Note 82 — AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM.
Reading edition
In all editions before the quarto of 1743, it was,
There are whom heav'n has blest with store of wit, Yet want as much again to manage it.
The idea was suggested by a sentence in Sprat's Account of Cowley: "His fancy flowed with great speed, and therefore it was very fortunate to him that his judgment was equal to manage it." Pope gave a false sparkle to his couplet by first using "wit" in one sense and then in another. "Wit to manage wit," says the author of the Supplement to the Profound, "is full as good as one tongue's tiring another. Any one may perceive that the writer meant that judgment should manage wit; but as it stands it is pert." Warburton observes that Pope's later version magnified the contradiction; for he who had already "a profusion of wit," was the last person to need more.