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of Cato in 1713, by writing a narration of John Dennis's Frenzy, contrary to the wish of Mr. Addison (who difapproved fo illiberal an attack), and published it, though against his confent *. And his letters to Mr. Addison in October, November, December, and January following (which must have been written after his eyes are thus faid to have been opened) are full of the strongest expreffions of friendship and confidence. He then intrufted to this man (whofe jealoufy he perceived had been raised by the very mention of the fylphs and the gnomes) his original defign of tranflating and commenting on Homer. Mr. Addison (who it feems did not think Achilles half fo formidable as Ariel in the hands of his poetical rival) received this defign with great warmth of encouragement, and he was the first whofe advice determined Mr. Pope to undertake that task †. He also preffed him to turn it to the beft pecuniary advantage, and for that purpose to avoid engaging in any party difputes; into which he feared he might be drawn by his intimacy with Dr. Swift, and the attention paid him by many of the Tory miniftry. The fufpicions, if any, which Mr. Pope entertained of Mr. Addifon's fincerity, from his advice about the Rape of the Lock, had furely by this time fubfided; as indeed they might well do, if nothing happened to confirm them till the publication of Mr. Tickell's Homer; which, instead of being soon, was not till about two years after.

In the mean time, a quarrel broke out between Mr. Pope and Ambrofe Philips; which involved Mr. Addison in its confequences, and put a period to the cordiality of their friendship. Stung with the reputation which Philips had acquired as a writer of paftorals, Pope wrote an ironical paper in the Guardian, April 27th, 1713, in ridicule of Philips. Mr. Addifon immediately perceived the drift of it, and joined with Mr. Pope in the laugh; but Steele understood and published it as a ferious panegyric upon his friend. When the jeft was difcovered, Philips feems to have been outrageously angry, and to have harboured a deep refentment. For in the fpring of 1714, he took occafion to abuse Mr. Pope at Button's coffee-houfe as a Tory, and one united with Dr. Swift to write against the Whig intereft, and undermine the reputation of himself, Steele, and Addison. Addifon upon this came to Pope, and affured him of his difbelief of this idle story, and hoped their friendship would ftill continue t. Yet he seems to have been fomewhat ftaggered in refpect to Mr. Pope's party attachments, against which he had cautioned him more than once in the preceding year §; and a coolnefs certainly enfued, which continued for feveral months. During this estrangement, the interview mentioned by Mr. Ruff

Pope to Addifon, 30th July, 1713. Steele to Lintot, 4th Auguft, 1713. Additions, vol. ii. p. 104.

+ Preface to Pope's Iliad.

Letter to the hon. - 8th June, 1714.
Letter, Nov. 2, 1713.

6

head,

head, is more likely to have happened than at the period in which he places it, the latter end of the year 1715; when in reality. there was no rupture between them. Mr. Pope, it is confeffed by his biographer, conducted himself at this interview with great impetuolity and warmth; and Mr. Addison, who was of a colder conftitution, and much Mr. Pope's fuperior both in age and station, might poffibly behave with too much bauteûr and referve. But that he harboured no malice against him, appears from his fubfequent conduct.

For the fudden revolution in politics that happened at the death of queen Anne, and brought Mr. Addison and his friends into power and office, moft certainly gave him an opportunity of mortifying, if not crushing, his competitor, in cafe he had been mean enough to wish it. On the contrary, from that inftant, he was inclined to forget all animofities, and offered his fervices, nay his intereft at court to Mr. Pope; to which he returned a very wafpifh and difdainful anfwer : but however, in a few weeks afterwards, Pope foftened his tone, and wrote a more complaifant letter to Mr. Addison himself, yet mixed with fome distrust and refentment §. Civilities upon this were again renewed between them; infomuch that, in April 1715, we find Mr. Pope going to Mr. Jervas's, on purpose to meet Mr. Addifon ; and in the fame year he wrote his panegyrical epiftle in vérfe, to be prefixed to Mr. Addifon's Dialogues on Medals.

At length the great and inexpiable offence was given by Mr. Addison to Mr. Pope, by permitting Mr. Tickell, his dependent, and afterwards his under-fecretary, to publish a tranflation of the firft Book of the Iliad in the beginning of June 1715. juft at the time when the first volume of Mr. Pope's work was delivered to his fubfcribers. Whether this book was tranflated by Mr. Addison himself in his younger days, or whether he only revised and corrected Mr. Tickell's performance, cannot be pronounced with certainty; unless the public were in poffeffion of those odd concurring circumftances which convinced Mr. Pope himself, that it was Mr. Addifon's own tranflation; tho' he certainly thought otherwife, when he penned the character of Atticus . To apologize for its publication at fo critical a juncture, the following advertisement was prefixed by Mr. Tickell, though that circumstance was induftriously fuppreffed in all Mr. Pope's publications on the fubject: "I must inform the reader, that when I began this first book, I had fome thoughts of tranflating the whole Iliad; but I had the pleature of being diverted from that defign, by finding the work was

• Page 191.

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+ Letter from Jervas, 20th Auguft, 1714.
27th Auguft, 1714.

6

§10th October, 1714.

Gay to Congreve, 7th April, 1715.
Who when two wits on rival themes conteft,
Approves of both, but likes the worst the best.”

fallen

fallen into a much abler hand. I would not therefore be thought to have any other view in publishing this fmall fpecimen of Homer's Iliad, than to bespeak (if poffible) the favour of the public to a tranflation of Homer's Odyfeis, wherein I have already made fome progress."

Whether, on the fuppofition that the fpecimen was Mr. Addison's own (and it is not unworthy of him), he chose to indulge the vanity of an author, by fhewing him how well he could have performed the whole; or whether (fuppofing it Mr. Tickell's, whom he loved and patronized with all the affection of a father) he really meant to have conferred on him a pecuniary obligation by promoting a fubfcription for his Odyffey, as he had before done for Mr. Pope's Iliad; it must be acknowledged, that in either cafe the publication was indifcreet and ill-timed. It is true, that Mr. Pope's finances could not now be materially affected, had the public decided in favour of Tickell's translation for his fubfcription was full, and his contract with Lintot was complete. But it certainly bore too much the appearance of rivalfhip and competition; and was, in either light, a weakness below Mr. Addison's station and character. It is not to be wondered at therefore, that a man of fo irritable a disposition as Mr. Pope is acknowledged to have been, was hurt beyond measure by this tranfaction; and it is probable that the character of Atticus was written in the heat of his refentment on this occafion; as he expreffed the very fame fentiments to Mr. Craggs in his letter of 15th July 1715. But it does not appear (as Mr. Ruff head afferts) that there was any open breach between Mr. Addison and Mr. Pope upon this occafion; and Pope expressly tells Craggs there was none. Had any fuch happened; and had Mr. Addison then fhewn the temper afcribed to him by Mr. Pope's biographer, he would hardly, in the Freeholder of May 7, 1716, have bestowed fuch encomiums on Mr. Pope's translation of the Iliad.

Upon the whole, however Mr. Pope may be excufable for penning fuch a character of his friend in the first transports of poetical indignation, it reflects no great honour on his feelings to have kept it in petto for fix years, till after the death of Mr. Addison, and then to permit its publication (whether by recital or copy makes no material difference) †; and at length, at the diftance of 18 years, hand it down to pofterity ingrafted into one of his capital productions. Nothing furely could juftify fo long and fo deep a refentment, unless the ftory be true of the commerce between Addison and Gildon; which will require to be very fully proved, before it can be believed of a gentleman who was fo amiable in his moral character, and who (in his own cafe) had two years before exprefsly disapproved of a personal

• Ruffhead,

6

p. 185.

Bishop Atterbury's Letter, 26 Feb. 1721-2, VOL. XLVII. Jan. 1779.

D

abufe

abufe upon Mr. Dennis. The perfon indeed from whom Mr. Pope is faid to have received this anecdote, about the time of his writing the character (viz. about July 1715), was no other than the earl of Warwick, fon-in-law to Mr. Addifon himfelf. And the Something about Wycherley, (in which the story fuppofes that Addison hired Gildon to abufe Pope and his family) is explained by a note on the Dunciad, I. 296. to mean a pamphlet containing Mr. Wycherley's Life. Now it happens that, in July 1715, the earl of Warwick (who died at the age of twentyThree in Auguft 1721) was only a boy of feventeen, and not likely to be entrusted with fuch a fecret by a ftatefman between forty and fifty, with whom it does not appear that he was anyway connected or acquainted. For Mr. Addifon was not married to his mother the countefs of Warwick till the following year 1716. Nor could Gildon have been employed in July 1715 to write Mr. Wycherley's Life, who lived till the December following. As therefore fo many inconfiflencies are evident in the story itfelf, which never found its way into print till near fixty years after it is faid to have happened, it will be no breach of charity to fuppofe that the whole of it was founded on fome mifapprehenfion in either Mr. Pope or the earl; and unless better proof can be given, we fhall readily acquit Mr. Addison of this the most odious part of the charge.'

a

This excellent paper is faid to have been written by gentleman of confiderable rank; to whom the public is obliged for works of much higher importance.'-We will venture to afcribe it to the learned author of Commentaries on the Law's of England.

The firft article in this work is the life of Aaron and Julius, who fuffered martyrdom about the beginning of the fourth century. This article was in the first edition; but ought to have been excluded. For thefe two faints, as they are called, were neither diftinguifhed by any work of learning, nor (except their sufferings) by any memorable circumftance: confequently they have no pretenfions to be enrolled in the lift of eminent The Biographia Britannica is not defigned for SAINTS, OF PIOUS DRONES of any denomination.

men.

We do not mention this article as a matter of importance in itself, for it is very fhort; but as a point, which the learned and judicious editor may hereafter confider, as he fhall fee occafion.

Ifaiah,

Ifaiah. A new Translation; with a Preliminary Dissertation, and Notes critical, philological, and explanatory. By Robert Lowth, D. D. F. R. SS. Lond. and Goetting. Lord Bishop of London. 4to. 18s. boards. Cadell. [Concluded from vol. xlvi. p. 428.]

IN

N two former articles we have given our readers the fubftance of his lordship's Preliminary Differtation, containing an account of the style and character of the Hebrew poetry, the state of the Hebrew text, and other points of this nature. We now proceed to the Tranflation and the Commentary.

In this work the author has retained a confiderable part of the vulgar tranflation; for which he affigns this very fatisfactory reafon : as the ftyle of that translation is not only excellent in itself, but has taken poffeffion of our ear, and of our tafte, to have endeavoured to vary from it, with no other defign than that of giving fomething new instead of it, would have been to difguft the reader, and to reprefent the fenfe of the prophet in a more unfavourable manner: befides, that it is impoffible for a verbal translator, to follow an approved verbal tranflation, which has gone before him, without frequently treading in the very footsteps of it. The most obvious, the propereft, and perhaps the only terms, which the language affords, are already occupied, and without going out of his way to find worfe, he cannot avoid them. Every tranflator has taken this liberty with his predeceffors: it is no more than the laws of translation admit, nor indeed than the neceflity of the cafe requires. And as to the turn and modification of the fentences, the tranflator, in this particular province of translation, is as much confined to the author's manner, as to his words: fo that too great liberties taken in varying either the expreffion or the compofition, in order to give a new air to the whole, will be apt to have a very bad effect.'

For these reafons, he fays, whenever it fhall be thought proper to fet forth the holy fcriptures for the public ufe of our church, to better advantage than as they appear in the prefent English tranflation, the expediency of which grows every day more and more evident, a revifion or correction of that tranflation may perhaps be more advifeable than to attempt an entirely new one. For as to the ftyle and language, it admits but of little improvement; but, in refpect of the fenle and the accuracy of interpretation, the improvements of which it is capable are great and numberless.

The tranflation here offered is, in general, as close to the text, and as literal, as our English verfion. Whenever it de parts from the Hebrew text, on account of fome correction,

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