Rape of the Lock and Other Poems | Page 7

living always in boiling
water.--This part would have come into my 'Brutus' [an epic poem
which Pope never completed], which is planned already. The fourth
would have been on Morality; in eight or nine of the most concerning
branches of it."
It is difficult, if not impossible, to believe that Pope with his irregular
methods of work and illogical habit of thought had planned so vast and
elaborate a system before he began its execution. It is far more likely
that he followed his old method of composing on the inspiration of the
moment, and produced the works in question with little thought of their
relation or interdependence. But in the last years of his life, when he
had made the acquaintance of Warburton, and was engaged in
reviewing and perfecting the works of this period, he noticed their
general similarity in form and spirit, and, possibly under Warburton's
influence, conceived the notion of combining and supplementing them
to form that "Greater Essay on Man" of which he spoke to Spence, and
of which Warburton himself has given us a detailed account.
Warburton, a wide-read, pompous, and polemical clergyman, had

introduced himself to the notice of Pope by a defense of the
philosophical and religious principles of the 'Essay on Man'. In spite of
the influence of the free-thinking Bolingbroke, Pope still remained a
member of the Catholic church and sincerely believed himself to be an
orthodox, though liberal, Christian, and he had, in consequence, been
greatly disconcerted by a criticism of his poem published in
Switzerland and lately translated into English. Its author, Pierre de
Crousaz, maintained, and with a considerable degree of truth, that the
principles of Pope's poem if pushed to their logical conclusion were
destructive to religion and would rank their author rather among
atheists than defenders of the faith. The very word "atheist" was at that
day sufficient to put the man to whom it was applied beyond the pale of
polite society, and Pope, who quite lacked the ability to refute in logical
argument the attack of de Crousaz, was proportionately delighted when
Warburton came forward in his defense, and in a series of letters
asserted that Pope's whole intention was to vindicate the ways of God
to man, and that de Crousaz had mistaken his purpose and
misunderstood his language. Pope's gratitude to his defender knew no
bounds; he declared that Warburton understood the 'Essay' better than
he did himself; he pronounced him the greatest critic he ever knew,
secured an introduction to him, introduced him to his own rich and
influential friends, in short made the man's fortune for him outright.
When the University of Oxford hesitated to give Warburton, who had
never attended a university, the degree of D.D., Pope declined to accept
the degree of D.C.L. which had been offered him at the same time, and
wrote the Fourth Book of the 'Dunciad' to satirize the stupidity of the
university authorities. In conjunction with Warburton he proceeded
further to revise the whole poem, for which his new friend wrote notes
and a ponderous introduction, and made the capital mistake of
substituting the frivolous, but clever, Colley Gibber, with whom he had
recently become embroiled, for his old enemy, Theobald, as the hero.
And the last year of his life was spent in getting out new editions of his
poems accompanied by elaborate commentaries from the pen of
Warburton.
In the spring of 1744, it was evident that Pope was failing fast. In
addition to his other ailments he was now attacked by an asthmatical

dropsy, which no efforts of his physicians could remove. Yet he
continued to work almost to the last, and distributed copies of his 'Ethic
Epistles' to his friends about three weeks before his death, with the
smiling remark that like the dying Socrates he was dispensing his
morality among his friends. His mind began to wander; he complained
that he saw all things as through a curtain, and told Spence once "with a
smile of great pleasure and with the greatest softness" that he had seen
a vision. His friends were devoted in their attendance. Bolingbroke sat
weeping by his chair, and on Spence's remarking how Pope with every
rally was always saying something kindly of his friends, replied: "I
never in my life knew a man that had so tender a heart for his particular
friends, or a more general friendship for mankind. I have known him
these thirty years; and value myself more for that man's love
than"--here his head dropped and his voice broke in tears. It was
noticed that whenever Patty Blount came into the room, the dying
flame of life flashed up in a momentary glow. At the very end a friend
reminded Pope that as a professed Catholic he ought to send