two memorable corrections. At first, the poet and his friend

"Expatiate freely o'er this scene of man,

A mighty maze of walks without a plan."

For which he wrote afterwards,

"A mighty maze, but not without a plan :"

for, if there were no plan, it was in vain to describe or to trace the maze.

The other alteration was of these lines;

"And spite of pride, and in thy reason's spite,
One truth is clear, whatever is, is right:

but having afterwards discovered, or been shewn, that the truth which subsisted in spite of reason could not be very clear, he substituted

"And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite."

To such oversights will the most vigorous mind be liable, when it is employed at once upon argument and poetry. The second and third Epistles were published; and Pope was, I believe, more and more suspected of writing them; at last, in 1734, he avowed the fourth, and claimed the honour of a moral poet.

In the conclusion it is sufficiently acknowledged, that the doctrine of the " Essay on Man" was received from Bolingbroke, who is said to have ridiculed Pope, among those who enjoyed his confidence, as having adopted and advanced principles of which he did not perceive the consequence, and as blindly propagating opinions contrary to his own. That those communications had been consolidated into a scheme regularly drawn, and delivered to Pope, from whom it returned only transformed from prose to verse, has been reported, but hardly can be true. The Essay plainly appears the fabrick of a poet; what Boling

broke supplied could be only the first principles; the order, illustration, and embellishments must all be Pope's.

These principles it is not my business to clear from obscurity, dogmatism, or falsehood; but they were not immediately examined; philosophy and poetry have not often the same readers; and the Essay abounded in splendid amplifications and sparkling sentences, which were read and admired, with no great attention to their ultimate purpose; its flowers caught the eye, which did not see what the gay foliage concealed, and for a time flourished in the sunshine of universal approbation. So little was any evil tendency discovered, that, as innocence is unsuspicious, many read it for a manual of piety. Its reputation soon invited a translator. It was first turned into French prose, and afterwards by Resnel into verse. Both translations fell into the hands of Crousaz,1 who first, when he had the version in prose, wrote a general censure, and afterwards reprinted Resnel's version, with particular remarks upon every paragraph.

Crousaz was a professor of Switzerland, eminent for his treatise of Logick, and his "Examen de Pyrrhonisme," and, however little known or regarded here, was no mean antagonist. His mind was one of those in which philosophy and piety are happily united. He was accustomed to argument and disquisition, and perhaps was grown too desirous of detecting faults; but his intentions were always right, his opinions were solid, and his religion pure.

His incessant vigilance for the promotion of piety disposed him to look with distrust upon all metaphysical systems of Theology, and all schemes of virtue and happiness purely rational; and therefore it was not long before

1 Jean Pierre de Crousaz (1663-1748), born at Lausanne, Professor of Philosophy and Mathematics at Gröningen. His attack on Pope's Essay on Man was translated into English by Mrs. Carter.

He had, in the early part of his life, pleased himself with the notice of inferior wits, and corresponded with the enemies of Pope. A Letter was produced,' when he had perhaps himself forgotten it, in which he tells Concanen, "Dryden I observe borrows for want of leasure, and Pope for want of genius: Milton out of pride, and Addison out of modesty." And when Theobald published Shakespeare, in opposition to Pope, the best notes were supplied by Warburton.

But the time was now come when Warburton was to change his opinion, and Pope was to find a defender in him who had contributed so much to the exaltation of his ival.

The arrogance of Warburton excited against him every artifice of offence, and therefore it may be supposed that his union with Pope was censured as hypocritical inconstancy; but surely to think differently, at different times, f poetical merit, may be easily allowed. Such opinions are often admitted, and dismissed, without nice examinaion. Who is there that has not found reason for changing is mind about questions of greater importance?

Warburton, whatever was his motive, undertook, withut solicitation, to rescue Pope from the talons of Crousaz, y freeing him from the imputation of favouring fatality, r rejecting revelation; and from month to month connued a vindication of the "Essay on Man," in the Sterary journal of that time called "The Republic of Letters.'

Pope, who probably began to doubt the tendency of his wn work, was glad that the positions, of which he pereived himself not to know the full meaning, could by any

This remarkable letter was first printed in Malone's Supplement to ihakespeare, vol. i. p. 223, but was first referred to in print by Akenside n his Ode to Thomas Edwards, Esq., on the late edition of Mr. Pope's Works, 1751. See Dyce's Akenside, p. lxxvi.-P. CUNNINGHAM.

mode of interpretation be made to mean well. How much he was pleased with his gratuitous defender, the following Letter evidently shews:

66

Sir,

"March 24, 1743.

"I have just received from Mr. R.' two more of your Letters. It is in the greatest hurry imaginable that I write this; but I cannot help thanking you in particular for your third Letter, which is so extremely clear, short, and full, that I think Mr. Crousaz ought never to have another answer, and deserved not so good an one. I can only say, you do him too much honour, and me too much right, so odd as the expression seems; for you have made my system as clear as I ought to have done, and could not. It is indeed the same system as mine, but illustrated with a ray of your own, as they say our natural body is the same still when it is glorified. I am sure I like it better than I did before, and so will every man else. I know I meant just what you explain; but I did not explain my own meaning so well as you. You understand me as well as I do myself; but you express me better than I could express myself. Pray accept the sincerest acknowledgements. I cannot but wish these Letters were put together in one Book, and intend (with your leave) to procure a translation of part, at least, of all of them into French; but I shall not proceed a step without your consent and opinion, &c."

By this fond and eager acceptance of an exculpatory comment, Pope testified that, whatever might be the seeming or real import of the principles which he had received from Bolingbroke, he had not intentionally attacked religion; and Bolingbroke, if he meant to make him without his own consent an instrument of mischief, found him now engaged with his eyes open on the side of truth.

1 Mr. Peter Cunningham supplies the name of Robinson, the book. seller.