fectation from habit; he that has once ftudiously formed a ftyle, rarely writes afterwards with complete eafe. Pope may be faid to write always with his reputation in his head; Swift perhaps like a man who remembered that he was writing to Pope; but Arbuthnot like one who lets his thoughts drop from his pen as they rife into his mind.

Before these Letters appeared, he published the first part of what he perfuaded himself to think a fyftem of Ethicks, under the title of an Effay on Man; which, if his Letter to Swift (of Sept. 14, 1725) be rightly explained by the commentator, had been eight years. under his confideration, and of which he feems to have defired the fuccefs with

great

great folicitude. He had now many open and doubtlefs many fecret enemies. The Dunces were yet fiarting with the war; and the fuperiority which he publickly arrogated, difpofed the world to wifh his humiliation.

All this he knew, and against all this he provided. His own name, and that of his friend to whom the work is inferibed, were in the first editions carefully fuppreffed; and the poem, being of a new kind, was afcribed to one or another, as favour determined, or conjecture wandered; it was

given, fays

Warburton, to every man,

except him

Those who

only who could write it.

like only when they like the author, and who are under the dominion of a name,

con

condemned it; and thofe admired it who are willing to scatter praise at random, which while it is unappropriated excites no envy. Those friends of Pope, that were trufted with the fecret, went about lavishing honours on the new-born poet, and hinting that Pope was never fo much in danger from any former rival.

To thofe authors whom he had perfonally offended, and to those whofe opinion the world confidered as decifive, and whom he fufpected of envy or malevolence, he fent his effay as a prefent before publication, that they might defeat their own enmity by praifes, which they could not afterwards decently retract.

With these precautions, in 1733 was. published the first part of the Essay on Man. There had been for fome time a report that Pope was bufy upon a System of Morality; but this defign was not difcovered in the new poem, which had a form and a title with which its readers were unacquainted. Its reception was not uniform; fome thought it a very imperfect piece, though not without good lines. While the author was unknown, fome, as will always happen, fayoured him as an adventurer, and fome cenfured him as an intruder; but all thought him above neglect; the fale increased, and editions were multiplied.

The

The fubfequent editions of the first Epiftle exhibited two memorable corrections. At first, the poet and his friend

Expatiate free 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 vain to defcribe or to trace the maze.

The other alteration was of thefe lines;

And spite of pride, and in thy reason's
Spite,

One truth is clear, whatever is, is right: but having afterwards difcovered, or been fhewn, that the truth which subfifted in spite of reafon could not be very clear, he fubftituted