Churchman--another the greatest poet of his age--the third, the most accomplished statesman of his country. Although they were united in religious conviction, it would have been certain ruin to any of the confederates if the extent of their thoughts had reached the public ear. The Dean wrote for the present--the poet for his age--and the peer for the immediate benefit of his friends and a record for the future. But they were all agreed that some code of ethics should be promulgated, which should embody the positive speculations of Bolingbroke, with the easy grace of Pope--the elaborate research of the philosopher with the rhetoric of the poet. Swift coalesced in this idea, but was, to a certain extent, ignorant of its subsequent history. It was not thought prudent to trust Mallet and others with the secret. For this purpose the "Essay of Man" was designed on the principles elaborated by Bolingbroke in his private letters to Pope. It was Bolingbroke who drew up the scheme, mapped out the arguments, and sketched the similes--it was Pope who embellished its beauties, and turned it into rhyme. Doctor Warton, the editor of Pope, also proves this:--"Lord Bathurst told the Doctor that he had read the whole of the 'Essay on Man' in _the handwriting of Bolingbroke_, and drawn up in a series of propositions which Pope was to amplify, versify, and to illustrate." If further proofs are required, that Bolingbroke was not only a co-partner but coadjutor with Pope, it is found in the opening of the poem, where the poet uses the plural in speaking of Bolingbroke-- "Awake, my St. John, leave all meaner things To low ambition, and the pride of kings. Laugh when we must, be candid when you can, And vindicate the ways of God to man." * Cook's Life of Bolingbroke, 2nd vol., p. 97.. This is sufficient to prove the partnership in the poem, and from the generally acknowledged fact of his connection, we have no hesitation in declaring that this poem is the grand epic of Deism, and is as much the offspring of Bolingbroke, as his own ideas when enunciated by others. There is not a single argument in the Essay but what is much more elaborated in the works of Bolingbroke, while every positive argument is reduced to a few poetic maxims in the Essay. We may as well look here for Bolingbroke's creed, rather than amongst his prose works. There is, however, this difference, that in the Essay there is laid down an ethical scheme of positivism--_i.e._, of everything in morals which can be duly tested and nothing more: while in the prose writings of Bolingbroke, the negative side of theology is discussed with an amount of erudition which has never been surpassed by any of the great leaders of Freethought. The first proposition of the Essay is based on a postulate, upon which the whole reasoning is built. Overthrow this substratum, and the philosophy of the Essay is overturned--admit it, and its truth is evident; it is--