proud Ilion
And lighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays;
Wide o'er the fields to Troy extend the gleams,
And tip the distant spires with fainter beams;
The long reflections of the distant fires
Gild the high walls, and tremble on the spires;
Gleam on the walls, and tremble on the spires;
A thousand fires at distant stations bright,
Gild the dark prospect, and dispel the night.

Of these specimens every man who has cultivated poetry, or who delights
to trace the mind from the rudeness of its first conceptions to the
elegance of its last, will naturally desire a greater number; but most
other readers are already tired, and I am not writing only to poets and
philosophers.

The Iliad was published volume by volume, as the translation proceeded:
the four first books appeared in 1715. The expectation of this work was
undoubtedly high, and every man who had connected his name with
criticism, or poetry, was desirous of such intelligence as might enable
him to talk upon the popular topick. Halifax, who, by having been first
a poet, and then a patron of poetry, had acquired the right of being a
judge, was willing to hear some books while they were yet unpublished.
Of this rehearsal Pope afterwards gave the following account[122]:

"The famous lord Halifax was rather a pretender to taste, than really
possessed of it. When I had finished the two or three first books of my
translation of the Iliad, that lord desired to have the pleasure of
hearing them read at his house. Addison, Congreve, and Garth, were there
at the reading. In four or five places, lord Halifax stopped me very
civilly, and with a speech each time of much the same kind, 'I beg your
pardon, Mr. Pope; but there is something in that passage that does not
quite please me. Be so good as to mark the place, and consider it a
little at your leisure. I'm sure you can give it a little turn.' I
returned from lord Halifax's with Dr. Garth, in his chariot: and, as we
were going along, was saying to the doctor, that my lord had laid me
under a great deal of difficulty by such loose and general observations;
that I had been thinking over the passages almost ever since, and could
not guess what it was that offended his lordship in either of them.
Garth laughed heartily at my embarrassment; said, I had not been long
enough acquainted with lord Halifax, to know his way yet; that I need
not pu