AN ESSAY ON MAN.
MORAL ESSAYS AND SATIRES
BY
ALEXANDER POPE.
CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:
_LONDON_, _PARIS & MELBOURNE_.
1891.
INTRODUCTION.
Pope's life as a writer falls into three periods, answering fairly enough
to the three reigns in which he worked. Under Queen Anne he was an
original poet, but made little money by his verses; under George I. he
was chiefly a translator, and made much money by satisfying the French-
classical taste with versions of the "Iliad" and "Odyssey." Under George
I. he also edited Shakespeare, but with little profit to himself; for
Shakespeare was but a Philistine in the eyes of the French-classical
critics. But as the eighteenth century grew slowly to its work, signs of
a deepening interest in the real issues of life distracted men's
attention from the culture of the snuff-box and the fan. As Pope's
genius ripened, the best part of the world in which he worked was
pressing forward, as a mariner who will no longer hug the coas
