he Phrenzy of J. D._ is a vulgar and mean satire, and
such a blow as the magnificent Addison could never desire to see any
partisan of his strike in any literary quarrel. Pope was closely allied
with Swift when he wrote this pamphlet. It is so dirty that it has been
printed in Swift's works, too. It bears the foul marks of the master hand.
Swift admired and enjoyed with all his heart the prodigious genius of the
young Papist lad out of Windsor Forest, who had never seen a university in
his life, and came and conquered the Dons and the doctors with his wit. He
applauded, and loved him, too, and protected him, and taught him mischief.
I wish Addison could have loved him better. The best satire that ever has
been penned would never have been written then; and one of the best
characters the world ever knew would have been without a flaw. But he who
had so few equals could not bear one, and Pope was more than that. When
Pope, trying for himself, and soaring on his immortal young wings, found
that his, too, was a genius, which no opinion of that age could follow, he
rose and left Addison's company, settling on his own eminence, and singing
his own song.

It was not possible that Pope should remain a retainer of Mr. Addison; nor
likely that after escaping from his vassalage and assuming an independent
crown, the sovereign whose allegiance he quitted should view him
amicably.(129) They did not do wrong to mislike each other. They but
followed the impulse of nature, and the consequence of position. When
Bernadotte became heir to a throne, the Prince Royal of Sweden was
naturally Napoleon's enemy. "There are many passions and tempers of
mankind," says Mr. Addison in the _Spectator_, speaking a couple of years
before their little differences between him and Mr. Pope took place,
"which naturally dispose us to depress and vilify the merit of one rising
in the esteem of mankind. All those who made their entrance into the world
with the same advantages, and were once looked on as his equals, are apt
to think the fame of his merits a reflection on their own deserts. Those
who were once his equals envy and defame him, because they now see him the
superior; and those who were once his superiors, because they look upon
him as their equal." Did Mr. Addison, justly perhaps thinking that, as
young Mr. Pope had not had the benefit of a university education, he
couldn't know Greek, therefore he couldn't translate Homer, encourage his
young frie