he soon gave his readers sufficient reason to distrust, by telling
them in a note that the work was imperfect because part of his
subject was vice too high to be yet exposed. The time, however,
soon came in which it was safe to display the Duchess of Marlborough
under the name of Atossa, and her character was inserted with no
great honour to the writer's gratitude.

He published from time to time (between 1730 and 1740) imitations of
different poems of Horace, generally with his name, and once, as was
suspected, without it. What he was upon moral principles ashamed to
own he ought to have suppressed. Of these pieces it is useless to
settle the dates, as they had seldom much relation to the times, and
perhaps had been long in his hands. This mode of imitation, in
which the ancients are familiarised by adapting their sentiments to
modern topics, by making Horace say of Shakespeare what he
originally said of Ennius, and accommodating his satires on
Pantolabus and Nomentanus to the flatterers and prodigals of our own
time, was first practised in the reign of Charles the Second, by
Oldham and Rochester, at least I remember no instances more ancient.
It is a kind of middle composition between translation and original
design, which pleases when the thoughts are unexpectedly applicable,
and the parallels lucky. It seems to have been Pope's favourite
amusement, for he has carried it farther than any former poet. He
published likewise a revival, in smoother numbers, of Dr. Donne's
"Satires," which was recommended to him by the Duke of Shrewsbury
and the Earl of Oxford. They made no great impression on the
public. Pope seems to have known their imbecility and therefore
suppressed them while he was yet contending to rise in reputation,
but ventured them when he thought their deficiencies more likely to
be imputed to Donne than to himself.