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Lives of the English Poets : Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope by Samuel Johnson
page 102 of 212 (48%)
of my translation of the 'Iliad,' that lord desired to have the
pleasure of hearing them read at his house. Addison, Congreve, and
Garth were there at the reading. In four or five places Lord
Halifax stopped me very civilly, and with a speech each time of much
the same kind, 'I beg your pardon, Mr. Pope, but there is something
in that passage that does not please me. Be so good as to mark the
place, and consider it a little at your leisure. I am sure you can
give it a little turn.' I returned from Lord Halifax's with Dr.
Garth in his chariot, and as we were going along was saying to the
Doctor that my lord had laid me under a great deal of difficulty by
such loose and general observations; that I had been thinking over
the passages almost ever since, and could not guess at what it was
that offended his lordship in either of them. Garth laughed
heartily at my embarrassment: said I had not been long enough
acquainted with Lord Halifax to know his way yet; that I need not
puzzle myself about looking those places over and over when I got
home. 'All you need do,' says he, 'is to leave them just as they
are, call on Lord Halifax two or three months hence, thank him for
his kind observations on those passages, and then read them to him
as altered. I have known him much longer than you have, and will be
answerable for the event.' I followed his advice, waited on Lord
Halifax some time after; said I hoped he would find his objections
to those passages removed; read them to him exactly as they were at
first; and his lordship was extremely pleased with them, and cried
out, 'Ay, now they are perfectly right; nothing can be better.'"

It is seldom that the great or the wise suspect that they are
despised or cheated. Halifax, thinking this a lucky opportunity of
securing immortality, made some advances of favour and some
overtures of advantage to Pope, which he seems to have received with
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