Halifax of praise. It is not likely that Halifax had any personal
benevolence to Pope; it is evident that Pope looked on Halifax with
scorn and hatred[124].

The reputation of this great work failed of gaining him a patron; but it
deprived him of a friend. Addison and he were now at the head of poetry
and criticism; and both in such a state of elevation, that, like the two
rivals in the Roman state, one could no longer bear an equal, nor the
other a superiour. Of the gradual abatement of kindness between friends,
the beginning is often scarcely discernible by themselves, and the
process is continued by petty provocations, and incivilities sometimes
peevishly returned, and sometimes contemptuously neglected, which would
escape all attention but that of pride, and drop from any memory but
that of resentment. That the quarrel of these two wits should be
minutely deduced, is not to be expected from a writer to whom, as Homer
says, "nothing but rumour has reached, and who has no personal
knowledge."

Pope doubtless approached Addison, when the reputation of their wit
first brought them together, with the respect due to a man whose
abilities were acknowledged, and who, having attained that eminence to
which he was himself aspiring, had in his hands the distribution of
literary fame. He paid court with sufficient diligence by his prologue
to Cato, by his abuse of Dennis, and with praise yet more direct, by his
poem on the Dialogues on Medals, of which the immediate publication was
then intended. In all this there was no hypocrisy; for he confessed that
he found in Addison something more pleasing than in any other man.

It may be supposed, that as Pope saw himself favoured by the world, and
more frequently compared his own powers with those of others, his
confidence increased, and his submission lessened; and that Addison felt
no delight from the advances of a young wit, who might soon contend with
him for the highest place. Every great man, of whatever kind be his
greatness, has among his friends those who officiously or insidiously
quicken his attention to offences, heighten his disgust, and stimulate
his resentment. Of such adherents Addison doubtless had many; and Pope
was now too high to be without them.

From the emission and reception of the proposals for the Iliad, the
kindness of Addison seems to have abated. Jervas, the painter, once
pleased himself, Aug. 20, 1714, with imagining that he had reestablished
their fr