[1567] Warton remarks that this simile, which is copied from Chaucer, was used by Pope in two other places,—The Temple of Fame, ver. 436, and the Dunciad, ii. ver. 407.
[1568] Waller, Divine Love, Canto v.:
A love so unconfined
With arms extended would embrace mankind.
Self-love would cease, or be dilated, when
We should behold as many selfs as men.—Wakefield.
[1569] MS.:
To rise from individuals to the whole
Is the true progress of the god-like soul.
The first impression the soft passions make,
Like the small pebble in the limpid lake,
Begets a greater and a greater still,
The circle widening till the whole it fill;
Till God and man, and brute and reptile kind
All wake, all move, all agitate his mind;
Earth with his bounteous overflows is blessed;
Heav'n pleased beholds its image in his breast.
Parent or friend first touch the virtuous mind,
His country next, and next all human kind.
[1570] In the MS. thus:
And now transported o'er so vast a plain,
While the winged courser flies with all her rein,
While heav'n-ward now her mounting wing she feels,
Now scattered fools fly trembling from her heels,
Wilt thou, my St. John! keep her course in sight,
Confine her fury, and assist her flight?—Warburton.
The exaggerated estimate which Pope had formed of the Essay on Man is apparent from this passage. With respect to the poetry, "the winged courser flew with all her rein;" with respect to the argument, "scattered fools flew trembling" from its crushing power.
[1571] "Stoops to man's low passions or ascends to the glorious ends" for which those passions have been given.
[1572] "Did he rise with temper," asks the writer of A Letter to Mr. Pope, 1735, "when he drove furiously out of the kingdom the Duke of Marlborough? or did he fall with dignity when he fled from justice, and joined the Pretender?" Lord Hervey asserts, and many circumstances confirm his testimony, that Bolingbroke "was elate and insolent in power, dejected and servile in disgrace."