that the tranflation of Homer, if that was the great crime, was undertaken at the requeft, and aimoit at the command, of Sir Richard Steele. He entreated Mr. Addifon to fpeak candidly and freely, though it might be with ever fo much feverity, rather than, by keeping up forms of complaifance, conceal any of his faults. This Mr. Pope (poke in fuch a manner as plainly indicated he thought Mr. Addison the aggreffor, and expected him to condefcend, and own himself the caufe of the breach between them. But he was di.appointed; for Mr. Addifon, without appearing to be angry, was quite overcome with it. He began with declaring, that he always had wished him well, had often endeavoured to be his friend, and in that light advised him, if his nature was capable of it, to diveft himself of part of his vanity, which was too great for his merit; that he had not arrived yet to that pitch of excellence he might imagine, or think his moll partial readers imagined; that when he and Sir Richard Steele corrected his verfes, they had a different air; reminding Mr. Pope of the amendment, by Sir Richard, of a line in the poem called the Meffiah;

He wipes the tears for ever from our eyes.

Which is taken from the prophet Isaiah,

The Lord God will wipe all tears from off all faces;

From every face he wipes off every tear.

And it ftands fo altered in the newer editions of Mr. Pope's works. He proceeded to lay before him all the miftakes and inaccuracies hinted at by the writers who had attacked Mr. Pope, and added many things which he himself objected to. Speaking of his tranflation in general, he faid, that he was not to be blamed for endeavouring to get fo large a fum of money, but that it was an ill-executed thing, and not equal to Tickell, which had all the fpirit of Homer. Mr. Addifon concluded, in a low hollow voice of feigned temper, that he was not folicitous about his own fame as a poet; that

C 2

that he had quitted the Muses to enter into the business of the public; and that all he fpoke was through friendship to Mr. Pope, whom he advised to have a lefs exalted fenfe of his own merit.

Mr. Pope could not well bear fuch repeated reproaches, but boldly told Mr. Addifon, that he appealed from his judgment to the public, and that he had long known him too well to expect any friendship from him; upbraided him with being a penfioner from his youth, facrificing the very learning purchased by the public money to a mean thirst of power; that he was fent abroad to encourage literature, in place of which he had always endeavoured to fuppreis merit. At last the conteft grew fo warm that they parted without any ceremony, and Mr. Pope, upon this, wrote the foregoing verses.

In this account, and indeed in all other accounts which have been given concerning this quarrel, it does not appear that Mr. Pope was the aggreffor. If Mr. Addifon entertained fufpicions of Mr. Pope's being carried too far among the enemy, the danger was certainly Mr. Pope's, and not Mr. Addifon's. It was his misfortune, and not his crime. If Mr. Addison fhould think himself capable of becoming a rival to Mr. Pope, and, in confequence of this opinion, publish a tranflation of part of Homer at the fame time with Mr. Pope's, and if the public fhould decide in favour of the latter, by reading his tranflation, and neglecting the other, can any fault be imputed to Mr. Pope? Could he be blamed for exerting all his abilities in fo arduous a province? And was it his fault that Mr. Addifon (for the First Book of Homer was undoubtedly his) could not tranflate to please the public? Besides, was it not fomewhat presumptuous to infinuate to Mr. Pope, that his verfes bore another face when he corrected them, while, at the fame time, the tranflation of Homer, which he had never feen in manufcript, bore away the palm from that very translation he himself afferted

afferted was done in the true fpirit of Homer? In matters of genius the public judgment feldom errs, and in this cafe pofterity has confirmed the fentence of that age which gave the preference to Mr. Pope: for his tranflation is in the hands of all readers of tafte, while the other is feldom regarded but as a foil to Pope's.

It would appear as if Mr. Addison were himself fo immerfed in party bufinefs as to contract his benevolence to the limits of a faction, which was infinitely beneath the views of a philofopher, and the rules which that excellent writer himfelf eftablished. If this was the failing of Mr. Addiion, it was not the error of Pope, for he kept the strictest correspondence with fome pericns whole affera ns to the Whig intereft were suspected, yet was his name never cailed in queftion. While he was in favour with the Duke of Buckingham, the Lords Bolingbroke, Oxford, and Harcourt, Dr. Swift, and Mr. Prior, he did not drop his correfpondence with the Lord Halifax, Mr. Craggs, and moft of those who were at the head of the Whig intercft. A profeffed Jacobite one day remonftrated to Mr. Pope, that the people of his party took it ill that he should write with Mr. Steele upon ever fo indifferent a fubject; at which he could not help fmiling, and obferved, that he hated narrownefs of foul in any party; and that if he renounced his reason in religious matters, he fhould hardly do it on any other; and that he could pray, not only for oppofite parties, but even for oppofite religions. Mr. Pope confidered himself as a citizen of the world, and was therefore obliged to pray for the profperity of mankind in general. As a fon of Britain, he wifhed thofe councils might be suffered by Providence to prevail which were most for the intereft of his native country; but as politics was not his study, he could not always determine, at least with any degree of certainty, whofe councils were beft; and had charity enough to believe that contending parties might mean well. As tafte and science are confined to no country,

fo ought they not to be excluded from any party; and Mr. Pope had an unexceptionable right to live upon terms of the stricteft friendship with every man of parts, to which party foever he might belong. Mr. Pope's uprightnefs in his conduct towards contending politicians, is demonftrated by his living independent of either faction: he accepted no place, and had too high a fpirit to become a pensioner.

Many efforts were made to profelyte Pope from the Popish faith, which all proved ineffectual. His friends conceived hopes, from the moderation which he on all occafions expreffed, that he was really a Proteftant in his heart, and that upon the death of his mother he would not fcruple to declare his fentiments, notwithftanding the reproaches he might incur from the Popish party, and the public obfervation it would draw upon him. The Bishop of Rochester strongly advised him to read the controverted points between the Proteftant and the Catholic church, to fuffer his unprejudiced reafon to determine for him, and he made no doubt but a feparation from the Romish communion would foon enfue. To this Mr. Pope very candidly anfwered, "Whether the change would be to my spiritual ad"vantage God only knows: this I know, that I mean "as well in the religion I now profess, as ever I can "do in any other. Can a man who thinks fo juftify "a change, even if he thought both equally good? To "fuch an one the part of joining with any one body of "Chriftians might perhaps be easy, but I think it "would not be fo to renounce the other.

"Your Lordship has formerly advised me to read "the best controverfies between the Churches. Shall "I tell you a fecret? I did fo at fourteen years old, "for I loved reading, and my father had no other "books. There was a collection of all that had been "written on both fides in the reign of King James II. "I warmed my head with them, and the confequence 66 was, I found myself a Papist or a Protestant by turns, "according

"according to the last book I read. I am afraid most "feekers are in the fame cafe, and when they ftop, "they are not fo properly controverted as outwitted. "You fee how little glory you would gain by my con"verfion; and, after all, I verily believe your Lord"fhip and I are both of the fame religion, if we were thoroughly underftood by one another, and "that all honest and reasonable Chriftians would be "fo, if they did but talk enough together every day, "and had nothing to do together but to ferve God, "and live in peace with their neighbours.

"As to the temporal fide of the question, I can "have no dispute with you; it is certain all the bene"ficial circumstances of life, and all the shining ones, "lie on the part you would invite me to: but if I "could bring myself to fancy, what I think you do "but fancy, that I have any talents for active life, I "want health for it; and befides, it is a real truth, I "have, if poffible, lefs inclination than ability. Con"templative life is not only my fcene, but is my habit "too. I begun my life where most people end theirs, "with a difguft of all that the whole world calls am"bition. I don't know why it is called fo; for, to "me, it always feemed to be rather stooping than "climbing. I'll tell you my politic and religious "fentiments in a few words: in my politics I think "no farther than how to preferve my peace of life in "any government under which I live; nor in my re"ligion than to preferve the peace of my confcience in "in any church with which I communicate. I hope "all churches and all governments are fo far of God, "as they are rightly understood, and rightly admí❝ftered; and where they are, or may be, wrong, I "leave it to God alone to mend or reform them, which, "whenever he does, it must be by greater inftruments ❝than I am. I am not a Papift, for I resounce the temporal invafions of the papal power, and deteft "their arrogated authority over princes and ftates.