Dodsley, the bookseller, was present at the first interview between Pope and Warburton, and was astonished at the compliments the poet paid to his commentator.[794] There was no occasion for astonishment. Pope's despiser had turned idolater, "the gentlemen of the Dunciad" had lost their ablest ally, the thrust of Crousaz had been parried, and the champion was the dreaded man who was expected to be a fatal foe. The sensitive novice in philosophy, who was incompetent to fight, and could not endure defeat, was relieved from future as well as present fears. He would not henceforward be answerable to theological and metaphysical assailants. Warburton had assumed the responsibility of the poem, and his irascible, pugnacious vanity was a pledge that he would defend his certificate of orthodoxy with his usual violence, disdain, and ability. The relief to the mind of the anxious poet was immense, and fully explains his headlong gratitude. He immediately renounced his deistical interpretation of the Essay, and adopted all the views of his thundering advocate. "I know I meant just what you explain," wrote the obsequious poet, April 11, 1739, "but I did not explain my own meaning as well as you." He was too eager to live under Warburton's protection to retain a particle of independence. No matter how incredible might be the interpretations which his commentator often fathered upon him, he hastened to accept every one of them without reserve. The public were not deluded, and a letter of Dr. Middleton to Warburton, Jan. 7, 1740, is a fair specimen, expressed in friendly terms, of the common opinion. "You have evinced the orthodoxy of Mr. Pope's principles, but, like the old commentators on his Homer, will be thought, perhaps, in some places to have provided a meaning for him that he himself never dreamed of. However, if you did not find him a philosopher, you will make him one, for he will be wise enough to take the benefit of your reading, and make his future essays more clear and consistent." Pope's moral laxity was not the only cause of the facility with which he changed his creed. The shallowness of his convictions had a share in the event. He had no real insight into theology, natural or revealed. He rejected christianity because his associates sneered at it, and because the age was irreligious. Ignorant of the right road, he was sometimes persuaded that all roads led to a common goal, or he adopted the road which was pointed out to him by his guides. The Essay on Man would never have been written unless Bolingbroke had dictated the subject, and supplied the materials, and Pope was subdued by his dogmatism rather than enlightened by his arguments. The speculations the poet versified had not proceeded from his own mind; he believed as he was prompted; and he had not any rooted convictions to sacrifice when a second dogmatist provided him with more convenient opinions.