43. An | Essay | On | Man | Addreſs'd to a Friend. | Part I. | [Printer's ornament] London: | Printed for J. Wilford, at the Three Flower-de-luces, be- | hind the Chapter-Houſe, St. Pauls. | [Price One Shilling.]
The friend to whom, under the name of Lælius, the four Epistles that make up the Essay were addressed, was Henry Saint John, first Viscount Bolingbroke, the object of Pope's reverence, and the inspirer of much of his poetry. It seems to be agreed that Bolingbroke's philosophical fragments gave the "philosophical stamina" to this work also.
The first part appeared in February, the second, about April, 1733; they were undated and anonymous, for fear of charges against the author's orthodoxy. Pope went to considerable lengths to mislead the public in this matter, but, as Dr. Crowley says, the applause received "took off all the alarm which the writer might have felt at his new experiment in the marriage of metaphysics with immortal verse." "The design of concealing myself," said our author, "was good, and had its full effect. I was thought a divine, a philosopher and what not? and my doctrine had a sanction I could not have given to it."
In "Epistle II," as the second part is called on the title-page, there is a note "To the Reader" which says: "The Author has been induced to publiſh theſe Epiſtles ſeparately for two Reaſons; The one, that he might not impoſe upon the Publick too much at once of what he thinks incorrect; The other, that by this Method he might profit of its Judgement on the Parts, in order to make the Whole leſs unworthy of it." At the end of "Epistle III," which came out the same year, is a note as follows: "N. B. The Reſt of this Work will be publiſhed the next Winter." And at the end of the fourth Epistle, issued about the middle of January, 1734: "Lately Publiſhed the three former Parts of An Essay on Man. In Epiſtles to a Friend. Sold by J. Wilford at the Three Flower-de-Luces, behind the Chapter-Houſe in St. Paul's Church-yard."
All four parts were issued in octavo and quarto, as well as in folio. The quarto edition bears the dates of publication. A second edition of the first part, called "Epistle I, corrected by the Author," contained a table of contents to the first three Epistles. The fourth Epistle was originally issued with such a table called, "The Contents, Of the Nature and State of Man, with reſpect to Happiness."
Pope intrusted the publication of the book to John Wilford, who was afterward summoned before the House of Lords for breach of privilege in publishing, with the bookseller, Edmund Curll, the names of the titled correspondents in the advertisement to the quasi-unauthorized Letters. Pope made the change from Bernard Lintot, his usual publisher, to Wilford in order to conceal his identity the more completely, and to add to the mystery of authorship.
The volume is handsome in appearance: it is ornamented with initial letters, and woodcut and type-metal head- and tail-pieces.
Folio.
Collation: 19 pp., 1 l., 18, 20 pp., 2 ll., 18 pp., 1 l.