Extract from a LETTER of the Rev: Dr. BERKLEY, Dean of London-derry. - July 7, 1715: -Some days ago, three or four gentlemen and myfelf, exerting that right which all readers pretend to over authors, fate in judgment upon the two new Tranflations of the firft Iliad. Without partiality to my countrymen, I affure you, they all gave the preference where it was due; being unanimously of opinion, that yours was equally juft to the fenfe with Mr. -'s, and without comparison more easy, more poetical, and more fublime. But I will fay no more on such a thread-bare subject, as your late performance is at this time. I am, &c. Extract from a LETTER of Mr. GAY to Mr. PoP E. July 8, 1715. -I have just fet down Sir Samuel Garth at the Opera. He bid me tell you, that every body is pleas'd with your tranflation, but a few at Button's; and that Sir Richard Steele told him, that Mr. Addison faid the other translation was the best that ever was in any language*. He treated me with 'extreme civility, and out of kindness gave me a fqueeze by the fore finger. I am inform'd that at Button's your cha * Sir Richard Steele afterwards, in his Preface to an Edition of the Drummer, a Comedy by Mr. Addison, fhews it to be his opinion, that "Mr. Addison himself was the perfon who tranflated this book." P. racter racter is made very free with as to Morals, &c. and Mr. Addifon fays, that your tranflation and Tickel's well done, but that the latter has more are both very of Homer. I am, &c. 6 9! Extract from a LETTER of Dr. AR BUTH NOT to Mr. PoP E. July 9, 1715. I congratulate you upon Mr. T*'s first book. It does not indeed want its merit; but I was ftrangely difappointed in my expectation of a translation nicely true to the Original; whereas in those parts where the greatest exactness seems to be demanded, he has been the leaft careful, I mean the hiftory of ancient ceremonies and rites, &c. in which you have with great judgment been exact. I am, &c. LETTER XXVI. Mr. POPE to the Honourable JAMES CRAGGS, Efq. July 15, 1715. Lord Duke of Shrewsbury, to affure you of the continuance of that efteem and affection I have long born you, and the memory of fo many agreeable converfations as we have pass'd together. I wish it were a compliment to fay, fuch converfations as are not to be found on this fide of the water: for the Spirit of diffenfion is gone forth among us: nor is it a wonder that Button's is no longer Button's, when old England is no longer old England, that region of hofpitality, fociety, and good humour. Party affects us all, even the wits, tho' they gain as little by politics as they do by their wit. We talk much of fine fenfe, refin'd fenfe, and exalted sense; but for use and happiness, give me a little common fense. I fay this in regard to fome gentlemen, profefs'd Wits of our acquaintance, who fancy they can make Poetry of confequence at this time of day, in the midft of this raging fit of Politics. For, they tell me, the bufy part of the nation are not more divided about Whig and Tory, than these idle fellows of the feather about Mr. T's and my Tranflation. I (like the Tories) have the town in general, that is the mob, on my fide; but it is ufual with the smaller party to make up in industry what they want in number, and that is the cafe with the little Senate of Cato. However, if our principles be well confider'd, I must appear a brave Whig, and Mr. T. a rank Tory: I tranflated Homer for the public in general, he to gratify the inordinate defires of one man only. We have, it feems, a great Turk in poetry, who can never bear a brother on the throne; and has his mutes too, a fett of nodders, winkers, and whisperers, whose business is to ftrangle all other offsprings of wit in their birth. The new tranflator of Homer is the humbleft flave he has, that is to fay, his first Minister; let him receive the honours he gives me, but receive them with fear and trembling; let him be proud of the approbation of his abfolute Lord, I appeal to the people, as my rightful judges and mafters; and if they are not inclined to condemn me, I fear no arbitrary high-flying proceeding from the small Court-faction at Button's. But after all I have faid of this great man, there is no rupture between us. We are each of us fo civil and obliging, that neither thinks he is ob liged: And I, for my part, treat with him, as we do with the Grand Monarch; who has too many great qualities not to be refpected, though we know he watches any occafion to opprefs us *. When I talk of Homer, I must not forget the early prefent you made me of Monfieur de la Motte's book: And I can't conclude this letter without telling you a melancholy piece of news, which affects our very entrails, L* is dead, and foupes are no more! You fee I write in the old familiar way. "This is not to the minifter, but to the friend †.” However, it is some mark of uncommon regard to the minifter that I steal an expreffion from a Secretary of State. I am, &c. M LETTER XXVII. To Mr. CONGREV E. Jan. 16, 1714-15. Ethinks when I write to you, I am making a confeffion; I have got (I can't tell how) fuch a cuftom of throwing myfelf out upon paper without reserve. You were not miftaken in what you judged of my temper of mind when I writ laft. My faults will not be hid from you, and perhaps it is no difpraise to me that they will not: the cleannefs and purity of one's mind is never better proved, than in difcovering its own fault at firft view; as when a ftream fhews the dirt at its bottom, it fhews alfo the transparency of the water. * We find here moft of the fentiments he foon after put into verfe on this occafion. + Alluding to St. John's Letter to Prior, published în the Report of the Secret Committee. My 1 My spleen was not occafioned, however, by any thing an abufive angry critic could write of me. I take very kindly your heroic manner of congratulation upon this fcandal; for I think nothing more honourable, than to be involved in the fame fate with all the great and the good that ever lived that is, to be envied and cenfured by bad writers. You do no more than answer my expectations of you, in declaring how well you take my freedom, in fometimes neglecting, as I do, to reply to your letters fo foon as I ought. Those who have a right taste of the fubftantial part of friendship, can wave the ceremonial: a friend is the only one that will bear the omiffion; and one may find who is not fo, by the very trial of it. As to any anxiety I have concerning the fate of my Homer, the care is over with me: the world must be the judge, and I fhall be the first to consent to the juftice of its judgment, whatever it be. I am not fo arrant an Author as even to defire, that if I am in the wrong, all mankind fhould be fo. I am mightily pleas'd with a saying of Monfieur Tourreil: When a man writes, he ought to ani"mate himself with the thoughts of pleafing all "the world: but he is to renounce that defire or "hope, the very moment the book goes out of his "hands." I write this from Binfield, whither I came yefterday, having pafs'd a few days in my way with my Lord Bolingbroke; I go to London in three days time, and will not fail to pay a visit to Mr. M—, whom I faw not long fince at my Lord Hallifax's I hoped from thence he had fome hopes of advantage from the present administration: for few people (I think) but I, pay respects to great men without any profpects. I am in the fairelt way in the world of not being worth a groat, being born both a Papift and a Poet. This puts me in mind of re-acknow ledging |