ABSTRACT
Alexander Pope had turned away from party politics, not only because taking sides in the current debate going on had proved dangerous, but because he now took a larger, philosophic view of his world. Pope adapted Warburton's account of the preliminary trials in depicting the formal education of his hero at school and university, and has him make the Grand Tour, instead of travelling to the different regions of the underworld, as does Virgil's Aeneas. Pope's description of the Grand Tour, which completes the education of a young Englishman, corresponds to Warburton's account of the journeys of Virgil's hero through the different regions of the underworld. In contrast Pope's heedless hero, as he crosses the Continent, seizes every opportunity to gratify his most trivial passions, and pursues an egotistical course of action, unlikely to benefit his fellow men or his country, Pope was almost too successful in his secondary aim of throwing Nicholas Paxton off the scent.
