Editing Alexander Pope (section)

===''The Dunciad'' and ''Moral Essays''===
[[File:Alexander Pope circa 1736.jpeg|thumb|upright|Alexander Pope, painting attributed to English painter [[Jonathan Richardson]], c. 1736, [[Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]]]]

Though ''[[The Dunciad]]'' first appeared anonymously in [[Dublin]], its authorship was not in doubt. Pope pilloried a host of other "hacks", "scribblers" and "dunces" in addition to Theobald, and Maynard Mack has accordingly called its publication "in many ways the greatest act of folly in Pope's life". Though a masterpiece due to having become "one of the most challenging and distinctive works in the history of English poetry", writes Mack, "it bore bitter fruit. It brought the poet in his own time the hostility of its victims and their sympathizers, who pursued him implacably from then on with a few damaging truths and a host of slanders and lies."<ref>Maynard Mack (1985). ''Alexander Pope: A Life''. W. W. Norton & Company, and [[Yale University Press]], pp. 472–473. {{ISBN|0393305295}}</ref>

According to his half-sister Magdalen Rackett, some of Pope's targets were so enraged by ''The Dunciad'' that they threatened him physically. "My brother does not seem to know what fear is," she told [[Joseph Spence (author)|Joseph Spence]], explaining that Pope loved to walk alone, so went accompanied by his [[Great Dane]] Bounce, and for some time carried pistols in his pocket.<ref>Joseph Spence. [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015030979424;view=1up;seq=52 ''Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters of Books and Men, Collected from the Conversation of Mr. Pope'' (1820), p. 38] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230402171055/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015030979424;view=1up;seq=52 |date=2 April 2023 }}.</ref> This first ''Dunciad'', along with [[John Gay]]'s ''[[The Beggar's Opera]]'' and Jonathan Swift's ''[[Gulliver's Travels]]'', joined in a concerted propaganda assault against [[Robert Walpole]]'s Whig ministry and the financial revolution it stabilised. Although Pope was a keen participant in the stock and money markets, he never missed a chance to satirise the personal, social and political effects of the new scheme of things. From ''The Rape of the Lock'' onwards, these satirical themes appear constantly in his work.

In 1731, Pope published his "Epistle to [[Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington|Burlington]]", on the subject of architecture, the first of four poems later grouped as the ''[[Moral Essays]]'' (1731–1735).<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3487|title=Moral Essays|access-date=9 August 2021|archive-date=9 August 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210809153723/https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3487|url-status=live}}</ref> The epistle ridicules the bad taste of the aristocrat "Timon".<ref name="Moral Essays">Alexander Pope. [https://books.google.com/books?id=ZTQjrVbjerwC ''Moral Essays''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230421091327/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZTQjrVbjerwC |date=21 April 2023 }}, p. 82</ref> For example, the following are verses 99 and 100 of the Epistle:

{{blockquote
|At Timon's Villa let us paſs a day,<br>Where all cry out, "What ſums are thrown away!"<ref name="Moral Essays"/>
}}

Pope's foes claimed he was attacking the [[James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos|Duke of Chandos]] and his estate, [[Cannons (house)|Cannons]]. Though the charge was untrue, it did much damage to Pope.{{citation needed|date=May 2022}}

There has been some speculation on a feud between Pope and [[Thomas Hearne (antiquarian)|Thomas Hearne]], due in part to the character of Wormius in ''The Dunciad'', who is seemingly based on Hearne.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rogers |first=Pat |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/607099760 |title=The Alexander Pope encyclopedia |date=2004 |publisher=Greenwood Press |isbn=0-313-06153-X |location=Westport, Conn. |oclc=607099760}}</ref>