A little after this, Pope became acquainted with a far greater, better,
and truer man than himself, Joseph Addison. Warburton, and others, have
sadly misrepresented the connexion between these two famous wits, as
well as their relative intellectual positions. Addison was a more
amiable and childlike person than Pope. He had much more, too, of the
Christian. He was not so elaborately polished and furbished as the
author of "The Rape of the Lock;" but he had, naturally, a finer and
richer genius. Pope found early occasion for imagining Addison his
disguised enemy. He gave him a hint of his intention to introduce the
machinery into "The Rape of the Lock." Of this, Addison disapproved, and
said it was a delicious little thing already--_merum sal_. This, Pope,
and some of his friends, have attributed to jealousy; but it is obvious
that Addison could not foresee the success with which the machinery was
to be managed, and did foresee the difficulties connected with tinkering
such an exquisite production. We may allude here to the circumstances
which, at a later date, produced an estrangement between these
celebrated men. When Tickell, Addison's friend, published the first book
of the "Iliad," in opposition to Pope's version, Addison gave it the
preference. This moved Pope's indignation, and led him to assert that it
was Addison's own composition.
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