mention of
Trumbull, but he professes to have yielded to the counsel of a greater
authority, and says, "Mr. Addison was the first whose advice determined
me to undertake the task." Either the statement in the Preface, or the
statement in the letter must be inaccurate, though both Addison and
Trumbull may have recommended the scheme.

The "Episode of Sarpedon" is now incorporated in the complete
translation to which it led the way. It was not till three years after
he had published the fragment from Homer that Pope brought out his
translations from the Latin, of which the most ambitious is his version
of the first book of the Thebais. He told Spence that in his boyhood "he
liked extremely a translation of a part of Statius by some very bad
hand." This work bore the title of "An Essay upon Statius, or the five
first books of P. P. Statius his Thebais. Done into English verse by
T[homas] S[tephens], London, 1648." The verse into which Stephens did
his author was for the most part rugged and prosaic, but a few passages
are happily turned, and his successor did not disdain to borrow some
lines and phrases from him. The principal advantage, however, to Pope of
Stephens's attempt was that it enabled him to interpret the original;
for his classical education had been defective, and it is clear from his
own account, that he could not, without assistance, have construed the
Thebais correctly. At eight years of age he was taught his accidence by
a priest.[7] He afterwards went to a couple of small schools, where "he
lost what he had gained" from his first instructor.[8] "When I came," he
said, "from the last of them, all the acquisition I had made was to be
able to construe a little of Tully's Offices."[9] For a few months he
had another priest for his tutor, and was then left, between twelve and
thirteen, to his own resources.[10] The foundation was slight, and he
proceeded to raise upon it a hasty superstructure. "I did not," he said,
"follow the grammar, but rather hunted in the authors for a syntax of my
own; and then began translating any parts that pleased me, particularly
in the best Greek and Latin poets. I got the languages by hunting after
the stories in the several poets I read, rather than read the books to
get the language."[11] He, on another occasion, told Spence that he
thought himself the better in some respects for not having had a regular
education, since it caused him to read for the sense, whereas schoolboys
w