In 1725, our author was associated with Swift and Ar buthnot, in the publication of a volume of miscellanies, chiefly of a humorous kind. In this work he inserted a treatise on the Bathos, or art of sinking, in which he illus trated his ironical precepts by examples, and gave a classi fication of bad poets. As various living authors were dis tinctly ridiculed in this work, he created by it a herd of enemies, who attacked him by a species of abuse, which though pushed beyond its salutary limits, could not be considered as altogether unmerited.
The war in which he was thus plunged by the inferior wits of the day, seems to have induced him to compose his Dunciad, which appeared in 172S, with notes by Swift, under the name of Scriblcrns; the object of which was to overwhelm all his antagonists with ridicule. Many of the individuals thus brought into notice would have sunk into the oblivion which time soon provides for slender and pi e suming intellects, but the enmity of their great antagonist has raised them to a species of immortality, to which they were scarcely entitled. Although this work is often stain ed with coarse invective and offensive raillery, yet it seems to have been composed and polished with a de gree of care that is not suited to a piece of personal and temporary satire. Even Cibber, who is the hero of the work, has declared that nothing of its kind was ever more perfect.
Bishop A tterbury is said to have encouraged our author in the exercise of this dangerous habit ; and it seems to have been so congenial to his disposition, that lie was unable to restrain himself from introducing it, even when he could not plead the apology of a provocation.
In an _Epistle on Taste, printed in 1731, Ile is supposed to have ridiculed, tinder the name of Timon, the Duke of Chandos, to whom he had been indebted for many acts of kindness; and though he exerted himself in an attempt to repel this accusation, yet the public held him guilty, and did not abate the indignation with which they had visited him previous to his defence.
Some time before the appearance of his Dunciad, our author had nearly lost his life when returning home in the chariot of a friend. In approaching a bridge, the car riage was overturned and thrown into the river. Being unable to break the glasses, which were up, lie would in fallibly have been drowned had not the postillion broke them, and dragged the poet in safety to the bank. He'
was, however, so severely cut in the hand, that he never recovered the use of two of his fingers.
Having displayed in the Dunciad the highest species of talent, Lord Bolingbroke urged him to direct his attention to moral subjects, for which his peculiar powers seemed to be so admirably adapted. Lord Bolingbroke is said to have furnished him with the materials; and, in 1729, he was fairly engaged in his Essay on Man. Bolingbroke, in a letter to Swift, tells him, that Pope's only complaint against the subject is, that he finds it too easy in the exe cution ' • and Pope, in writing to Swift, remarks, that the work of which Lord Bolingbroke has spoken with so much partiality is a system of ethics in the Horatian way. This work, which may be placed at the head of ethical poems, exhibits a most singular faculty for reasoning under the shackles of verse, and is distinguished by the energetic brevity of its style, by the condensation of its sentiments and ideas, and by the exuberant beauty of its poetry.
The success which attended his productions, seems to have induced him to publish his " Imitations of Horace," his " Moral Epistles and Essays," and other works of a moral and satirical cast.
So early as the year 1727, some juvenile letters from Pope to a Mr. Cromwell, " a pedant and a beau," who had been one of his early friends, were surreptitiously published ; and some years afterwards, Curl the book seller, published another collection of letters, put secretly into his hands, that had passed between Pope and several of his friends. Though Pope virtually denied all con nexion with this work, and carried his anger to such an apparent height as to have Curl summoned before the House of Lords for a breach of privilege, in publishing some letters from noblemen, in the collection ; yet pos terity seems to have fixed upon him the odium of contriv ing the whole plan in order to obtain some plausible reason for publishing a new edition. This edition accordingly appeared in 1757, in quarto, by subscription ; and the work has been always deemed a great acquisition to our epistolatory literature.