, and subsequently published by Warton from the original,
naturally caused the poet to be accused of pilfering another man's
letter, and sending it off as his own. Mr. Thackeray so puts it in his
world-famous _Lectures_, and few literary anecdotes are better known; but
the better opinion undoubtedly is that the letter was Pope's from the
beginning, and attributed by him to Gay because he did not want to have
it appear that on the date in question he was corresponding with Lady
Mary. After all, there is a great deal to be said in favour of honesty.

When we turn from the man to the poet we have at once to change our key.
A cleverer fellow than Pope never commenced author. He was in his own
mundane way as determined to be a poet, and the best going, as John
Milton himself. He took pains to be splendid--he polished and pruned.
His first draft never reached the printer--though he sometimes said it
did. This ought, I think, to endear him to us in these hasty days, when
authors high and low think nothing of emptying the slops of their minds
over their readers, without so much as a cry of 'Heads below!'

Pope's translation of the _Iliad_ was his first great undertaking, and he
worked at it like a Trojan. It was published by subscription for two
guineas; that is, the first part was. His friends were set to work to
collect subscribers. Caryll alone got thirty-eight. Pope fully entered
into this. He was always alive to the value of his wares, and despised
the foppery of those of his literary friends who would not make money out
of their books, but would do so out of their country. He writes to
Caryll:

'But I am in good earnest of late, too much a man of business to mind
metaphors and similes. I find subscribing much superior to writing, and
there is a sort of little epigram I more especially delight in, after the
manner of rondeaus, which begin and end all in the same words,
namely--"Received" and "A. Pope." These epigrams end smartly, and each
of them is tagged with two guineas. Of these, as I have learnt, you have
composed several ready for me to set my name to.'

This is certainly much better than that trumpery walk in the moonshine.
Pope had not at this time joined the Tories, and both parties subscribed.
He cleared over 5,000 pounds by the _Iliad_. Over the _Odyssey_ he
slackened, and employed two inferior wits to do half the books; but even
after paying his journeymen he made nearly 4,000 pounds over the