son has given him. If the money with which he retired was all
gotten by himself, he had traded very successfully in times when
sudden riches were rarely attainable.

The publication of the "Iliad" was at last completed in 1720. The
splendour and success of this work raised Pope many enemies that
endeavoured to depreciate his abilities. Burnet, who was afterwards
a judge of no mean reputation, censured him in a piece called
"Homerides" before it was published. Ducket likewise endeavoured to
make him ridiculous. Dennis was the perpetual persecutor of all his
studies. But whoever his critics were, their writings are lost, and
the names, which are preserved are preserved in the "Dunciad."

In this disastrous year (1720) of national infatuation, when more
riches than Peru can boast were expected from the South Sea, when
the contagion of avarice tainted every mind, and even poets panted
after wealth, Pope was seized with the universal passion, and
ventured some of his money. The stock rose in its price, and for a
while he thought himself the lord of thousands. But this dream of
happiness did not last long, and he seems to have waked soon enough
to get clear with the loss of what he once thought himself to have
won, and perhaps not wholly of that.

Next year he published some select poems of his friend Dr. Parnell,
with a very elegant dedication to the Earl of Oxford, who, after all
his struggles and dangers, then lived in retirement, still under the
frown of a victorious faction, who could take no pleasure in hearing
his praise. He gave the same year (1721) an edition of Shakespeare.
His name was now of so much authority that Tonson thought himself
entitled, by annexing it, to demand a subscription of six guineas