year it ran through three editions: it now forms the fourth of the Moral Essays. Against certain passages of this piece the enemies of the poet excited a violent outcry, declaring that "Timon's Villa" was intended to represent Cannons, the seat of the Duke of Chandos, and that Pope had basely satirized a nobleman, who had treated him with hospitality, and had even presented him with five hundred pounds. Pope not only publicly denied the charge of having alluded to his Grace in the character of Timon, but also wrote an exculpatory letter to the Duke, who replied that "he took the application that had been made of it as a sign of the malice of the town against himself." There is reason to believe, however, that the Duke was not perfectly convinced of the poet's innocence. To the falsehood of his having received a sum of money Pope gave a decided contradiction.

Of the Use of Riches, an epistle addressed to Lord Bathurst, was published in 1732. Pope afterwards converted it into a Dialogue between himself and that nobleman, in which shape we now find it as the third of the Moral Essays.

The first Epistle of the Essay on Man (a work which Pope had revolved in his mind as far back as 1725) also made its appearance in 1732, without the writer's name, Lord Bolingbroke, to whom it was addressed, being termed, in the opening line," my Lælius." The second Epistle followed in the same year. Pope, it is said, was induced

to put forth the poem anonymously, that he might obtain the impartial judgment of the wits and critics, who were not likely to show any mercy to an acknowledged production of the author of The Dunciad: when once they had spoken favourably of the Essay, they could not afterwards retract their approbation. He amused himself by endeavouring to elicit remarks on the piece from those friends who were ignorant that it proceeded from his pen; and by inciting those who were in the secret, to proclaim the excellence of the new poet, and to hint the danger in which Pope was placed by such a formidable rival. It was ascribed to various persons, and passed through several editions before the real author was known.

It has been asserted that the Essay on Man was in substance the work of Bolingbroke; that his Lordship supplied the materials in prose, and that Pope turned them into verse. The subject has been carefully examined by Mr. Roscoe, who, from a comparison of dates and contemporary documents has, I think, satisfactorily shewn, 1 1. That the Essay on Man was begun, and a great part of it completed, several years before Lord Bolingbroke had commenced to write on the subject. 2. That Lord Bolingbroke continued to write his philosophical work long after Pope had published his Essay. 3. That his Lordship has himself explicitly stated, that the Poem of Pope was an original, and not imitated

1 Roscoe's Life of Pope, p. 394, et seq.

from any other author. 4. That the occasional resemblances that are found between these works may, therefore, rather be considered as imitations of Pope by Lord Bolingbroke, than as imitations of his Lordship by Pope.

In 1732, Pope had to lament the death of the amiable Gay, one of the friends whom he most sincerely loved; and to increase his sorrow, he now beheld his aged mother sinking into the grave by a gradual decay. To Martha Blount he writes thus:

"Nov. 1732.

"YOUR letter dated at nine a clock on Tuesday (night, I suppose) has sunk me quite. Yesterday I hoped; and yesterday I sent you a line or two for our poor friend Gay, inclosed in a few words to you; about twelve or one o'clock you should have had it. I am troubled about that, though the present cause of our trouble be so much greater.1 Indeed I want a friend, to help me to bear it better. We want each other.

Let us comfort one another, and, if possible, study to add as much more friendship to each other, as death has deprived us of in' him: I promise you more and more of mine, which will be the way to deserve more and more of yours. I purposely avoid saying more. The subject is

1“ Mr. Gay's death, which happened in Nov. 1732, at the Duke of Queensbury's house in London, aged 46. Pope." -But in a letter to Swift, written this year on the 5th of December, Pope says, Gay "died last night."