pension. While the translation of "Homer" was in its progress, Mr.
Craggs, then Secretary of State, offered to procure him a pension,
which, at least during his ministry, might be enjoyed with secrecy.
This was not accepted by Pope, who told him, however, that, if he
should be pressed with want of money, he would send to him for
occasional supplies. Craggs was not long in power, and was never
solicited for money by Pope, who disdained to beg what he did not
want.

With the product of this subscription, which he had too much
discretion to squander, he secured his future life from want, by
considerable annuities. The estate of the Duke of Buckingham was
found to have been charged with five hundred pounds a year, payable
to Pope, which doubtless his translation enabled him to purchase.

It cannot be unwelcome to literary curiosity, that I deduce thus
minutely the history of the English "Iliad." It is certainly the
noblest version of poetry which the world has ever seen, and its
publication must therefore be considered as one of the great events
in the annals of learning. To those who have skill to estimate the
excellence and difficulty of this great work, it must be very
desirable to know how it was performed, and by what gradations it
advanced to correctness. Of such an intellectual process the
knowledge has very rarely been attainable; but happily there remains
the original copy of the "Iliad," which, being obtained by
Bolingbroke as a curiosity, descended from him to Mallet, and is
now, by the solicitation of the late Dr. Maty, reposited in the
Museum. Between this manuscript, which is written upon accidental
fragments of paper, and the printed edition, there must have been an
intermediate copy, that was perhaps destroyed as it returned from