Bolingbroke persuaded Pope to versify portions of the philosophy he admired so extravagantly.[739] A large scheme was drawn up, the outline of which Pope repeated to Spence. "The first book, you know, of my ethic work is on the Nature of Man. The second would have been on knowledge and its limits. Here would have come in an essay on education, part of which I have inserted in the Dunciad. The third was to have treated of government, both ecclesiastical and civil. The fourth would have been on morality in eight or nine of the most concerning branches of it, four of which would have been the two extremes to each of the cardinal virtues."[740] These four cardinal virtues,—justice, temperance, prudence, and fortitude—would alone have required twelve epistles, since every virtue was to be treated on the Aristotelian plan, and divided into rational medium, deficiency, and excess. The cardinal virtues were either to be again subdivided, or else supplemented by subordinate virtues, and all were to be presented under the triple form. "Each class," said Pope, speaking of the "eight or nine most concerning branches" of morality, "may take up three epistles: one, for instance, against Avarice; another against Prodigality: and the third on the moderate use of Riches, and so of the rest."[741] A short trial convinced Pope that the scheme was too vast for a slow composer. When the first book, which forms the Essay on Man, was completed, he told Spence that "he had drawn in the plan much narrower than it was at first," and he attached to some copies of the Essay, which he circulated among his particular friends, a table of this diminished frame-work.
"INDEX TO THE ETHIC EPISTLES.
Book I.— Of the Nature and State of Man.
| Epistle | 1.—With respect to the Universe. |
| " | 2.—As an Individual. |
| " | 3.—With respect to Society. |
| " | 4.—With respect to Happiness. |
Book II. —Of the Use of Things.
Of the Limits of Human Reason.
Of the Use of Learning.
Of the Use of Wit.
Of the Knowledge and Characters of Men.
Of the Particular Characters of Women.
Of the Principles and Use of Civil and Ecclesiastical Polity.
Of the Use of Education.
A View of the Equality of Happiness in the several Conditions of Men.
Of the Use of Riches." [742]
The cardinal virtues, with nearly all "the most concerning branches of morality," were omitted from the abbreviated plan, which was still too large for Pope's patience, and he left much of the work unexecuted.
He commenced with some of the topics enumerated in the second book of his "index." "Bid Pope talk to you of the work he is about," wrote Bolingbroke to Swift, Nov. 19, 1729. "It is a fine one, and will be, in his hands, an original. His sole complaint is that he finds it too easy in the execution. This flatters his laziness. It flatters my judgment who always thought that, universal as his talents are, this is eminently and peculiarly his above all the writers I know, living or dead. I do not except Horace." "The work," adds Pope, "which Lord Bolingbroke speaks of with such abundant partiality is a system of ethics in the Horatian way." Bolingbroke's comparison of the work to Horace, and Pope's phrase "the Horatian way," show that they spoke of the Moral Essays, which, with the Essay on Man, were at first included under the general title of Ethic Epistles. The resemblance to Horace would not apply to the Essay on Man in substance or style,—not in style, for Pope says himself that the Essay was modelled on "the grave march of Lucretius" in contradistinction to the familiar "gaieties of Horace,"[743]; not in substance, for Horace did not write a philosophical poem on natural religion, nor could he have been placed by Bolingbroke at the head of a class of philosophical poets to which he in no way belonged. Neither could Bolingbroke have said of Pope that "the talent eminently and peculiarly his, above all writers living or dead," was the power of sounding the depths of philosophy. The praise was intended for the satiric sketches of men and manners which make up the Moral Essays. These are truly in the "Horatian way," and in a vein characteristic of the bent of Pope's mind.
Bolingbroke furnished little or nothing to the Horatian epistles. His services commenced with the Essay on Man. Pope was revolving this part of the scheme in May, 1730, when he said to Spence, "The first epistle is to be to the whole work what a scale is to a book of maps; and in this, I reckon, lies my greatest difficulty: not only in settling and ranging the parts of it aright, but in making them agreeable enough to be read with pleasure."[744] A few months later Bolingbroke writes to Lord Bathurst, Oct. 8, 1730, that he and Pope "are at present deep in metaphysics." The matter intended for the first epistle was expanded into four epistles as the work proceeded, and in August, 1731, Bolingbroke announced to Swift that three of them were completed, and that the fourth was in hand. Eighteen months more elapsed before any portion of the poem was published; and Pope doubtless spent the interval in repeated revisions. It was not his habit to go straight forward in regular order, and leave no gaps or flaws as he went along. When he told Caryll in December, 1730, that he was "writing on life and manners, not exclusive of religious regards," he adds, "I have many fragments which I am beginning to put together, but nothing perfect or finished, nor in any condition to be shown, except to a friend at a fire-side." This system of composing disjointed fragments, and methodising them afterwards, was unfavourable to continuity and comprehension of thought, and did not help to diminish the want of connection in his arguments, and of consistency in his opinions.
The project of the Essay on Man was kept a secret from all but a few of Pope's friends. To others he only spoke of his ethic epistles in the "Horatian way." Caryll, on hearing from him that he had taken to religion and morals, recommended Pascal's Thoughts, and Pope answered, Feb. 6, 1731, "I have been [beforehand] with you in it, but he will be of little use to my design, which is rather to ridicule ill men than to preach to them. I fear our age is past all other correction." The Essay on Man was then in full progress, and Pope sent a false report that the style and tenor of the work might not betray him when it was published. The first epistle appeared anonymously in February, 1733, and to divert suspicion, the poet put forth in January, with his name, his Epistle on the Use of Riches, and a week or two afterwards one of his Imitations of Horace. He had a subtler contrivance for misleading the public. He made "lane" rhyme to "name" in his second epistle, and told Harte the bad rhyme was a disguise to escape detection. "Harte remembered," says Warton, "to have often heard it urged in enquiries about the author, whilst he was unknown, that it was impossible it could be Pope's on account of this very passage."[745] Along with "lane" and "name," the first and second epistles contained the rhymes which follow: "here, refer—pierce, universe,—above, Jove—plain, man—fault, ought—food, blood—home, come—abodes, gods—appears, bears—alone, none—race, grass—flood, wood—want, elephant—join, line—alone, one—mourns, burns—sphere, bear—rest, beast—sphere, fair—boast, frost—road, God—preferred, guard—tossed, coast—joined, mind—caprice, vice." There must have been some strange peculiarity in the ears of a generation which could be revolted by "lane" and "name," and welcome such rhymes as these. The anecdote cannot be correct. A liberal admixture of faulty rhymes is a common characteristic of Pope, and the disguise would have been greater if all the rhymes had been good.[746]