416 POPE. 



term " nature " is substituted for God, but how unut- 

 terably void of reasonableness is the theory that Nature 

 would have left her highest product, man, destitute of 

 that instinct with which she had endowed her other 

 creatures ! As if reason were not the most subhmated 

 form of instinct. The accuracy on which Pope prided 

 himself, and for which he is commended, was not ac- 

 curacy of thought so much as of expression. And he 

 cannot always even claim this merit, but only that of 

 correct rhyme, as in one of the passages I have already 

 quoted fi-om the " Rape of the Lock " he talks of cast- 

 ing shrieks to heaven, — a performance of some diffi- 

 culty, except when cast is needed to rhyme with last. 



But the suiDposition is that in the " Essay on Man " 

 Pope did not himself know what he was writing. He 

 was only the condenser and epigrammatizer of Boling- 

 broke, — a very fitting St. John for such a gospel. Or, 

 if he did know, we can account for the contradictions by 

 supposing that he threw in some of the commonplace 

 moralities to conceal his real drift. Johnson asserts 

 that Bolmgbroke in private laughed at Pope's having 

 been made the mouthpiece of opinions which he did not 

 hold. But this is hardly probable when we consider the 

 relations between them. It is giving Pope altogether 

 too little credit for intelligence to suppose that he did 

 not understand the principles of his intimate friend. 

 The caution with which he at first concealed the author- 

 ship would argue that he had doubts as to the reception 

 of the poem. When it was attacked on the score of in- 

 fidelity, he gladly accepted Warburton's championship, 

 and assumed whatever pious interpretation he contrived 

 to thrust upon it. The beginning of the poem is famil- 

 iar to everybody : — • 



'' Awake, my St. John, leave all meaner things 

 To low ambition and the pride ot kings; 



