Alexander Pope: Selected Poetry and Prose

EPITAPH. ON MR ELIJAH FENTON.

AT EASTHAMSTEAD IN BERKS, 1730

He had been one of Pope’s collaborators in the translation of
the Odyssey.

EPITAPH. ON MR GAY. IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 1732

One of Pope’s closest friends.

from AN ESSAY ON MAN

The titles of each epistle were added by Pope to the edition of
the poem that appeared in his Works of 1735.

from the first epistle

The extracts are lines 1–16, 77–90, 189–206, and 267–80.

1 St John Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke (1678–
1751), a leader of the Tories and a political
philosopher whose thought influenced Pope. For
discussion of this extract, see Critical commentary, p.
235.
16 the ways of God to man an echo of Milton’s intention
to ‘assert eternal providence and justify the ways of
God to men’ (Paradise Lost, I, 25–6). Pope’s
variation ‘vindicate’ sets the tone of the Essay.
30 bubble The South Sea bubble burst in 1720.
41 effluvia streams of invisible particles by which it was
believed that odours communicated themselves to the
brain.
44 music of the spheres the ancient belief that in their
rotation the heavenly bodies make music.
60 seraph an angel of the highest order, from the Hebrew
‘to burn’.

from the second epistle

The extracts are lines 1–42 and 53–66.