The motive could have been nothing but a desire to preserve to posterity what Pope considered to be a monument worthy of the highest genius, and was so far complimentary to Bolingbroke.

Bolingbroke, however, considered it as an act of gross treachery.

Pope had received the work on condition of keeping it strictly private, and showing it to only a few friends.

Moreover, he had corrected it, arranged it, and altered or omitted passages according to his own taste, which naturally did not suit the author's.

In 1749 Bolingbroke gave a copy to Mallet for publication, and prefixed an angry statement to expose the breach of trust of "a man on whom the author thought he could entirely depend." Warburton rushed to the defence of Pope and the demolition of Bolingbroke.