and prevent me before I print it, which will be in a fortnight in all probability. In plain truth, I will not deny myself the greatest pleasure I am capable of receiving, because another may have the modesty not to share it. It is all a poor poet can do-to bear testimony to the virtues he cannot reach: besides that, in this Age, I see too few good examples, not to lay hold on any I can find. You see what an interested man I am. Adieu. To MR. AARON HILL. Twickenham, Nov. 13, 1733. I writ to you a very hasty letter, being warmed in the cause of an old acquaintance, in which I was sure you would concur. I mean John Dennis, whose circumstances were described to me in the most moving manner. I went next day with the lord, to 1 Martha Blount, apparently. Who the "such a family" was, does not appear. In which Pope apostrophises him as the "blameless Bethel."-Epistle IV. whom you directed your letter and Play, which, at my return home, I received but yesterday. I thank you for your agreeable present to my Grotto, for your more agreeable letter, and your most excellent translation of Voltaire,' to whom you have presented all the beauty he had, and added the nerves he wanted. This short acknowledgment is all I can make just now: I am just taken up by Mr. Thomson, in the perusal of a new Poem he has brought me. I wish you were with us. The first day I see London I will wait on you, on many accounts, but on none more than my being affectionately, and with true esteem, &c. I desire Miss Uranie3 will know me for her servant. 1 The tragedy of Zaire. If Pope spoke before contemptuously of Hill, he now makes ample amends by flattery.-Bowles. In his letter, accompanying the tragedy, Hill writes: "Though I have really no skill in the French, and am (perhaps, for that reason) not over fond of the language, yet I have seldom been more strongly delighted than with the tragedy of Zaïre. I had seen nothing of M. Voltaire's before, except the Henriade; and, whether it was from my own want of taste, or the poem's want of fire, 1 found it too cold for an epic spirit, so conceived but a moderate opinion as to the dramatic attempts of the same author. But genius being limited, we act too rash and unreasonable a part, when we judge after so general a manner. Having been agreeably disappointed in Zaïre, it was due, as an atonement, that I should contribute to widen his applause, whom I had thought of too narrowly. . . . I should be vexed to have it miscarry, because it is certainly an excellent piece, and has not suffered, I hope, so much in the translation as to justify a cold reception at London, after having run into the most general esteem at Paris. I will do all in my power to prepare the town to receive it, .. and your good taste and good nature assure me of your willing concurrence so far as not only to say of it what it deserves, but to say it at such times, and in such manner, as you know best how to choose, in order to give your recommendation the intended good consequence." Voltaire, it is to be noted, was yet only at the beginning of his extraordinary literary career. The Zaïre appeared in 1731. 2 Probably his Liberty, published in the next year. His great Poem, the Seasons, on the score of moral sentiment, the most meritorious poem of the century, in which Pope has the credit of having assisted, appeared, complete, in 1730. Miss Hill-a daughter of his correspondent, |