That, urg'd by thee, I turn'd the tuneful art
From sounds to things, from fancy to the heart;
For wit's false mirror held up nature's light;
Shew'd erring pride, whatever is, is right;
That reason, passion, answer one great aim;
That true self-love and social are the same;
That virtue only, makes our bliss below;
And all our knowledge is, ourselves to know.

NOTES.

NOTES.

'POPE,' says Sir W. Hamilton (Life, by Veitch, p. 335, note), 'was a curious reader.' It might be added that he invented little, but borrowed the germ of a thought anywhere, and then set himself to elaborate and embroider it. The argument and illustration of the Essay on Man may be divided into two classes: (1) So much as is the common property of the poets-a vocabulary, or Thesaurus Poeticus, which any one was at liberty to use, a liberty which Pope has not always disdained; (2) Peculiar illustrations, drawn from a desultory, perhaps lazy, but curious reading. In the first class of allusion, we may compare Pope's handling with that of less dexterous writers. The other class, illustration viz. peculiar to Pope, throws greater light on his method of composition—an exquisite mosaic work.

Joseph Warton is the only editor who has attempted to trace Pope's obligations to earlier writers. What Warton did in this way was only to make a beginning. The Notes which follow have no pretension to be an exhaustive collection of references. It is hoped that they may serve to introduce the young student of our literature into a track of research which, if pursued, would bring him acquainted at least with the names and general character of a wide variety of English writers.

EPISTLE I.

1. 1. St. John. Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke, who had returned from exile in 1723, and was now (1732) residing at Dawley, near Uxbridge. 'Pope's room, in which he was said to have written the Essay on Man, was still shewn [? at Battersea] in Bolingbroke's house. It was a parlour of brown polished oak.' Sir Richard Philips; Morning's Walk from London to Kew. In the first ed. (1732) the name was not given, and the poem commenced, Awake, my Lælius !' The sweetness of studious retirement, and the superiority of the philosophic life to the pursuit of low ambition,' was at this time a favourite theme of Lord Bolingbroke's. See his Essay On the true use of Retirement and Study, Works, 4. 162 (ed. 1809). life can little more supply

1. 3

Than just to look about us and to die.

The complaint of Theophrastus, Aristotle's successor, that 'human life ended