_. It was
altered from the original conception by the advice of Warburton, who
cared more for the argument of a poem than for its poetry. The thought
and purpose of the _Essay_ are defective, notwithstanding Warburton's
effort to clear them, but these defects are of slight moment when
compared with the brilliant passages with which the poem is studded.
Among them is the famous description of the Duke of Buckingham's
death-bed which should be compared with Dryden's equally famous lines
on the same nobleman's character.

'In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half-hung,
The floors of plaster, and the walls of dung,
On once a flock-heel, but repaired with straw,
With tape-tied curtains never meant to draw,
The George and Garter dangling from that bed
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red,
Great Villiers lies--alas! how changed from him,
That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim!
Gallant and gay, in Cliveden's proud alcove,
The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love;
Or just as gay at council, in a ring
Of mimic statesmen and their merry King.
No wit to flatter left of all his store!
No fool to laugh at, which he valued more.
There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends,
And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends.'

There is also a covert attack in this Epistle upon the moneyed interest
represented by Walpole, and on the political corruption which he
sanctioned and promoted. Yet Pope knew how to praise the great Whig
statesman for his social qualities:

'Seen him I have, but in his happier hour
Of social pleasure, ill exchanged for power;
Seen him uncumbered with the venal tribe,
Smile without art and win without a bribe.'

Epistle IV. pursues the same subject as the third, and deals mainly with
false taste in the expenditure of wealth, and with the necessity of
following 'sense, of every art the soul.' In this poem there is the
far-famed description of Timon's Villa, and by Timon Pope was accused of
representing the Duke of Chandos, whose estate at Canons he is supposed
to have held in scorn after having been, as he acknowledges,
'distinguished' by its master. That would not have deterred Pope from
producing a brilliant picture, and his equivocations did but serve to
increase suspicion. Probably he found it convenient to use some features
of what he may have seen at Canons while composing a general sketch with
no special