_Pope and Buchanan._--I beg to suggest as a Query, whether Pope did not
borrow the opening of his _Essay on Man_ from that of the second book of
Buchanan's Latin poem _De Sphaera_. Let us compare them.
Buchanan:
"Jam mihi Timoleon, animo majora capaci
Concipe; nec terras semper mirare jacentes;
Excute degeneres circum mortalia curas,
Et mecum ingentes coeli spatiare per auras."
Pope:
"Awake, my St. John, leave all meaner things
To low ambition and the pride of kings;
Let us, since life can little more supply
Than just to look about us and to die,
Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man."