Note 305 — Chapter XXII
Reading edition
Pope (Essay on Man, Ep. iv. l. 284,) has aided in confirming the prejudice against Cromwell, by his famous line:
“See Cromwell damned to everlasting fame.”
Pope sometimes sacrificed truth to a brilliant couplet. The two lines which immediately precede the one just quoted are a specimen:
“If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined,
The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind.”
Public opinion now does not sustain the poet, in stigmatizing the great Bacon as the “meanest of mankind,” but views him as more sinned against than sinning. We may learn from these examples, how great is the responsibleness of popular authors. By a single line they may perpetuate calumny. They may poison the wells of knowledge.