180 These principles it is not my business to clear from obscurity, dogmatism, or falsehood, but they were not immediately examined; philosophy and poetry have not often the same readers, and the Essay abounded in splendid amplifications and sparkling sentences, which were read and admired with no great attention to their ultimate purpose :) its flowers caught the eye which did not see what the gay foliage concealed, and for a time flourished in the sunshine of universal approbation. So little was any evil tendency discovered that, as innocence is unsuspicious, many read it for a manual of piety. 181 Its reputation soon invited a translator: It was first turned into French prose, and afterwards by Resnel into verse. Both translations fell into the hands of Crousaz, who first, when he had the version in prose, wrote a general censure, and afterwards reprinted Resnel's version with particular remarks upon every paragraph.

182

Crousaz was a professor of Switzerland, eminent for his treatise

'On peut le traduire parce qu'il est extrêmement clair, et que ses sujets, pour la plupart, sont généraux et du ressort de toutes les nations.' VOLTAIRE, Euvres, xxiv. 134. 'Il a été traduit par des hommes dignes de le traduire.' Ib. x. 115.

Pope, in an undated letter, mentions two Italian versions, two French, one German, one in Latin verse printed at Wirtemberg, and another in French prose. Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), x. 98. There are in the Brit. Mus. Cata. seven translations into French verse, and one into French prose, coming down to 1864; five into German, coming down to 1874; five into Italian, coming down to 1856; two into Portuguese, one into Polish; two into Latin verse.' Ib. v. 250. There is also a copy in English, Latin, Italian, French, and German, printed at Amsterdam in 1772. Professor Morfill tells me he has a Russian translation, Moscow, 1757. Among the few English books Boswell found in Paoli's library in Corsica was The Essay on Man. Boswell's Corsica, 1768, p. 297.

2 Warburton attacked Resnel and Crousaz. Resnel corrected Pope's irregularity of method. 'The French,' Warburton wrote, are not satisfied

with sentiments, however beautiful, unless they be methodically disposed.' Warburton, iii. 167. Resnel's translation, abounding in absurdities,' Crousaz used in writing his Commentary. Ib. p. 17. Pope's lines (i. 277) :—

'As full, as perfect in vile Man that

mourns,

As the rapt Seraph that adores and burns'

are translated :-
'Dans un homme ignoré, sous une
humble chaumière,

Que dans le Séraphin, rayonnant
de lumière.'

On this Crousaz remarked:-'For all that, we sometimes find in persons of the lowest rank a fund of probity and resignation which preserves them from contempt.' Ib. p. 37. See also Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), ii. 494, 502, v. 327.

Johnson, in 1743, wrote a shortletter on the controversy to The Gentleman's Magazine, the first five paragraphs of which appeared in March, and the last eight in November. Works, v. 202; Boswell's Johnson, i. 157 n. See also ib. i. 137. For Resnel see ante, GARTH, 17; POPE, 43.

of Logick and his Examen de Pyrrhonisme1, and, however little known or regarded here, was no mean antagonist. His mind was one of those in which philosophy and piety are happily united. He was accustomed to argument and disquisition, and perhaps was grown too desirous of detecting faults; but his intentions were always right, his opinions were solid, and his religion pure.

His incessant vigilance for the promotion of piety disposed 183 him to look with distrust upon all metaphysical systems of Theology, and all schemes of virtue and happiness purely rational, and therefore it was not long before he was persuaded that the positions of Pope, as they terminated for the most part in natural religion, were intended to draw mankind away from revelation, and to represent the whole course of things as a necessary concatenation of indissoluble fatality; and it is undeniable that in many passages a religious eye may easily discover expressions not very favourable to morals or to liberty2.

About this time Warburton began to make his appearance in 184 the first ranks of learning. He was a man of vigorous faculties, a mind fervid and vehement, supplied by incessant and unlimited enquiry, with wonderful extent and variety of knowledge, which yet had not oppressed his imagination nor clouded his perspicacity 3. To every work he brought a memory full fraught,

''The first text of my philosophical studies, the book which taught me the use and conduct of my understanding, was the Logic of Mr. de Crousaz, a native and Professor of Lausanne, who died about five years before my arrival. His reputation is already faded ; but his moderate and methodical writings were useful in their day to form the reason, the taste, and even the style of his countrymen; and he rescued the clergy of the Pays de Vaud from the heavy and intolerant yoke of the theology of Calvin.' GIBBON, Autobiographies, 1896, p. 234. See also ib. p. 135, and Gibbon's Memoirs, pp. 87, 96.

2 That Young saw nothing against religion in the poem is shown by his allusion to Pope and the Essay on Man at the end of the first canto of his Night Thoughts:

'Oh had he press'd his theme, pursued the track ·

together with a fancy fertile of original combinations, and at once exerted the powers of the scholar, the reasoner, and the wit. But his knowledge was too multifarious to be always exact, and his pursuits were too eager to be always cautious. His abilities gave him an haughty confidence which he disdained to conceal or mollify, and his impatience of opposition disposed him to treat his adversaries with such contemptuous superiority as made his readers commonly his enemies, and excited against the advocate the wishes of some who favoured the cause. He seems to have adopted the Roman Emperor's determination, 'oderint dum metuant'; he used no allurements of gentle language, but wished to compel rather than persuade2.

185 His style is copious without selection, and forcible without neatness; he took the words that presented themselves: his diction is coarse and impure, and his sentences are unmeasured. 186 He had, in the early part of his life, pleased himself with the notice of inferior wits and corresponded with the enemies of Pope. A letter was produced, when he had perhaps himself forgotten it, in which he tells Concanen 3, 'Dryden I observe borrows for want of leisure, and Pope for want of genius; Milton out of pride, and Addison out of modesty.' And when Theobald published

miserable scribblers can be supposed to ruffle. Of all that gross Beotian phalanx who have written scurrilously against me I know not so much as One whom a writer of reputation would not wish to have his enemy, or whom a man of honour would not be ashamed to own for his friend.'

3 For Matthew Concanen see Nichols's Lit. Hist. ii. 189. For Warburton's letter see ib. p. 195; post, AKENSIDE, 6 n. See also The Dunciad, ii. 299.

For Warburton's assistance to Theobald see his correspondence in Nichols's Lit. Hist. ii. 189-647, 741 n.

Cibber, writing to Warburton about the change of the hero of The Dunciad (post, POPE, 237), speaks of 'your willingness to redeem your old ally Mr. Tibbald from his dishonour.' Letter to Mr. Pope, 1744, p. 28.

4 In the first edition:-'he tells Concanen that Milton borrowed by affectation, Dryden by idleness, and Pope by necessity.'

Shakespeare, in opposition to Pope, the best notes were supplied by Warburton'.

But the time was now come when Warburton was to change 187 his opinion, and Pope was to find a defender in him who had contributed so much to the exaltation of his rival.

The arrogance of Warburton excited against him every artifice 188 of offence, and therefore it may be supposed that his union with Pope was censured as hypocritical inconstancy; but surely to think differently at different times of poetical merit may be easily allowed 3. Such opinions are often admitted and dismissed without nice examination. Who is there that has not found reason for changing his mind about questions of greater importance*?

Warburton, whatever was his motive, undertook without 189 solicitation to rescue Pope from the talons of Crousaz by freeing him from the imputation of favouring fatality or rejecting revela

1

Theobald, in his Preface, 1733, p. 66, says: I owe no small part of my best criticisms to him.'

Warburton,' said Johnson, 'by extending his abuse rendered it ineffectual. Boswell's Johnson, v. 93.

Hume, in 1771, described 'Warburton and all his gang' as 'the most scurrilous, arrogant and impudent fellows in the world.' Letters to Strahan, p. 200.

'The real merit of Warburton,' wrote Gibbon, 'was degraded by the pride and presumption with which he pronounced his infallible decrees.' Gibbon's Autos, p. 281.

Voltaire called him 'un pédant bavard et insolent.' Euvres, xl. 331. Bolingbroke wrote to him in A Familiar Epistle, &c. (post, POPE, 253): Contempt will be your security, and you will have no reply to apprehend from any man who would not dispute with a common scold, nor wrestle with a chimney-sweeper.' p. 15.

Churchill (Poems, ed. 1766, ii. 79) says of him:

'And was so proud, that should he

meet

The twelve Apostles in the street,
He'd turn his nose up at them all,
And shove his Saviour from the
wall.'

3 Dodsley was present when Pope

and Warburton first met in Lord Rad-
nor's garden at Twickenham. 'He
told me,' writes Warton, 'that he was
astonished at the high compliments
paid Warburton by Pope.' Warton,
ix. 311. Hawkins's account of their
meeting accidentally 'at the book-
seller's shop at the corner of Inner
Temple Lane' (Johnson's Works,
1787, iv. 68) must be inaccurate.
Warton quotes a passage from Bishop
Law's Origin of Evil, where Law
says that Warburton once held the
doctrine of the Essay on Man to be
rank "atheism."" Warton, iii. 158.
Mr. Elwin justly condemns Warbur-
ton as insincere. I notice, however,
that in vol. ii. p. 286, quoting Warton's
Pope's Works, Preface, p. 33, he
gives as a fact that which Warton

6

mentions as an assertion.

For the little suspicion Johnson appeared to have of hypocrisy in religion' see Boswell's Johnson, i. 418 n.

4 For Hurd's defence of Warburton see Warburton's Works, 1811, i. 23.

5 JOHNSON. He was first an antagonist to Pope...; but seeing him the rising man, when Crousaz attacked his Essay on Man, for some faults which it has and some which it has not, he defended it in the Review of that time.' Boswell's Johnson, v. 80.

tion, and from month to month continued a vindication of the Essay on Man in the literary journal of that time, called The Republick of Letters1.

190 Pope, who probably began to doubt the tendency of his own

work, was glad that the positions of which he perceived himself not to know the full meaning could by any mode of interpretation be made to mean well. How much he was pleased with his gratuitous defender the following Letter evidently shews::

'SIR,

'March 24, 17432.

'I have just received from Mr. R.3 two more of your Letters. It is in the greatest hurry imaginable that I write this, but I cannot help thanking you in particular for your third Letter, which is so extremely clear, short, and full, that I think Mr. Crousaz ought never to have another answer, and deserved not so good an one. I can only say you do him too much honour and me too much right, so odd as the expression seems; for you have made my system as clear as I ought to have done, and could not. It is indeed the same system as mine, but illustrated with a ray of your own, as they say our natural body is the same still when it is glorified. I am sure I like it better than I did before, and so will every man else. I know I meant just what you explain, but I did not explain my own meaning so well as you. You understand me as well as I do myself, but you express me better than I could express myself. Pray accept the sincerest acknowledgements. I cannot but wish these Letters were put together in one Book 5, and intend (with your leave) to procure a translation of part at least of all of them into French, but I shall not proceed a step without your consent and opinion, &c.'

191 By this fond and eager acceptance of an exculpatory comment

• The vindication is in The Works of the Learned, iv. 425, v. 56, 89, 159, 330; N. & Q. 2 S. iv. 407. Warburton's first letter appeared in Dec. 1738. The Present State of the Republick of Letters had come to an end in 1736. Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), ii. 266.

2 In Johnson's Works, ed. 1825, viii. 289, the date is given as 1732. In the original MS. the year is not given. It should be 1739. Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), ix. 203.

3 Jacob Robinson, a bookseller near the Inner Temple Gate in Fleet Street, and publisher of The Works of the Learned. Nichols's Lit. Anec. v. 552. It was at his shop, writes Hawkins

(Life of Johnson, p. 69), that the friendship of Pope and Warburton commenced. See ante, POPE, 188n. 3. 4 Warton (ix. 302) quotes Cowley's Lines to Sir W. Davenant (Eng. Poets, vii. 141):—

'So will our God re-build man's perish'd frame,

And raise him up much better, yet the same.'

5 This was done in 1740, when the five letters were expanded into six. A seventh letter was added in a subsequent edition, and the whole was re-arranged in four letters in the edition of 1742.' Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), ii. 266. See Warburton's Works, 1811, xi. 13.