for if there was no plan it was in vain to describe or to trace the
maze.

The other alteration was of these lines:-


"And spike of pride, AND IN THY REASON'S SPITE,
One truths is clear, whatever is, is right:


but having afterwards discovered, or been shown, that the "truth"
which subsisted "in spite of reason" could not be very "clear," he
substituted


"And spite of pride IN ERRING REASON'S SPITE."


To such oversights will the most vigorous mind be liable when it is
employed at once upon argument and poetry.

The second and third epistles were published, and Pope was, I
believe, more and more suspected of writing them. At last, in 1734,
he avowed the fourth, and claimed the honour of a moral poet. In
the conclusion it is sufficiently acknowledged that the doctrine of
the "Essay on Man" was received from Bolingbroke, who is said to
have ridiculed Pope, among those who enjoyed his confidence, as
having adopted and advanced principles of which he did not perceive
the consequence, and as blindly propagating opinions contrary to his