wakened no popular kindness or resentment; the
book never became much the subject of conversation; some read it as
contemporary history, and some, perhaps, as a model of epistolary
language; but those who read it did not talk of it. Not much, therefore,
was added by it to fame or envy; nor do I remember that it produced
either publick praise or publick censure.

It had, however, in some degree, the recommendation of novelty. Our
language had few letters, except those of statesmen. Howel, indeed,
about a century ago, published his letters, which are commended by
Morhoff, and which alone, of his hundred volumes, continue his memory.
Loveday's letters were printed only once; those of Herbert and Suckling
are hardly known. Mrs. Phillips's (Orinda's) are equally neglected. And
those of Walsh seem written as exercises, and were never sent to any
living mistress or friend. Pope's epistolary excellence had an open
field; he had no English rival, living or dead.

Pope is seen in this collection as connected with the other contemporary
wits, and certainly suffers no disgrace in the comparison; but it must
be remembered, that he had the power of favouring himself; he might have
originally had publication in his mind, and have written with care, or
have afterwards selected those which he had most happily conceived, or
most diligently laboured; and I know not whether there does not appear
something more studied and artificial[131] in his productions than the
rest except one long letter by Bolingbroke, composed with all the skill
and industry of a professed author. It is, indeed, not easy to
distinguish affectation from habit; he that has once studiously formed a
style, rarely writes afterwards with complete ease. Pope may be said to
write always with his reputation in his head; Swift, perhaps, like a man
who remembered he was writing to Pope; but Arbuthnot, like one who lets
thoughts drop from his pen as they rise into his mind.

Before these letters appeared, he published the first part of what he
persuaded himself to think a system of ethicks, under the title of an
Essay on Man; which, if his letter to Swift, of Sept. 14, 1725, be
rightly explained by the commentator, had been eight years under his
consideration, and of which he seems to have desired the success with
great solicitude. He had now many open, and, doubtless, many secret
enemies. The _dunces_ were yet smarting with the war; and the
superiority which he publickly arr