Note 1021 — AN ESSAY ON MAN, IN FOUR EPISTLES (continued 3)
Reading edition
Dryden, Æn. vii. 310:
From that dire deluge through the wat'ry waste.—Wakefield.
MS.:
This hope kind nature's flattery has giv'n, Behind his cloud-topp'd hills he builds a heav'n; Some happier world which woods on woods infold, Where never christian pierced for thirst of gold.
Pope must have assumed that the Indian's hope of a blissful immortality was an unsubstantial dream, or he would not have called it "nature's flattery."