me, shall not fear the high-flyers at Button's." This opposition he
immediately imputed to Addison, and complained of it in terms
sufficiently resentful to Craggs, their common friend.

When Addison's opinion was asked, he declared the versions to be
both good, but Tickell's the best that had ever been written; and
sometimes said that they were both good, but that Tickell had more
of "Homer."

Pope was now sufficiently irritated; his reputation and his interest
were at hazard. He once intended to print together the four
versions of Dryden, Maynwaring, Pope, and Tickell, that they might
be readily compared and fairly estimated. This design seems to have
been defeated by the refusal off Tonson, who was the proprietor of
the other three versions.

Pope intended, at another time, a rigorous criticism of Tickell's
translation, and had marked a copy, which I have seen, in all places
that appeared defective. But while he was thus meditating defence
or revenge, his adversary sunk before him without a blow; the voice
of the public was not long divided, and the preference universally
given to Pope's performance. He was convinced, by adding one
circumstance to another, that the other translation was the work of
Addison himself; but, if he knew it in Addison's lifetime, it does
not appear that he told it. He left his illustrious antagonist to
lie punished by what has been considered as the most painful of all
reflections--the remembrance of a crime perpetrated in vain. The
other circumstances of their quarrel were thus related by Pope:-

"Philips seemed to have been encouraged to abuse me in coffee-houses