Philemon Holland talks of "sincere vermillion," Arbuthnot of "sincere acid," and Hooker speaks of keeping the Scriptures "entire and sincere."
[1414] This was flattery. Bolingbroke was notoriously a prey to factious rancour, and the pangs of disappointed ambition.
[1415] Epicureans.—Pope.
[1416] Stoics.—Pope.
Pope's account of the epicureans is the exact opposite of the truth. He says they "placed bliss in action," whereas Seneca tells us, Benef. iv. 4: "Quæ maxima Epicure felicitas videtur, nihil agit." The poet's account of the stoics is equally wrong. Instead of placing "bliss in ease" they inculcated the sternest self-denial, and untiring efforts to fulfil all virtue.
[1417] Epicureans.—Pope.
[1418] Stoics.—Pope.
The true stoic did not, as Pope asserts, "confess virtue vain." He contended that it was all-sufficient. Till the edition of 1743 this couplet was as follows:
One grants his pleasure is but rest from pain;
One doubts of all; one owns ev'n virtue vain.
The two lines which conclude the paragraph, and which first appeared in the edition of 1743, were written at Warburton's suggestion. The object of the addition was to represent the credulous man who trusted everything as equally deceived with the sceptic who trusted in nothing. Of the last line there is a second version: