ch turns upon the assumption that Pope's translation was
vastly superior to the original, is too extravagant to be pleasing.
Fenton was a scholar, and could not have thought what he said.]

[Footnote 14: "I would add," says Dr. Johnson, in his Life of Parnell,
"that the description of barrenness in his verses to Pope was borrowed
from Secundus, but lately searching for the passage, which I had
formerly read, I could not find it." The borrowed description is the
only tolerable part of the poem, which is in a clumsy strain, unlike the
usual easy style of Parnell.]

[Footnote 15: He was only son to the Lord Chancellor Harcourt, and died
in 1720.--ROSCOE.]

[Footnote 16: It was paying pitiful homage to rank to call an
indifferent versifier, like the Duke of Buckingham, "great Sheffield,"
and pretend that he was the instructor and model of Pope.]

[Footnote 17: The comparison of the three Graces, admiring the
reflection of themselves in Pope's works, to Narcissus enamoured of his
own face in the stream, is a ludicrous conceit, and the execution is on
a par with the idea.]

[Footnote 18: This paragraph refers to Pope's Temple of Fame.]

[Footnote 19: Pope's genius was not epic, and the only epic poem he
composed was his juvenile effort, Alcander, which he burnt because it
was too worthless to be preserved.]

[Footnote 20: This and the concluding verse are from the Temple of
Fame.]

[Footnote 21: These lines first appeared in 1726, in the translation of
the Odyssey, where they were appended by Broome to the final note. Pope
inserted them in the 8vo edition of his works in 1736.]

[Footnote 22: This was a compliment our author could not take much
pleasure in reading; for he could not value himself on his edition of
Shakespeare.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 23: The comparison on both sides is wanting in truth. The
superficial researches, and meagre notes of Pope did not renovate
Shakespeare, and no second Raphael has repainted the pictures of Raphael
the first. Fitness of praise was a merit which the writers of
commendatory verses commonly despised. Their study was to outvie each
other in the grossness, and insincerity of their flattery.]

[Footnote 24: Odyssey, lib. xvi.--BROOME.]

[Footnote 25: Pope inserted this tribute among the Recommendatory poems
prefixed to the 8vo edition of his works, 1736. Lyttelton was not raised
to the peerage till November, 1757, twenty-seven years after the date of
his verses.]

[Footnote