'In vain, in vain,--the all-composing Hour Resistless falls; the Muse obeys the Power. She comes! she comes! the sable Throne behold, Of Night primæval and of Chaos old! Before her Fancy's gilded clouds decay, And all its varying rainbows die away. Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires, The meteor drops, and in a flash expires, As one by one at dread Medea's strain, The sickening stars fade off the etherial plain; As Argus' eyes by Hermes' wand opprest, Closed one by one to everlasting rest; Thus at her felt approach and secret might, Art after Art goes out, and all is Night. See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled, Mountains of Casuistry heaped o'er her head! Philosophy that leaned on Heaven before, Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more; Physic of Metaphysic begs defence, And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense! See Mystery to Mathematics fly! In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die. Religion blushing veils her sacred fires, And unawares Morality expires. Nor public Flame, nor private, dares to shine; Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine! Lo! thy dread Empire, Chaos! is restored; Light dies before thy uncreating word; Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall; And universal Darkness buries All.' The publication of the _Dunciad_ showed Pope where his main strength as a poet lay. That the writers he had attacked, in many instances without provocation, should resent the ungrateful notoriety conferred upon them was inevitable. In self-defence, and to add to the provocation already given, he started a paper called the _Grub Street Journal_, which existed for eight years--Pope, who had no scruple in 'hazarding a lie,' denying all the time that he had any connection with it. His next work of significance, _The Essay on Man_, a professedly philosophical poem by an author who knew little of philosophy, was published in four epistles, in 1733-4. Bolingbroke's brilliant, versatile, and shallow intellect had strongly impressed Swift, and had also fascinated Pope. It has been commonly supposed that the _Essay_ owes its existence to his suggestion and guidance. The poet believed in his philosophy, and had the loftiest estimate of his genius. In the last and perhaps finest passage of the poem he calls Bolingbroke the 'master of the poet and the song,' and draws a picture of the ambitious statesman as beautiful as it is false. In Mark Pattison's Introduction to _The Essay on Man_,[21] which every student of Pope will read, he objects to the notion that the poet took the scheme of his work from Bolingbroke, observing that both derived their views from a common source.