of my imitating some others of the Satires and Epistles." The two
dialogues finally used as the Epilogue to the Satires were first published
in the year 1738, with the name of the year, "Seventeen Hundred and
Thirty-eight." Samuel Johnson's "London," his first bid for recognition,
appeared in the same week, and excited in Pope not admiration only, but
some active endeavour to be useful to its author.

The reader of Pope, as of every author, is advised to begin by letting him
say what he has to say, in his own manner to an open mind that seeks only
to receive the impressions which the writer wishes to convey. First let
the mind and spirit of the writer come into free, full contact with the
mind and spirit of the reader, whose attitude at the first reading should
be simply receptive. Such reading is the condition precedent to all true
judgment of a writer's work. All criticism that is not so grounded spreads
as fog over a poet's page. Read, reader, for yourself, without once
pausing to remember what you have been told to think. H.M.


POPE'S POEMS.



AN ESSAY ON MAN.
TO H. ST. JOHN LORD BOLINGBROKE.



THE DESIGN.

Having proposed to write some pieces of Human Life and Manners, such as (to