satire for ever. He continued, on the contrary, as ill-natured as
before; and although he afterwards flew at higher game, the iron had
entered into his soul, and he remained a satirist, and therefore an
unhappy man, for life.

In 1731 appeared an "Epistle on Taste," which was very favourably
received; only his enemies accused him of having satirised the Duke of
Chandos in it,--a man who had befriended Pope, and had lent him money.
Pope denied the charge, although it is very possible, both from his own
temperament, and from the frequent occurrence of similar cases of
baseness in literary life, that it may have been true. Nothing is more
common than for those who have been most liberally helped, to become
first the secret, and then the open, enemies of their benefactors. In
1732 appeared his epistle on "The Use of Riches," addressed to Lord
Bathurst. These two epistles were afterwards incorporated in his "Moral
Essays."

As far back as 1725, Pope had been revolving the subject of the "Essay
on Man;" and, indeed, some of its couplets remind you of "pebbles which
had long been rolled over and polished in the ocean of his mind." It has
been asserted, but not proved, that Lord Bolingbroke gave him the
outline of this essay in prose. It is unquestionable, indeed, that
Bolingbroke exercised influence over Pope's mind, and may have suggested
some of the thoughts in the Essay; but it is not probable that a man
like Pope would have set himself on such a subject simply to translate
from another's mind. He published the first epistle of the Essay, in
1732, anonymously, as an experiment, and had the satisfaction to see it
successful. It was received with rapture, and passed through several
editions ere the author was known; although we must say that the value
of this reception is considerably lessened, when we remember that the