THE NEW SCIENCE AND POETRY 129 



woven, however, with other matter that it is a difficult task to ex- 

 tract it. The poet's position may be made clear by a general ex- 

 position with references interspersed and with occasional quota- 

 tions where the passages are illuminating. His mockery of astrol- 

 ogy is found in the last canto of the Bape of the Lockf^ his scorn 

 of the antiquarian humor is disclosed in the opening lines of 

 Epistle IV of the Moral Essays. His own claim upon "Reason 

 free and unposs 't ' ' he states thus boldly in the Imitations of Horace, 

 Bk. I, Ep. I,— 



"But ask not, to what Doctors I apply? 



Sworn to no master, of no sect am I ; 



As drives the Storm, at any door I knock ; 



And house with Montague now, or now with Locke. "^^ 



But for a fuller expression of his attitude one must turn to the 

 Essay on Man and the Dunciad. In the former, however much 

 Pope may have borrowed from Bolingbroke in philosophic ideas, 

 the manner of treatment and the bias of mind are the poet's own. 

 These may be examined with no cencern for influences. His at- 

 titude is found to be largely the ultra-pious position taken by 

 Prior and Watts; namely, that man is presumptuous to try to 

 understand the laws of nature, his proper attitude is rather one 

 of acceptance and reverence. 

 " Go ! ! " cries Pope scornfully, 



"Wonderous creature! mount where science guides, 



Go, measure earth, weigh air and state the tides. 



Instruct the planets in what orbs to run. 



Correct old Time, and regulate the sun".^-^ 

 Let those proud men teach eternal wisdom, and when that is done, 

 "drop into themselves, and be a fool".^* Bacon, the archscientist, 

 is to him "the wisest, brightest, meanest of men;"^^ and here for 

 the first and last time Newton is attacked, — "a mortal man who 

 dared unfold all nature's law". So high has he risen in the ad- 

 miration of his disciples that they show "a Newton as we show an 



"Canto V, II. 127-I-. 

 »2 11. 23-6. 

 w£p. //, 19-22. 

 »*n)id. 29-30. 

 »»n)id. IV, 282. 



