His own friends, on the other hand,
hailed his work with applause,--Gay writing a most graceful and elegant
poem, in _ottava rima_, entitled, "Mr Pope's Welcome Home from Greece,"
in which his different friends are pictured as receiving him home on the
shores of Britain, after an absence of six years. Bentley, that stern
old Grecian, avoided the extremes of a howling Grub Street on the one
hand, and a flattering aristocracy on the other, and expressed what is,
we think, the just opinion when he said, "It is a pretty poem, but it is
not Homer."
In 1721, he issued a selection from the poems of Parnell, and prefixed a
very beautiful dedication to the Earl of Oxford, commencing with--
"Such were the notes thy once-loved poet sung,
Till death untimely stopp'd his tuneful tongue.
Oh, just beheld and lost, admired and mourn'd,
With softest manners, gentlest arts adorn'd!"
In 1722, he engaged to translate the "Odyssey." He employed Broome and
Fenton as his assistants in the work; and the portions translated by
them were thought as good as his. He remunerated them very handsomely.
Of this work, the first three quarto volumes appeared in 1725; and the
fourth and fifth, which completed the work, the following year. Pope
sold the copyright to Lintot for L600.
He was busy at this time, too, with an edition of Shakspeare,--not quite
worthy of either poet.
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