The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Warburton in his edition of the poet's works, thus explained the connection between the Moral Essays ana the Essay on Man: "The Essay on Man was intended to have been comprised in four books: " The first of which, the author has given us under that title, in four epistles. "The second was to have consisted of the same number: 1. Of the extent and limits of human reason. 2. Of those'arts and sciences, and of the parts of them, which are useful, and therefore attainable, together with those which are unuseful, and therefore unattainable. 3. Of the nature, ends, use, and application of the different capacities of men. 4. Of the use of learning, of the science of the world, and of wit; concluding with a satire against a misapplication of them, illustrated by pictures, characters, and examples. "The third book regarded civil regimen, or the science of politics, in which the several forms of a republic were to be examined and explained; together with the several modes of religious worship, so far forth as they affect society; between which the author always supposed there was the most interesting connexion and closest relation; so that this part would have treated of civil and religious society in their full extent. "The fourth and last book concerned private ethics, or practical morality, considered in all the circumstances, orders, professions, and stations of human life. " The scheme of all this had been maturely digested, and communicated to Lord Bolingbroke, Dr. Swift, and one or two more, and was intended for the only work of his riper years; but was, partly through ill- health, partly through discouragements from the depravity of the times, and partly on prudential and other considerations, interrupted, postponed, and, lastly, in a manner, laid aside." MO...