SOURCE: Rogers, Robert W. “Warburton and the Later Satiric Mode.” In The Major Satires of Alexander Pope, pp. 94-114. Urbana: The University of Illinois Press, 1955.

In the following excerpt, Rogers explores Warburton's relationship with Alexander Pope and considers his influence on Pope's later works.

Judged in terms of creativity, Pope's last years were not a period of great accomplishment; they were largely devoted to the preparation and ordering of final versions of his poems. The important achievement of these years was a recasting of the Dunciad; but Pope also brought out his letters to Swift and prepared the Memoirs of Scriblerus for publication. For the most part he polished and arranged what had already been published: the Essay on Man was altered in order to soften the fatalistic implications of the original argument; and some changes were made in the Ethic Epistles. Helping Pope in this work was...