with the enemies of Pope. A letter was produced, when he had
perhaps himself forgotten it, in which he tells Concanen, "Dryden, I
observe, borrows for want of leisure, and Pope for want of genius,
Milton out of pride, and Addison out of modesty." And when Theobald
published Shakespeare, in opposition to Pope, the best notes were
supplied by Warburton. But the time was now come when Warburton was
to change his opinion, and Pope was to find a defender in him who
had contributed so much to the exaltation of his rival.

The arrogance of Warburton excited against him every artifice of
offence, and therefore it may be supposed that his union with Pope
was censured as hypocritical inconstancy, but surely to think
differently at different times of poetical merit may be easily
allowed. Such opinions are often admitted, and dismissed without
nice examination. Who is there that has not found reason for
changing his mind about questions of greater importance?

Warburton, whatever was his motive, undertook, without solicitation,
to rescue Pope from the talons of Crousaz, by freeing him from the
imputation of favouring fatality or rejecting revelation; and from
month to month continued a vindication of the "Essay on Man," in the
literary journal of that time called the "Republic of Letters."

Pope, who probably began to doubt the tendency of his own work, was
glad that the positions, of which he perceived himself not to know
the full meaning, could by any mode of interpretation be made to
mean well. How much he was pleased with his gratuitous defender the
following letter evidently shows:-