In this conjecture he was supported by
Edward Young, who had known Tickell long and intimately, and had never
heard of him having written at college, as was averred, this
translation. It is now, however, we believe, certain, from the MS. which
still exists, that Tickell was the real author. A coldness, from this
date, began between Pope and Addison. An attempt to reconcile them only
made matters worse; and at last the breach was rendered irremediable by
Pope's writing the famous character of his rival, afterwards inserted in
the Prologue to the Satires,--a portrait drawn with the perfection of
polished malice and bitter sarcasm, but which seems more a caricature
than a likeness. Whatever Addison's faults, his conduct to Pope did not
deserve such a return. The whole passage is only one of those painful
incidents which disgrace the history of letters, and prove how much
spleen, ingratitude, and baseness often co-exist with the highest parts.
The words of Pope are as true now as ever they were--"the life of a wit
is a warfare upon earth;" and a warfare in which poisoned missiles and
every variety of falsehood are still common. We may also here mention,
that while the friendship of Pope and Addison lasted, the former
contributed the well-known prologue to the latter's "Cato."
One of Pope's most intimate friends in his early days was Henry
Cromwell--a distant relative of the great Oliver--a gentleman of
fortune, gallantry, and literary taste, who became his agreeable and
fascinating, but somewhat dangerous, companion.
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