MINOR NOTES.
Quotations from Pope.
D***N**R. (p. 38.), gives, as an instance of misquotation, a passage from Pope, as it appeared in the Times, and adds a correction of it. As my memory suggested a version different from both that of the Times, and the correction of your correspondent, I turned to Pope (Bowles edition, 1806), and found the passage there, precisely as it is given from the Times. Has your correspondent any authority for his reading? No various reading of the lines is given by Bowles.
While on the subject of Pope, I will make a note (as I have not seen it noticed by his commentators), that the well-known line,
"The proper study of mankind is man,"
is literally from Charron (De la Sagesse, I. i. ch. 1.)—
"La vraye science et le vray etude de l'homme c'est l'homme."
F.F.B.
[We may add, that in the Aldine edition of Pope, which was produced under the editorial superintendence of the Rev. A. Dyce, the lines are given as quoted from the Times, and without any various reading. See vol. ii. p. 55.]