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CHAPTER XIV.
A DIDACTIC POEM.
"The 'Essay on Man' of Pope," says Voltaire, "appears to me the finest didactic poem, the most useful, the most sublime that has ever appeared in any language." It is probable that his high opinion of Pope's work, and the admiration he expressed for the writings of Boileau, inspired him with the wish to rival their success. What he respected so much in Pope's poem could scarcely have been its philosophy, though it contains much that harmonises with his own views in support of natural religion. Nobody can ever have been convinced or consoled by a homily which, addressing an imaginary opponent as "Presumptuous Man!" and the preacher's fellow-man as "Vile worm!" comforts the miserable with the assurance that their sufferings are part of a general scheme of perfect benevolence, and, with complacent superiority, rebukes the foolish for not being wise, and the unfortunate for not being happy. The task of explaining "the riddle of the painful earth" has been always too hard for philosophy; and such questions as that of free-will, of the balance of happiness, of the rela-
