'and this faint acceptance, ended without effect. The patron was not accustomed to such frigid gratitude; and the poet fed his own pride with the dignity of independence. They probably were suspicious of each other. Pope would not dedicate, till he saw at what rate his praise was valued. He would be troublesome out of gratitude, not expectation. Halifax thought himself entitled to confidence, and would give nothing, unless he knew what he should receive. Their commerce had its beginning in hope of praise on one side, and of money on the other; and ended, because Pope was less eager of money than 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.'1

"These harsh and supercilious remarks on this transaction, and the supposed traffic between fame and money, seem scarcely justifiable from what appears upon the subject. That Lord Halifax intended to render Pope some essential service, and that he would have done so if he had lived, is highly probable; nor, although the affair was dropped for the present, is there any proof that the manly and independent letter of Pope gave offence to Halifax, or that Pope in return looked upon Halifax with scorn and hatred. Lord Halifax died in May, 1715, but the attach

1 "Johnson's Life of Pope."

ment of Pope survived that event. In the verses on leaving London, in that year, he says:

The love of arts lies cold and dead

and when he soon afterwards published the Iliad, he thus acknowledged in the preface his obligations: The Earl of Halifax was one of the first to favour me; of whom it is hard to say, whether the advancement of the polite arts is more owing to his generosity or his example.' But the most unequivocal tribute paid by Pope to the memory of Lord Halifax, appears in the Epilogue to the Satires, written above twenty years after the death of that nobleman; in which he not only enumerates him amongst his most honoured friends, but as the object of his particular respect and affection:

But does the court one worthy man remove,
That moment I declare he has my love:
I shun their zenith, court their mild decline;
Thus Somers once and Halifax were mine.

How is it possible to reconcile this gratuitous effusion of disinterested regard with Johnson's assertion that Pope looked on Halifax with scorn and hatred? Much less can we suppose that the character of Bufo, in the Prologue to the Satires, was intended for Halifax, or that Pope would, in one of his pieces, have ridiculed the character

and memory of a person whom he has so highly celebrated in another." 1

Some symptoms of mutual distrust and jealousy had of late been shown by Addison and Pope; but the mediation of friends prevented for the present a rupture between them. Pope writes thus to Addison, October 10, 1714: "As to what you have said of me, I shall never believe that the author of Cato can speak one thing and think another. As a proof that I account you sincere, I beg a favour of you: it is, that you would look over the two first books of my translation of Homer, which are in the hands of my Lord Halifax. I am sensible how much the reputation of any poetical work will depend upon the character you give it: it is, therefore, some evidence of the trust I repose in your good will, when I give you this opportunity of speaking ill of me with justice: and yet expect you will tell me your truest thoughts, at the same time that you tell others your most favourable ones." Of a remarkable interview which they had soon after the above was written, Pope gives the following account to Spence. "There had been a coldness between Mr. Addison and me for some time, and we had not been in company together, for a good while, any where but at Button's Coffee-house, where I used to see him almost every day. On his meeting me there, one day in

1 Roscoe's Life of Pope, p. 135.

particular, he took me aside, and said he should be glad to dine with me at such a tavern, if I would stay till those people (Budgell and Phillips) were gone. We went accordingly, and after dinner, Mr. Addison said, 'that he had wanted for some time to talk with me: that his friend Tickell had formerly, whilst at Oxford, translated the first book of the Iliad. That he now designed to print it; and had desired him to look it over: he must, therefore, beg that I would not desire him to look over my first book, because, if he did, it would have the air of double dealing.' I assured him that I did not at all take it ill of Mr. Tickell, that he was going to publish his translation; that he certainly had as much right to translate any author as myself; and that publishing both was entering on a fair stage.' I then added, 'that I would not desire him to look over my first book of the Iliad, because he had looked over Mr. Tickell's; but could wish to have the benefit of his observations on my second, which I had then finished, and which Mr. Tickell had not touched upon.' Accordingly, I sent him the second book the next morning; and in a few days he returned it with very high commendation." "1 Addison and Pope still continued to live on friendly terms; and in 1715, when the former had prepared for publication his Dialogue on Medals, our poet addressed to him a very beautiful

VOL. I.

1 Spence's Anecdotes, ed. Singer, p. 146.
4

and complimentary Epistle in verse, to be prefixed to that work.

When the first volume of the Iliad was ready for press, the booksellers eagerly contended for the possession of the copyright. Lintot, having made the most advantageous offers to Pope, became the purchaser.1 The volume was delivered to subscribers in June, 1715; but, owing to the unsettled state of public affairs, some delay occurred in sending out the rest of the impression.

Just at this period, Tickell's version of the first book of the Iliad was put forth by Tonson; and the comparative merits of the rival translators became of course the theme of conversation in every literary circle. The friends of Pope, and

1 The Iliad was printed in six volumes quarto, at the price of six guineas. Pope obtained five hundred and seventy-five subscribers, but as some of them put down their names for more than one copy, six hundred and fifty-four copies were delivered to subscribers. These Lintot agreed to supply at his own expense, and to pay to the author two hundred pounds for each volume; so that Pope cleared by the work five thousand three hundred and twenty pounds four shillings. Of the quartos, it had been stipulated that none should be printed except for subscribers: but Lintot struck off two hundred and fifty copies on royal folio, for two guineas a volume; and a much greater number on a small folio, and paper somewhat thinner.

Soon after the death of Queen Anne, Pope made a journey on horseback to Oxford, in order to consult "a number of books" for his notes on Homer: in a letter to Lord Burlington, August 1714, he gives a most exquisitely humorous account of his being overtaken by Lintot, as he was riding thither, and of the conversation between them.