a laboured but fairly successful piece of pleasantry from Pope, upon
Swift's having offered twenty guineas to the young Papist to change his
religion. It is dated December 8, 1713. In the preceding month Bishop
Kennet saw Swift in all his glory, and wrote an often quoted description
of the scene. Swift was bustling about in the royal antechamber,
swelling with conscious importance, distributing advice, promising
patronage, whispering to ministers, and filling the whole room with his
presence. He finally "instructed a young nobleman that the best poet in
England was Mr. Pope, a Papist, who had begun a translation of Homer
into English verse, for which he must have them all subscribe; 'for,'
says he, 'the author shall not begin to print till I have a thousand
guineas for him!'" Swift introduced Pope to some of the leaders of the
ministry, and he was soon acquainted with Oxford, Bolingbroke,
Atterbury, and many other men of high position. Pope was not disinclined
to pride himself upon his familiarity with the great, though boasting
at the same time of his independence. In truth, the morbid vanity which
was his cardinal weakness seems to have partaken sufficiently of the
nature of genuine self-respect to preserve him from any unworthy
concessions. If he flattered, it was as one who expected to be repaid in
kind; and though his position was calculated to turn the head of a youth
of five-and-twenty, he took his place as a right without humiliating his
own dignity. Whether from principle or prudence, he judiciously kept
himself free from identification with either party, and both sides took
a pride in supporting the great literary undertaking which he had now
announced.

When Pope first circulated his proposals for translating Homer, Oxford
and Bolingbroke were fellow-ministers, and Swift was their most
effective organ in the press. At the time at which his first volume
appeared, Bolingbroke was in exile, Oxford under impeachment, and Swift
had retired, savagely and sullenly, to his deanery. Yet, through all the
intervening political tempest, the subscription list grew and
flourished. The pecuniary result was splendid. No author had ever made
anything approaching the sum which Pope received, and very few authors,
even in the present age of gold, would despise such payment. The details
of the magnificent bargain have been handed down, and give the pecuniary
measure of Pope's reputation.

The Iliad was to be published in six v