Pope met the Dean for
the first time in Berkshire, where, in one of his fits of savage disgust
at the conflicting parties of the period, he had retired to the house of
a clergyman, and an intimacy commenced which was only terminated by
death. We have often regretted that Pope had not selected some author
more suitable to his genius than Homer. Horace or Lucretius, or even
Ovid, would have been more congenial. His imitations of Horace shew us
what he might have made of a complete translation. What a brilliant
thing a version of Lucretius, in the style of the "Essay on Man," would
have been! And his "Rape of the Lock" proves that he had considerable
sympathy with the elaborate fancy, although not with the meretricious
graces of Ovid. But with Homer, the severely grand, the simple, the
warlike, the lover and painter of all Nature's old original forms--the
ocean, the mountains, and the stars--what thorough sympathy could a man
have who never saw a real mountain or a battle, and whose enthusiasm for
scenery was confined to purling brooks, trim gardens, artificial
grottos, and the shades of Windsor Forest? Accordingly, his Homer,
although a beautiful and sparkling poem, is not a satisfactory
translation of the "Iliad," and still less of the "Odyssey." He has
trailed along the naked lances of the Homeric lines so many flowers and
leaves that you can hardly recognise them, and feel that their point is
deadened and their power gone.
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