That is the whole work as we have it now. The Second Book was
to treat of Man Intellectual; the Third Book, of Man Social, including ties
to Church and State; the Fourth Book, of Man Moral, was to illustrate
abstract truth by sketches of character. This part of the design is
represented by the Moral Essays, of which four were written, to which was
added, as a fifth, the Epistle to Addison which had been written much
earlier, in 1715, and first published in 1720. The four Moral essays are
two pairs. One pair is upon the Characters of Men and on the Characters of
Women, which would have formed the opening of the subject of the Fourth
Book of the Essay: the other pair shows character expressed through a
right or a wrong use of Riches: in fact, Money and Morals. The four
Epistles were published separately. The fourth (to the Earl of Burlington)
was first published in 1731, its title then being "Of Taste;" the third (to
Lord Bathurst) followed in 1732, the year of the publication of the first
two Epistles on the "Essay on Man." In 1733, the year of publication of
the Third Epistle of the "Essay on Man," Pope published his Moral Essay of
the "Characters of Men." in 1734 followed the Fourth Epistle of the "Essay
on Man;" and in 1735 the "Characters of Women," addressed to Martha Blount,
the woman whom Pope loved, though he was withheld by a frail body from
marriage. Thus the two works were, in fact, produced together, parts of
one design.
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