aste
of that weak and vain critic, who, when Pope published anonymously
"The Essay on Man," being asked if anything new had appeared, replied
that he had looked over a thing called an "Essay on Man," but,
discovering the utter want of skill and knowledge in the author, had
thrown it aside. Pope mortified him by confiding to him the secret.

"The Apollo Vision" was a stinging anecdote, and it came from
Warburton either directly or indirectly. This was followed up by
"A Letter to the Editor of the Letters on the Spirit of Patriotism,
the Idea of a Patriot King," &c., a dignified remonstrance of
Warburton himself; but "The Impostor Detected and Convicted, or the
Principles and Practices of the Author of the Spirit of Patriotism
(Lord Bolingbroke) set forth in a clear light, in a Letter to a
Member of Parliament in Town, from his Friend in the Country, 1749,"
is a remarkable production. Lord Bolingbroke is the impostor and
the concealed Jacobite. Time, the ablest critic on these party
productions, has verified the predictions of this seer. We discover
here, too, a literary fact, which is necessary to complete our
present history. It seems that there were omissions and corrections
in the edition Pope printed of "The Patriot King," which his caution
or his moderation prompted, and which such a political demagogue as
Bolingbroke never forgave. They are thus alluded to: "Lord B. may
remember" (from a conversation held, at which the writer appears
to have been present), "that a difference in opinion prevailed, and
a few points were urged by that gentleman (Pope) in opposition to some
particular tenets which related to the limitation of the English
monarchy, and to the ideal doctrine of a patriot king. These were Mr.
P.'s reasons for the emendations he made; and which, together with
the consideration that both their lives were at that time in a
declining state, was the true cause, and no other, of his care to
preserve those letters, by handing them to the press, with the
precaution mentioned by the author." Indeed the cry raised against
the _dead man_ by Bolingbroke and Mallet, was an artificial one:
that it should ever have tainted the honour of the bard, or that it
should ever have been excited by his "Philosopher and Friend," are
equally strange; it is possible that the malice of Mallet was more at
work than that of Bolingbroke, who suffered himself to be the dupe
of a man held in contempt by Pope, by Warburton, and by others