This misery, however, was not of long continu- to collect or methodize; but more was necessary; ance; he grew by degrees more acquainted with many pages were to be filled, and learning must Homer's images and expression, and practice in- supply materials to wit and judgment. Something creased his facility of versification. In a short time might be gathered from Dacier; but no man loves to he represents himself as despatching regularly fifty be indebted to his contemporaries, and Dacier was verses a day, which would show him by an easy accessible to common readers. Eustathius was computation the termination of his labour. therefore necessarily consulted. To read EustaHis own diffidence was not his only vexation. thius, of whose work there was then no Latin verHe that asks subscriptions soon finds that he has sion, I suspect Pope, if he had been willing, not to enemies. All who do not encourage him, defame have been able; some other was therefore to be him. He that wants money will rather be thought found, who had leisure as well as abilities; and he angry than poor: and he that wishes to save his was doubtless most readily employed who would money, conceals his avarice by his malice. Addi- do much work for little money. son had hinted his suspicion that Pope was too much The history of the notes has never been traced. a Tory; and some of the Tories suspected his prin- Broome, in his preface to his poems, declares himciples, because he had contributed to the 'Guar- self the commentator " in part upon the Iliad;" and dian,' which was carried on by Steele. it appears from Fenton's letter, preserved in the To those who censured his politics were added British Museum, that Broome was at first engaged enemies yet more dangerous, who called in ques-in consulting Eustathius; but that after a time, tion his knowledge of Greek, and his qualifications whatever was the reason, he desisted; another man for a translator of Homer. To these he made no of Cambridge was then employed, who soon grew public opposition; but in one of his Letters escapes weary of the work; and a third, that was recomfrom them as well as he can. n. At an age like his, mended by Thirlby, is now discovered to have for he was not more than twenty-five, with an been Jortin, a man since well known to the learned irregular education, and a course of life of which world, who complained that Pope, having accepted much seems to have passed in conversation, it is and approved his performance, never testified any not very likely that he overflowed with Greek. curiosity to see him, and who professed to have forBut when he felt himself deficient he sought assist- gotten the terms on which he worked. The terms ance; and what man of learning would refuse to help which Fenton uses are very mercantile: "I think him? Minute inquiries into the force of words are at first sight that his performance is very commendless necessary in translating Homer than other able, and have sent word for him to finish the 17th poets, because his positions are general, and his book, and to send it with his demands for his trourepresentations natural, with very little dependence ble. I have here enclosed the specimen; if the rest on local or temporary customs, on those changeable come before the return, I will keep them till I rescenes of artificial life, which, by mingling original ceive your order." with accidental notions, and crowding the mind Broome then offered his service a second time, with images which time effaces, produces ambi- which was probably accepted, as they had afterguity in diction, and obscurity in books. To this wards a closer correspondence. Parnell contributed open display of unadulterated nature it must be the Life of Homer, which Pope found so harsh, that ascribed, that Homer has fewer passages of doubtful he took great pains in correcting it; and by his own meaning than any other poet, either in the learned diligence, with such help as kindness or money or in modern languages. I have read of a man, who could procure him, in somewhat more than five being, by his ignorance of Greek, compelled to years he completed his version of the 'Iliad,' with gratify his curiosity with the Latin printed on the the notes. He began it in 1712, his twenty-fifth opposite page, declared that, from the rude sim- year; and concluded it in 1718, his thirtieth year. plicity of the lines literally rendered, he formed When we find him translating fifty lines a day, nobler ideas of the Homeric majesty, than from the it is natural to suppose that he would have brought laboured elegance of polished versions. his work to a more speedy conclusion. The 'Iliad,' Those literal translations were always at hand, containing less than sixteen thousand verses, might and from them he could easily obtain his author's have been despatched in less than three hundred sense with sufficient certainty; and among the read- and twenty days by fifty verses in a day. The ers of Homer, the number is very small of those notes, compiled with the assistance of his mercewho find much in the Greek more than in the Latin, except the music of the numbers. naries, could not be supposed to require more time than the text. If more help was wanting, he had the poetical According to this calculation, the progress of Pope translation of Eobanus Hessus,' an unwearied wri- may seem to have been slow; but the distance is ter of Latin verses; he had the French Homers of commonly very great between actual performances La Valtiere and Dacier, and the English of Chap- and speculative possibility. It is natural to suppose man, Hobbes, and Ogilby. With Chapman, whose that as much as has been done to-day may be done work, though now totally neglected, seems to have to-morrow; but on the morrow some difficulty emerbeen popular almost to the end of the last century, ges, or some external impediment obstructs. Inhe had very frequent consultations, and perhaps dolence, interruption, business, and pleasure, all never translated any passage till he had read his take their turns of retardation; and every long work version, which indeed he has been sometimes sus- is lengthened by a thousand causes that can, and pected of using instead of the original. ten thousand that cannot, be recounted. Perhaps Notes were likewise to be provided: for the six no extensive and multifarious performance was ever volumes would have been very little more than six effected within the term originally fixed in the unpamphlets without them. What the mere perusal dertaker's mind. He that runs against Time has of the text could suggest, Pope wanted no assistance an antagonist not subject to casualties. B 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 seen; and its publication must therefore be considered as one of the great events in the annals of Learning. 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 from him to Mallet, and is now, by the solicitation of the late Dr. Maty, reposited in the Museum. 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, wrath Of all the woes of Greece the fatal spring, 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 T' avenge the wrongs his injured priest endured; For Chryses sought, with costly gifts, to gain For Chryses sought by presents to regain His captive daughter from the Victor's chain: For these are ensigns of his God he bare, He sued to all, but chief implor'd for grace, To all he sued, but chief implored for grace, Your labours, by the Gods be all your labours 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, 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. Invocation to the catalogue of Ships. Say, Virgins, seated round the throne divine, Now, Virgin Goddesses, immortal Nine! That round Olympus' heavenly summit shine, BOOK V. V. 1. But Pallas now Tydides' soul inspires, And crown her hero with distinguish'd praise. And crown her hero with immortal praise: distinguish'd Bright from his beamy crest the lightnings play, High on helm 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, furious The sons of Dares first the combat sought, There lived a Trojan-Dares was his name, CONCLUSION OF BOOK VIII. v. 687. As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night, As when in stillness of the silent night, And tip with silver every mountain's head, So many flames before the navy blaze, And lighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays: 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 generosiI 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. unpublished. 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 Halifax of praise. It is not likely that Halifax had much the same kind, 'I beg your pardon, Mr. Pope; any personal benevolence to Pope; it is evident but there is something in that passage that does not 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. 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." * Spence. 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; perpetual dependance, and with the abuse of those for he confessed that he found in Addison something more pleasing than in any other man. 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. 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 The first volume of Homer' was (1715) in time that Addison felt no delight from the advances of a 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 the smaller party to supply by industry what it From the emission and reception of the proposals wants in Ambers. I appeal to the people as my for the 'Iliad,' 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 When Addison's opinion was asked, he declared his conduct. To this Pope answered, a week af- the versions to be both good, but Tickell's the best ter, that his engagements to Swift were such as his that had ever been written; and sometimes said, services in regard to the subscription demanded, that they were both good, but that Tickell had and that the Tories never put him under the neces- more of 'Homer.' out them. 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 reanimosity 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. |