Note 1508 — AN ESSAY ON MAN, IN FOUR EPISTLES (continued 3)

The pronunciation of "great" was not uniform in Pope's day. "When I published," says Johnson, "the plan for my Dictionary, Lord Chesterfield told me that the word 'great' should be pronounced so as to rhyme to 'state,' and Sir William Yonge sent me word that it should be pronounced so as to rhyme to 'seat,' and that none but an Irishman would pronounce it 'grait.'" Pope, in this epistle, and elsewhere, has made "great" rhyme to both sounds.