The encouragement given to this translation, though report seems to have overrated it, was such as the world has not often seen. The subscribers were five hundred and seventy-five. The copies, That strew'd with warriors dead the Phrygian plain, Heroes for which subscriptions were given, were six hun- Whose limbs, unburied on the naked shore, dred and fifty-four; and only six hundred and sixty Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore, were printed. For, these copies Pope had nothing Since great Achilles and Atrides strove; to pay; he therefore received, including the two Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of Jove hundred pounds a volume, five thousand three hundred and twenty pounds four shillings without deduction, as the books were supplied by Lintot. By the success of his subscription Pope was relieved from those pecuniary distresses with which, notwithstanding his popularity, he had hitherto struggled. Lord Oxford had often lamented his disqualification for public employment, but never proposed a pension. While the translation of Homer' was in its progress, Mr. Craggs, then secretary of state, offered to procure him a pension, which, at least during his ministry, might be enjoyed with secrecy. This was not accepted by Pope, who told him, however, that if he should be pressed with want of money, he would send to him for occasional supplies. Craggs was not long in power, and was never solicited for money by Pope, who disdained to beg what he did not want. With the product of this subscription, which he had too much discretion to squander, he secured his future life from want, by considerable annuities. The estate of the Duke of Buckingham was found to have been charged with five hundred pounds a year, payable to Pope, which doubtless his translation enabled him to purchase. It cannot be unwelcome to literary curiosity, that I deduce thus minutely the history of the English Iliad.' It is certainly the noblest version of poetry which the world has ever scen; and its publication must therefore be considered as one of the great events in the annals of Learning. Whose limbs, unburied on the hostile shore, Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of Jove Declare, O Muse, in what ill-fated hour Declare, O Goddess, what offended Power fierce T' avenge the wrongs his injured priest endured; For Chryses sought, with costly gifts, to gain Suppliant the venerable Father stands, For Chryses sought by presents to regain His captive daughter from the Victor's chain: To those who have skill to estimate the excellence and difficulty of this great work, it must be very desirable to know how it was performed, and by what gradations it advanced to correctness. Of such an intellectual process the knowledge has very rarely been attainable; but happily there remains the original copy of the 'Iliad,' which, being obtained by Bolingbroke as a curiosity, descended He sued to all, but chief implor'd for grace, For these are ensigns of his God he bare, The brother kings of Atreus' royal race: from him to Mallet, and is now, by the solicitation Between this manuscript, which is written upon accidental fragments of paper, and the printed edition, there must have been an intermediate copy, that was perhaps destroyed as it returned from the press. From the first copy I have procured a few transcripts, and shall exhibit first the printed lines; then those of the manuscripts, with all their variations. Those words which are given in Italics, are cancelled in the copy, and the words placed under them adopted in their stead. The beginning of the first book stands thus: The wrath of Peleus' son, the direful spring The stern Pelides' rage O Goddess, sing, Of all the woes of Greece the fatal spring, May Jove restore you, when your toils are o'er, To all he sued, but chief implored for grace, Your labours, by the Gods be all your laboure crown'd; So may the Gods your arms with conquest bless, Till laid And crown your labours with deserved success; But oh! relieve a wretched parent's pain, But oh! relieve a hapless parent's pain, Receive my gifts: if mercy fails, yet let my present move, And fear the God that deals his darts around. The Greeks, in shouts, their joint assent declare He said, the Greeks their joint assent declare, Atrides Repulsed the sacred Sire, and thus reply'd. Of these lines, and of the whole first book, I am told that there was a former copy, more varied, and more deformed with interlineations. The beginning of the second book varies very little from the printed page, and is therefore set down without a parallel; the few differences do not require to be elaborately displayed. Now pleasing sleep had seal'd each mortal eye; directs Fly hence, delusive dream, and, light as air, Bid him in arms draw forth th' embattled train, Now tell the King 'tis given him to destroy The lofty walls of wide extended Troy; towers For now no more the Gods with Fate contend; At Juno's suit the heavenly factions end. Destruction hovers o'er yon devoted wall, hangs And nodding Ilium waits th' impending fall. Say, Virgins, seated round the throne divine, Now, Virgin Goddesses, immortal Nine! BOOK V. V. 1. But Pallas now Tydides' soul inspires, From his broad buckler flash'd the living ray; The Goddess with her breath the flame supplies, When first he rears his radiant orb to sight, When fresh he rears his radiant orb to sight, The sons of Dares first the combat sought, There lived a Trojan-Dares was his name, As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night, As when in stillness of the silent night, As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night, As still in air the trembling lustre stood, And no dim cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene; Around her silver throne the planets glow, O'er the dark trees a yellower green they shed, gleam verdure And tip with silver all the mountain heads forest And tip with silver every mountain's head, 'we the blue vault, and bless the vivid ligh glorious So many flames before the navy blaze, And lighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays: Gild the high walls, and tremble on the spires; quite please me. Be so good as to mark the place and consider it a little at your leisure. I am sure you can give it a little turn.'-I returned from Lord Halifax's with Dr. Garth, in his chariot; and, as we were going along, was saying to the Doctor that my Lord had laid me under a great deal of difficulty by such loose and general observations: that I had been thinking over the passages almost ever since, and could not guess at what it was that offended his Lordship in either of them. Garth laughed heartily at my embarrassment; said, I had not been long enough acquainted with Lord Halifax to know his way yet; that I need not puzzle myself about looking those places over and over, when I got home. 'All you need do,' says he, 'is to leave them just as they are; call on Lord Halifax two or three months hence, thank him for his kind observations on those passages, and then read them to him as altered. I have known him much longer than you have, and will be answerable for the event.' I followed his advice; waited on Lord Halifax some time after; said, I hoped he would find his objections to those passages removed; read them to him exactly as they were at first; and his Lordship was extremely pleased with them, and cried out, 'Ay, now they are perfectly right, nothing can be better." It is seldom that the great or the wise suspect that they are despised or cheated. Halifax, thinking this a lucky opportunity of securing immortality, made some advances of favour and some overtures of advantage to Pope, which he seems to have received with sullen coldness. All our knowledge of this transaction is derived from a single letter (Dec. 1, 1715,) in which Pope says, "I am obliged to you, both for the favours you have done me, and those you intend me. I distrust neither your will nor your memory, when it is to do good; and if I ever become troublesome or solicitous, it must not Of these specimens, every man who has culti- be out of expectation, but out of gratitude. Your vated poetry, or who delights to trace the mind Lordship may cause me to live agreeably in the from the rudeness of its first conceptions to the ele- town, or contentedly in the country, which is really gance of its last, will naturally desire a great num- all the difference I set between an easy fortune and ber; but most other readers are already tired, and a small one. It is indeed a high strain of generosi I am not writing only to poets and philosophers. ty in you to think of making me easy all my life, The Iliad' was published volume by volume, as only because I have been so happy as to divert you the translation proceeded: the four first books ap- some few hours: but, if I may have leave to add, it peared in 1715. The expectation of this work was is because you think me no enemy to my native undoubtedly high, and every man who had con- country, there will appear a better reason; for I nected his name with criticism, or poetry, was de- must of consequence be very much (as I sincerely sirous of such intelligence as might enable him to am) yours, &c." talk upon the popular topic. Halifax, who, by These voluntary offers, and this faint acceptance, having been first a poet, and then a patron of poe-ended without effect. The patron was not accustry, had acquired the right of being a judge, was tomed to such frigid gratitude: and the poet fed his willing to hear some books while they were yet own pride with the dignity of independence. anpublished. Of this rehearsal Pope afterwards They probably were suspicious of each other. gave the following account.* Pope would not dedicate till he saw at what rate "The famous Lord Halifax was rather a pre- his praise was valued; he would be "troublesome tender to taste, than really possessed of it. When out of gratitude, not expectation." Halifax thought I had finished the two or three first books of my himself entitled to confidence; and would give translation of the 'Iliad,' that Lord desired to have nothing unless he knew what he should receive. the pleasure of hearing them read at his house. Their commerce had its beginning in the hope of Addison, Congreve, and Garth, were there at the praise on one side, and of money on the other, and reading. In four or five places, Lord Halifax stopt ended because Pope was less eager of money than me very civilly, and with a speech each time of much the same kind, 'I beg your pardon, Mr. Pope; but there is something in that passage that does not * Spence. Halifax of praise. It is not likely that Halifax had any personal benevolence to Pope; it is evident that Pope looked on Halifax with scorn and hatred. The reputation of this great work failed of gaining him a patron; but it deprived him of a friend יו Addison and he were now at the head of poetry and Dr. Swift was the principal man of talk and busicriticism; and both in such a state of elevation, ness, and acted as master of requests. Then he that, like the two rivals in the Roman state, one instructed a young nobleman that the best Poet in could no longer bear an equal, nor the other a su- England was Mr. Pope (a papist,) who had beperior. Of the gradual abatement of kindness be- gun a translation of Homer into English verse, for tween friends, the beginning is often scarcely dis- which he must have them all subscribe; for, says he, cernible to themselves, and the process is continued the author shall not begin to print till I have a by petty provocations, and incivilities sometimes thousand guineas for him." peevishly returned, and sometimes contemptuously About this time it is likely that Steele, who neglected, which would escape all attention but was, with all his political fury, good-natured and that of pride, and drop from any memory but that officious, procured an interview between these anof resentment. That the quarrel of these two gry rivals, which ended in aggravated malevowits should be minutely deduced, is not to be ex- lence. On this occasion, if the reports be true, pected from a writer to whom, as Homer says, Pope made his complaint with frankness and spirit, "nothing but rumour has reached, and who has no as a man undeservedly neglected or opposed; and personal knowledge." Addison affected a contemptuous unconcern, and, Pope doubtless approached Addison, when the in a calm even voice, reproached Pope with his reputation of their wit first brought them together, vanity, and, telling him of the improvements with the respect due to a man whose abilities were which his early works had received from his own acknowledged, and who, having attained that emi- remarks and those of Steele, said, that he, being nence to which he was himself aspiring, had in his now engaged in public business, had no longer any hands the distribution of literary fame. He paid care for his poetical reputation, nor had any other court with sufficient diligence by his Prologue to desire, with regard to Pope, than that he should 'Cato,' by his abuse of Dennis, and with praise yet not, by too much arrogance, alienate the public. more direct, by his poem on the 'Dialogues on To this Pope is said to have replied with great Medals, of which the immediate publication was keenness and severity, upbraiding Addison with then intended. In all this, there was no hypocrisy; for he confessed that he found in Addison something more pleasing than in any other man. It may be supposed, that as Pope saw himself favoured by the world, and more frequently compared his own powers with those of others, his confidence increased, and his submission lessened; and that Addison felt no delight from the advances of a perpetual dependance, and with the abuse of those qualifications which he had obtained at the public cost, and charging him with mean endeavours to obstruct the progress of rising merit. The contest rose so high, that they parted at last without any interchange of civility. The first volume of Homer' was (1715) in time published: and a rival version of the first 'Iliad,' young wit, who might soon contend with him for for rivals the time of their appearance inevitably the highest place. Every great man, of whatever made them, was immediately printed, with the kind be his greatness, has among his friends those name of Tickell. It was soon perceived that, who officiously or insidiously quicken his attention among the followers of Addison, Tickell had the to offences, heighten his disgust, and stimulate his preference, and the critics and poets divided into resentment. Of such adherents Addison doubtless factions. "I," says Pope, "have the town, that had many; and Pope was now too high to be with- is, the mob, on my side; but it is not uncommon for out them. the smaller party to supply by industry what it From the emission and reception of the proposals wants in numbers. I appeal to the people as my for the 'lliad, the kindness of Addison seems to rightful judges, and, while they are not inclined to have abated. Jervas the painter once pleased him- condemn me, shall not fear the high-flyers at Butself (August 20, 1714) with imagining that he had ton's." This opposition he immediately imputed re-established their friendship; and wrote to Pope to Addison, and complained of it in terms suffithat Addison once suspected him of too close a con- ciently resentful to Craggs, their common friend. federacy with Swift, but was now satisfied with his conduct. To this Pope answered, a week after, that his engagements to Swift were such as his services in regard to the subscription demanded, and that the Tories never put him under the neces When Addison's opinion was asked, he declared the versions to be both good, but Tickell's the best that had ever been written; and sometimes said, that they were both good, but that Tickell had more of 'Homer.' sity of asking leave to be grateful. "But," says Pope was now sufficiently irritated; his reputahe, "as Mr. Addison must be the judge in what tion and his interest were at hazard. He once inregards himself, and seems to have no very just tended to print together the four versions of Dryone in regard to me, so I must own to you I expect den, Maynwaring, Pope, and Tickell, that they nothing but civility from him." In the same letter might be readily compared, and fairly estimated he mentions Phillips, as having been busy to kindle This design seems to have been defeated by the re animosity between them; but in a letter to Addi- fusal of Tonson, who was the proprietor of the son, he expresses some consciousness of behaviour, other three versions. inattentively deficient in respect. Pope intended, at another time, a rigorous critiOf Swift's industry in promoting the subscription, cism of Tickell's translation, and had marked a there remains the testimony of Kennet, no friend copy, which I have seen, in all places that appearto either him or Pope. ed defective. But, while he was thus meditating "Nov. 2, 1713, Dr. Swift came into the coffee-defence or revenge, his adversary sunk before him house, and had a bow from every body but me, without a blow; the voice of the Public was not who, I confess, could not but despise him. When long divided, and the preference was universally I came to the anti-chamber to wait, before prayers, given to Pope's performance. He was convinced, by adding one circumstance dulgences, or that mankind expect from elevated to another, that the other translation was the work genius a uniformity of greatness, and watch its deof Addison himself; but, if he knew it in Addison's gradation with malicious wonder; like him who, life-time, it does not appear that he told it. He having followed with his eye an eagle into the left his illustrious antagonist to be punished by clouds, should lament that she ever descended to a what has been considered as the most painful of all perch. reflections, the remembrance of a crime perpetrated in vain. While the volumes of his 'Homer' were annually published, he collected his former works The other circumstances of their quarrel were (1717) into one quarto volume, to which he prethus related by Pope.* fixed a Preface, written with great sprightliness "Phillips seemed to have been encouraged to and elegance, which was 'afterwards reprinted, abuse me in coffee-houses and conversations: and with some passages subjoined that he at first omitGildon wrote a thing about Wycherley, in which ted; other marginal additions of the same kind he he had abused both me and my relations very made in the latter editions of his poems. Waller grossly. Lord Warwick himself told me one day, remarks, that poets lose half their praise, because that it was in vain for me to endeavour to be well the reader knows not what they have blotted. with Mr. Addison; that his jealous temper would Pope's voracity of fame taught him the art of obnever admit of a settled friendship between us: taining the accumulated honour, both of what he and, to convince me of what he had said, assured had published, and of what he had suppressed. me, that Addison had encouraged Gildon to publish In this year his father died very suddenly, in his those scandals, and had given him ten guineas after seventy-fifth year, having passed twenty-nine they were published. The next day, while I was years in privacy. He is not known but by the heated with what I had heard, I wrote a letter to character which his son has given him. If the Mr. Addison, to let him know that I was not un- money with which he retired was all gotten by acquainted with this behaviour of his; that, if I was himself, he had traded very successfully in times to speak severely of him in return for it, it should when sudden riches were rarely attainable. not be in such a dirty way; that I should rather The publication of the 'Iliad' was at last comtell him, himself, fairly of his faults, and allow pleted in 1720. The splendour and success of this his good qualities; and that it should be something work raised Pope many enemies, that endeavoured in the following manner; I then adjoined the first to depreciate his abilities. Burnet, who was afsketch of what has since been called my satire on terwards a judge of no mean reputation, censured Addison. Mr. Addison used me very civilly ever him in a piece called 'Homerides' before it was after."+ published. Ducket likewise endeavoured to make The verses on Addison, when they were sent to him ridiculous. Dennis was the perpetual perseAtterbury, were considered by him as the most ex- cutor of all his studies. But, whoever his critics cellent of Pope's performances; and the writer was were, their writings are lost; and the names which advised, since he knew where his strength lay, are preserved, are preserved in the 'Dunciad.' not to suffer it to remain unemployed. In this disastrous year (1720) of national infatu This year (1715) being, by the subscription, ation, where more riches than Peru can boast were enabled to live more by choice, having persuaded expected from the South Sea, when the contagion his father to sell their estate at Binfield, he pur- of avarice tainted every mind, and even poets chased, I think only for his life, that house at panted after wealth, Pope was seized with the Twickenham, to which his residence afterwards universal passion, and ventured some of his money. procured so much celebration, and removed thither The stock rose in its price; and for a while he with his father and mother. thought himself the lord of thousands. But this Here he planted the vines and the quincunx dream of happiness did not last long; and he seems which his verses mention; and being under the ne- to have waked soon enough to get clear with the cessity of making a subterraneous passage to a gar- loss of what he once thought himself to have won, den on the other side of the road, he adorned it and perhaps not wholly of that. with fossile bodies, and dignified it with the title Next year he published some select poems of his of a grotto, a place of silence and retreat, from friend Dr. Parnell, with a very elegant Dedication which he endeavoured to persuade his friends and to the Earl of Oxford; who, after all his struggles himself that cares and passions could be excluded. and dangers, then lived in retirement, still under A grotto is not often the wish or pleasure of an the frown of a victorious faction, who could take no Englishman, who has more frequent need to solicit pleasure in hearing his praise. than exclude the sun; but Pope's excavation was He gave the same year (1721) an edition of requisite as an entrance to his garden, and, as some 'Shakspeare.' His name was now of so much aumen try to be proud of their defects, he extracted thority, that Tonson thought himself entitled by an ornament from an inconvenience, and vanity annexing it, to demand a subscription of six guineas produced a grotto where necessity enforced a pas- for Shakspeare's plays in six quarto volumes; nor sage. It may be frequently remarked of the stu- did his expectation much deceive him; for of seven dious and speculative, that they are proud of tri- hundred and fifty which he printed, he dispersed fles, and that their amusements seem frivolous and a great number at the price proposed. The repиchildish; whether it be that men, conscious of great tation of that edition indeed sunk afterwards so reputation, think themselves above the reach of low, that one hundred and forty copies were sold censure, and safe in the admission of negligent in- at sixteen shillings each. On this undertaking, to which Pope was induced † See, however Life of Addison, in the Biographia Bri- by a reward of two hundred and seventeen pounds twelve shillings, he seems never to have reflected * Spence. tannica. |