He entreated Mr. Addison to speak candidly and freely, though it might be with ever so much severity rather than, by keeping up forms of complaisance conceal any of his faults. This Mr. Pope spoke in such a manner as plainly indicated he thought Mr. Addison the aggressor, expected him to condescend, and own himself the cause of the breach betweer. them. But he was disappointed; for Mr. Addison, 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 divest 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 most partial readers imagined; that when he and Sir Richard Steele corrected his verses, they had a different air; reminding Mr Pope of the amendment, by Sir Richard, of a line in the poem called the Messiah;

He wipes the tears for ever from our eyes.

Which is taken from the prophet Isaiah:-" The Lord God will wipe tears from off all faces;"

From every face he wipes off every tear.

And it stands so altered in the newer editions of Mr. Pope's works. He proceeded to lay before him the mistakes and inaccuracies hinted at by the writers who had attacked Mr. Pope, and added many things which he himself objected to. Speaking of his Translation in general, he said, that he was not to be blamed for endeavouring to get so large a sum of money, but that it was an ill-executed thing, and not equal to Tickell, which had all the spirit of Homer. Mr. Addison concluded, in a low hollow voice of feigned temper, that he was not solicitous about his

own fame as a poet; that he had quitted the Muses to enter into the business of the public, and that all he spoke was through friendship to Mr. Pope, whom he advised to have a less exalted sense of his own merit.

Mr. Pope could not well bear such repeated roproaches, but boldly told Mr. Addison, 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 pensioner from his youth, sacrificing the very learning purchased by the public money to a mean thirst of power; that he was sent abroad to encourage literature, in place of which he had always endeavoured to suppress merit. At last the contest grew so warm that they parted without any ceremony, and Mr. Pope, upon this, wrote the foregoing verses, which are esteemed too true a picture of Mr. Addison.

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 aggressor. If Mr. Addison entertained suspicions of Mr. Pope's being carried too far among the enemy, the danger was certainly Mr. Pope's, and not Mr. Addison's. It was his misfortune, and not his crime. If Mr Addison should think himself capable of becoming a rival to Mr. Pope, and, in consequence of this opinion, publish a translation of part of Homer at the same time with Mr. Pope's, and if the public should decide in favour of the latter, by reading his translation, and neglecting the other, can any fault be imputed to Mr. Pope? could he be blamed for exerting all his abilities in so arduous a province? And was it his fault that Mr. Addison (for the first Book of Homer was undoubtedly his) could not translate to please the public? Besides, was it not somewhat presumptuous to insinuate to Mr. Pope that his verses bore another face when he corrected them, while, at the

same time, the translation of Homer, which he had zever seen in manuscript, bore away the palm from that very translation which he himself asserted was done in the true spirit of Homer? In matters of genius the public judgment seldom errs, and in this case posterity has confirmed the sentence of that age which gave the preference to Mr. Pope; for nis translation is in the hands of all readers of taste, while the other is seldom regarded but as a foil to Pope's.

It would appear as if Mr. Addison were himself so immersed in party business as to contract his benevo lence to the limits of a faction, which was infinitely beneath the views of a philosopher, and the rules which that excellent writer himself established. If this was the failing of Mr. Addison, it was not the error of Pope, for he kept the strictest correspondence with some persons whose affection to the Whig interest was suspected, yet was his name never called in question. 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 correspondence with the Lord Halifax, Mr Craggs, and most of those who were at the head of the Whig interest. A professed Jacobite one day remonstrated to Mr. Pope, that the people of his party took it ill that he should write with Mr. Steele upon ever so indifferent a subject; at which he could not help smiling, and observed, that he hated narrow. ness of soul in any party; and that if he renounced his reason in religious matters, he should hardly do it on any other; and that he could pray not only for opposite parties, but even for opposite religions. Mr. Pope considered himself as a citizen of the world, and was therefore obliged to pray for the prosperity of mankind in general. As a son of Britain, he wished those councils might be suffered by Provi dence to prevail which were most for the interest of

nis native country; but as politics was not his study, he could not always determine, at least with any degree of certainty, whose councils were best and had charity enough to believe that contending parties might mean well. As taste and science are confined to no country, so ought they not to be excluded from any party, and Mr. Pope had an unexceptionable right to live upon terms of the strictest friendship with every man of parts, to which party soever he might belong. Mr. Pope's uprightness in his conduct towards contending politicians, is demonstrated by his living independent of either faction: he accepted no place, and had too high a spirit to become a pensioner.

Many efforts, however, were made to proselyte him from the popish faith, which all proved ineffectual. His friends conceived hopes, from the moderation which he on all occasions expressed, that he was really a Protestant in his heart, and that upon the death of his mother he would not scruple to declare his sentiments, notwithstanding the reproaches he might incur from the popish party, and the public observation it would draw upon him. The Bishop of Rochester strongly advised him to read the controverted points between the Protestant and the Catholic church, to suffer his unprejudiced reason to determine for him, and he made no doubt but a sepa ration from the Romish communion would soon ensue. To this Mr. Pope very candidly answered, "Whether the change would be to my spiritual advantage 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 so, justify a change, even if he thought both equally good? to such an one the part of joining with any one body of Christians might perhaps be easy, but I think it woula not be so to renounce the other.

"Your Lordship has formerly advised me to read

he best controversies between the churches. Shall I tell you a secret? I did so 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 sides in the reign of King James II. I warmed my head with them, and the consequence was, I found myself a Papist or Protestant by turns according to the last book I read. I am afraid most seekers are in the same case, and when they stop, they are not so properly converted as outwitted You see how little glory you would gain by my conversion; and, after all, I verily believe your Lordship and I are both of the same religion, if we were thoroughly understood by one another, and that all honest and reasonable Christians would be so, if they aid but talk enough together every day, and had nothing to do together but to serve God and live in peace with their neighbours.

"As to the temporal side of the question, I can have no dispute with you; it is certain all the beneficial 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 besides it is a real truth, I have, if possi ble, less inclination than ability. Contemplative life is not only my scene, but is my habit too. I began my life where most people end theirs, with a disgust of all that the world calls ambition. I don't know why it is called so: for, to me, it always seemed to be rather stooping than climbing. I'll tell you my political and religious sentiments in a few words; in my politics, I think no farther than how to preserve my peace of life in any government under which I live; nor in my religion, than to preserve the peace of my conscience in any church with which I communicate. I hope all churches and all governments are so far of God as they are rightly understood and rightly ad