on Dennis, called _The
Narrative of Dr. Robert Norris_ (a well-known quack who professed the
cure of lunatics) _upon the Frenzy J. D_. Addison then, through Steele,
wrote to Popes publisher of this manner of treating Mr. Dennis, that
he could not be privy to it, and was sorry to hear of it. In 1715,
when Pope issued to subscribers the first volume of Homer, Tickell's
translation of the first book of the Iliad appeared in the same week,
and had particular praise at Buttons from Addison, Tickell's friend and
patron. Pope was now indignant, and expressed his irritation in the
famous satire first printed in 1723, and, finally, with the name of
Addison transformed to Atticus, embodied in the Epistle to Arbuthnot
published in 1735. Here, while seeing in Addison a man

_Blest with each talent and each art to please,
And born to live, converse, and write with ease,_

he said that should he, jealous of his own supremacy, damn with faint
praise, as one

_Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint the fault and hesitate dislike,
Who when two wits on rival themes contest,
Approves of both, but likes the worse the best:
Like Cato, give his little Senate laws,
And sits attentive to his own applause;
While wits and templars every sentence raise:
And wonder with a foolish face of praise:
Who would not laugh if such a man there be?
Who would not weep if Addison were he?_

But in this _Spectator_ paper young Popes _Essay on Criticism_
certainly was not damned with faint praise by the man most able to give
it a firm standing in the world.]

[Footnote 3: Odyssey Bk. XI. In Ticknell's edition of Addison's works
the latter part of this sentence is omitted; the same observation having
been made by Dionysius of Halicarnassus.]

[Footnote 4: Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon, author of the Essay
on Translated Verse, was nephew and godson to Wentworth, Earl of
Strafford. He was born in Ireland, in 1633, educated at the Protestant
University of Caen, and was there when his father died. He travelled in
Italy, came to England at the Restoration, held one or two court
offices, gambled, took a wife, and endeavoured to introduce into England
the principals of criticism with which he had found the polite world
occupied in France. He planned a society for refining our language and
fixing its standard. During the troubles of King James's reign he was
about to leave the kingdom, when his departure was de