, and fly-blow in the evening sun.

His relations with his contemporaries were too often begun in
compliments only to end in abuse of this kind. Even while he was on good
terms with them, he was frequently doing them ill turns. Thus, he
persuaded a publisher to get Dennis to write abusively of Addison's
_Cato_ in order that he might have an excuse in his turn for writing
abusively of Dennis, apparently vindicating Addison but secretly taking
a revenge of his own. Addison was more embarrassed than pleased by so
savage a defence, and hastened to assure Dennis that he had had nothing
to do with it. Addison also gave offence to Pope by his too judicious
praise of _The Rape of the Lock_ and the translation of the _Iliad_.
Thus began the maniacal suspicion of Addison, which was expressed with
the genius of venom in the _Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot._

There was never a poet whose finest work needs such a running commentary
of discredit as Pope's. He may be said, indeed, to be the only great
poet in reading whom the commentary is as necessary as the text. One can
enjoy Shakespeare or Shelley without a note: one is inclined even to
resent the intrusion of the commentator into the upper regions of
poetry. But Pope's verse is a guide to his age and the incidents of his
waspish existence, lacking a key to which one misses three-fourths of
the entertainment. The _Danciad_ without footnotes is one of the
obscurest poems in existence: with footnotes it becomes a perfect epic
of literary entomology. And it is the same with at least half of his
work. Thus, in the _Imitations of Horace_, a reference to Russell tells
us little till we read in a delightful footnote:

There was a Lord Russell who, by living too luxuriously, had quite
spoiled his constitution. He did not love sport, but used to go out
with his dogs every day only to hunt for an appetite. If he felt
anything of that, he would cry out, "Oh, I have found it!" turn
short round and ride home again, though they were in the midst of
the finest chase. It was this lord who, when he met a beggar, and
was entreated by him to give him something because he was almost
famished with hunger, called him a "happy dog."

There may have been a case for neglecting Pope before Mr. Elwin and Mr.
Courthope edited and annotated him--though he had been edited well
before--but their monumental edition has made him of all English poets
one of the most incessantly