ack
from his Irish deanery to reconcile Oxford and Bolingbroke, he seems
to have made Pope's personal acquaintance, and to have begun the
correspondence which lasted so long. By Swift, Pope was introduced to
Oxford, to his later "guide, philosopher, and friend," Bolingbroke, to
the gentle and humane Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, to Prior and
Parnell, to Arbuthnot, best of men and physicians--some of whom he
mentions in the "Prologue to the Satires." Swift, he says:

"endur'd my rays;
The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read;
Ev'n mitred _Rochester_ would nod the head,
And _St. John's_ self (great Dryden's friends before)
With open arms receiv'd one Poet more."

Closely connected with the group of Pope's connections at this time
was the famous literary association known as the "Scriblerus Club,"
the avowed object of which was to satirize the abuses of human
learning. The dispersal of its members at the death of Anne
interrupted this enterprise, which never extended beyond a first
book--a fragment which must, however, be held to have been unusually
pregnant in suggestion, since it contained the germs of "Gulliver's
Travels" and the "Dunciad." But Pope's life at this point grows too
complicated to be pursued in detail, and it will be impossible
henceforth to do more than note briefly its chief incidents.
Trumbull's counsel to him to translate Homer, and his first essay in
Tonson's "Miscellany," have already been mentioned. In a later volume
of "Miscellany" poems edited by Steele, he had printed some specimens
from the "Odyssey," and in the following year he embarked in the great
work of his middle life, the translation of the "Iliad." By 1715 the
first volume, containing four books, was issued to the subscribers,
whose roll, ennobled by the patronage of Oxford and Bolingbroke, and
extended by the imperious advocacy of Swift, included almost everyone
of importance. The only blot upon its brilliant success is the
unfortunate quarrel with Addison, which led to the portrait of
Atticus.

Early in 1716, not long after the death of Wycherley, Pope moved from
Binfield to Chiswick. His house, in what was then known as the "New
Buildings," but is now Mawson's Row, still exists down a turning off
the Mall, not very far from the old Church where Hogarth lies buried,
and from Chiswick House, the mansion of Lord Burlington, under whose
wing Pope describes himself as residing. Here, for a coup