nvestigation.
Of the Metamorphoses he brought out only two little fragments, which
appeared many years later, when they had undergone a thorough revision.
The rest of the manuscript would not have been sacrificed if the version
had been fit for the public eye without the toil of recasting it.
Spence, who possessed the Acis and Galatea, did not think it worth
printing as a specimen of Pope's boyish abilities, even when the
curiosity respecting his works was at its height. The suppression of all
his early pieces, which had not been submitted to a subsequent
renovation, is a plain proof of their inferiority. The first translation
which he gave to the world was the "Episode of Sarpedon, from the
twelfth and sixteenth books of Homer's Iliads." This, and his Pastorals,
appeared together, in May, 1709, in Tonson's Sixth Miscellany, and Pope
was then twenty-one.

The fragment from Homer included the speech of Sarpedon to Glaucus. "It
has," said the poet, "been rendered in English by Sir John Denham, after
whom the translator had not the vanity to attempt it for any other
reason, than that the episode must have been very imperfect without so
noble a part of it." Denham at that period had a much more brilliant
reputation than he afterwards retained, and though Pope adopted the
language of humility, he must have felt an inward pride in the
consciousness that he had distanced so famous a name. His great
superiority did not admit of a question, and he must have been well
aware that it was his interest to invite a comparison. The specimen was
shown in manuscript to Trumbull, who, in his admiration, urged Pope to
give a complete translation of the Iliad. The exhortations of Trumbull
did not bear fruit till 1713. "I cannot," Pope wrote to him in the
November of that year, "deny myself the pleasure of acquainting you how
great a proof I have given of my deference to your opinion and judgment,
which has at last moved me to undertake the translation of Homer. I can
honestly say Sir William Trumbull was not only the first that put this
into my thoughts, but the principal encourager I had in it, and though
now almost all the distinguished names of quality or learning in the
nation have subscribed to it, there is not one of which I am so proud as
of yours." When the first volume of the translation appeared in 1715,
Pope paid his acknowledgments in the Preface to the eminent men who had
specially patronised the work. Not only does he make no