, describes a young
lord's theft of a lock of hair from the head of a court beauty. Pope
composed _The Rape of the Lock_ to soothe her indignation and to
effect a reconciliation. The whole of this poem should be read by the
student, as it is a vivid satiric picture of fashionable life in Queen
Anne's reign.

[Illustration: RAPE OF THE LOCK. _From a drawing by B. Westmacott_.]

Translation of Homer.--Pope's chief work during the middle period of
his life was his translation of the _Iliad_ and of the _Odyssey_ of
Homer. From a financial point of view, these translations were the
most successful of his labors. They brought him in nearly L9000, and
made him independent of bookseller or of nobleman.

The remarkable success of these works is strange when we remember that
Pope's knowledge of Greek was very imperfect, and that he was obliged
to consult translations before attempting any passage. The Greek
scholar Bentley, a contemporary of Pope, delivered a just verdict on
the translation: "A pretty poem, Mr. Pope, but you must not call it
Homer." The historian Gibbon said that the poem had every merit except
faithfulness to the original.

Homer is simple and direct. He abounds in concrete terms. Pope
dislikes a simple term and loves a circumlocution and an abstraction.
We have the concrete "herd of swine" translated into "a bristly care,"
"skins," into "furry spoils." The concrete was considered common and
undignified. Homer says in simple language: "His father wept with
him," but Pope translates this: "The father poured a social flood."

Pope used to translate thirty or forty verses of the _Iliad_ before
rising, and then to spend a considerable time in polishing them. But
half of the translation of the _Odyssey_ is his own work. He employed
assistants to finish the other half; but it is by no means easy to
distinguish his work from theirs.

[Illustration: ALEXANDER POPE. _From contemporary portrait_.]

Some Poems of his Third Period: "Essay on Man," and "Satires."--The
_Essay on Man_ is a philosophical poem with the avowed object of
vindicating the ways of God to man. The entire poem is an
amplification of the idea contained in these lines:--

"All nature is but art unknown to thee;
All chance, direction which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good.
And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right."

The chief me