Note 1501 — AN ESSAY ON MAN, IN FOUR EPISTLES (continued 3)

Pope took the phrase from Mandeville, Fable of the Bees, vol. i., p. 26: "Who can forbear laughing when he thinks on all the great men that have been so serious on the subject of that Macedonian madman?" Warton protests against the application of the term to Alexander the Great, and adds that Charles XII. of Sweden "deserved not to be joined with him." The objection is well-founded, for Pope not only compared them in their rage for war, but said that neither "looked further than his nose," which was true of Charles XII., and false of Alexander, who mingled grand schemes of civilisation with his selfish lust of dominion.