ABSTRACT
If Alexander Pope's contemporaries had voted on who was the most gifted man of his generation, the clear leader in such a poll would have been Bolingbroke. The opening lines of An Essay on Man make it clear the work is addressed to Bolingbroke, while the poem ends with twenty-five lines in his praise as 'master of the poet and song'. Alexander Pope's friend was the audience he kept in mind as he composed his Essay – the intelligent, modern reader he must convince – but the song had more than one master and there are more things in it than were dreamed of in Bolingbroke's philosophy. However Alexander Pope's ethical system is raised on a metaphysical belief which he embraces with an emotional fervour, far removed from his friend's cool deism. Pope's change of direction was also an example of his instinctive feel for the demands of the marketplace.
