their silver wings o'ershade
The ground, now sacred by thy reliques made.'

For some years Pope had been brooding over and slowly labouring at a
task which was destined to add greatly to his fame and also to his
fortune.

In 1708 his early friend, Sir William Trumbull, had advised him to
translate the _Iliad_, and five years later the poet, following the
custom of the age, invited subscriptions to the work, which was to
appear in six volumes at the price of six guineas. About this time
Swift, who by the aid of his powerful pen was assisting Harley and St.
John to rule the country, made Pope's acquaintance, and ultimately
became perhaps the most faithful of his friends. Swift, who was able to
help everybody but himself, zealously promoted the poet's scheme, and
was heard to say at the coffee-houses that 'the best poet in England Mr.
Pope a Papist' had begun a translation of Homer which he should not
print till he had a thousand guineas for him.

He was not satisfied with this service, but introduced the poet to St.
John, Atterbury, and Harley. The first volume of Pope's _Homer_ appeared
in 1715, and in the same year Addison's friend Tickell published his
version of the first book of the _Iliad_. Pope affected to believe that
this was done at Addison's instigation.

Already, as we have said, there had been a misunderstanding between the
two famous wits, and Pope, whose irritable temperament led him into many
quarrels and created a host of enemies, ceased from this time to regard
Addison as a friend. Probably neither of them can be exempted from
blame, and we can well believe that Addison, whose supremacy had
formerly been uncontested, could not without some jealousy 'bear a
brother near the throne,' but the chief interest of the estrangement to
the literary student is the famous satire written at a later date, in
which Addison appears under the character of Atticus.[13] It is
necessary to add here that the whole story of the quarrel comes to us
from Pope, who is never to be trusted, either in prose or verse, when he
wishes to excuse himself at the expense of a rival.

Pope had no cause for discontent at his position; not even the strife of
parties stood in the way of his _Homer_, which was praised alike by Whig
and Tory, and brought the translator a fortune. It has been calculated
that the entire version of the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_, the payments for
which covered eleven years, yielded Pope a clear profit of abou