over, translated it in a morning
or two, and sent it to press in a week or a fortnight after" (February,
1733). "And this was the occasion of my imitating some others of the
Satires and Epistles." The two dialogues finally used as the Epilogue to
the Satires were first published in the year 1738, with the name of the
year, "Seventeen Hundred and Thirty-eight." Samuel Johnson's "London,"
his first bid for recognition, appeared in the same week, and excited in
Pope not admiration only, but some active endeavour to be useful to its
author.

The reader of Pope, as of every author, is advised to begin by letting
him say what he has to say, in his own manner to an open mind that seeks
only to receive the impressions which the writer wishes to convey. First
let the mind and spirit of the writer come into free, full contact with
the mind and spirit of the reader, whose attitude at the first reading
should be simply receptive. Such reading is the condition precedent to
all true judgment of a writer's work. All criticism that is not so
grounded spreads as fog over a poet's page. Read, reader, for yourself,
without once pausing to remember what you have been told to think.

H.M.

POPE'S POEMS.

AN ESSAY ON MAN.
TO H. ST. JOHN LORD BOLINGBROKE.

THE DESIGN.

Having proposed to write some pieces of Human Life and Manners, such as
(to use my Lord Bacon's expression) come home to Men's Business and
Bosoms, I thought it more satisfactory to begin with considering Man in
the abstract, his Nature and his State; since, to prove any moral duty,
to enforce any moral precept, or to examine the perfection or
imperfection of any creature whatsoever, it is necessary first to know
what condition and relation it is placed in, and what is the proper end
and purpose of its being.

The science of Human Nature is, like all other sciences, reduced to a few
clear points: there are not many certain truths in this world. It is
therefore in the anatomy of the Mind as in that of the Body; more good
will accrue to mankind by attending to the large, open, and perceptible
parts, than by studying too much such finer nerves and vessels, the
conformations and uses of which will for ever escape our observation. The
disputes are all upon these last, and, I will venture to say, they have
less sharpened the wits than the hearts of men against each other, and
have diminished the practice more than advanced the theory of Morality.
If I c