once intended to print together the four verfions of Dryden, Maynwaring, Pope, and Tickell, that they might be readily compared, and fairly estimated. This defign feems to have been defeated by the refufal of Tonfon, who was the proprietor of the other three verfions.

Pope intended at another time a rigorous criticism of Tickell's tranflation, and had. marked a copy, which I have seen, in all places that appeared defective. But while he was thus meditating defence or revenge, his adversary funk before him without a blow; the voice of the publick was not long fufpended, and the preference was univerfally given to Pope's performance.

He was convinced, by adding one circumftance to another, that the other tranflation was the work of Addison himself; but if he knew it in Addifon's life-time, it does not appear that he told it. He left his illuftrious antagonist to be punished by what has been confidered as the most painful of all reflections, the remembrance of a crime perpetrated in vain.

The other circumftances of their quarrel were thus related by Pope *.

Philips feemed to have been encouraged to abufe me in coffee-houfes, and conver"fations and Gildon wrote a thing about Wycherley, in which he had abused both me and my relations very grofly. Lord

"Warwick himself told me one day, that it " was in vain for me to endeavour to be well "with Mr. Addison; that his jealous temper "would never admit of a fettled friendship "between us: and, to convince me of what "he had faid, affured me, that Addifon had

encouraged Gildon to publifh those scan"dals, and had given him ten guineas after "they were published. The next day, while "I was heated with what I had heard, I

wrote a Letter to Mr. Addison, to let him "know that I was not unacquainted with this "behaviour of his; that if I was to speak έσ feverely of him, in return for it, it fhould "be in fuch a dirty way, that I should rather "tell him, himself, fairly of his faults, and allow his good qualities; and that it should

* Spence.

"be

be fomething in the following manner: I "then adjoined the first sketch of what has

fince been called my fatire on Addison. "Mr. Addifon ufed me very civilly ever "after."

The verfes on Addifon, when they were fent to Atterbury, were confidered by him as the most excellent of Pope's performances; and the writer was advised, fince he knew where his ftrength lay, not to fuffer it to remain unemployed.

This year (1715) being, by the fubfcription, enabled to live more by choice, having perfuaded his father to fell their eftate at Binfield, he purchased, I think only for his life, that house at Twickenham to which his refidence afterwards procured fo much celebration, and removed thither with his father and mother.

Here he planted the vines and the quincunx which his verfes mention; and being under the neceffity of making a fubterraneous paffage to a garden on the other fide of the road, he adorned it with foffile bodies, and dignified

it with the title of a grotto; a place of filence and retreat, from which he endeavoured to perfuade his friends and himself that cares and paffions could be excluded.

A grotto is not often the wish or pleasure of an Englishman, who has more frequent need to folicit than exclude the fun; but Pope's excavation was requifite as an entrance to his garden, and, as fome men try to be proud of their defects, he extracted an ornament from an inconvenience, and vanity produced a grotto where neceffity enforced a paffage. It may be frequently remarked of the ftudious and fpeculative, that they are proud of trifles, and that their amusements feem frivolous and childish; whether it be that men conscious of great reputation think themselves above the reach of cenfure, and fafe in the admiffion of negligent indulgences, or that mankind expect from elevated genius an uniformity of greatnefs, and watch its degradation with malicious wonder; like him who having followed with his eye an eagle into the clouds, fhould lament that she ever defcended to a perch,

While the volumes of his Homer were annually published, he collected his former works (1717) into one quarto volume, to which he prefixed a Preface, written with great fpriteliness and elegance, which was afterwards reprinted, with fome paffages fubjoined that he at firft omitted; other marginal additions of the fame kind he made in the later editions of his poems. Waller remarks, that poets lofe half their praise, because the reader knows not what they have blotted. Pope's voracity of fame taught him the art of obtaining the accumulated honour both of what he had published, and of what he had fuppreffed.

In this year his father died fuddenly, in his feventy-fifth year, having paffed twentynine years in privacy. He is not known but by the character which his fon has given him. If the money with which he retired was all gotten by himself, he had traded very fuccessfully in times when fudden riches were rarely attainable.

The publication of the Iliad was at laft completed in 1720. The fplendor and fuc