profound or accurate scholar, but he read Latin poets with ease and
delight, and acquired some Greek, French, and Italian. He was a poet
almost from infancy, he "lisped in numbers," and when a mere youth
surpassed all his contemporaries in metrical harmony and correctness.
His pastorals and some translations appeared in 1709, but were written
three or four years earlier. These were followed by the _Essay on
Criticism_, 1711; _Rape of the Lock_ (when completed, the most
graceful, airy, and imaginative of his works), 1712-1714; _Windsor
Forest_, 1713; _Temple of Fame_, 1715. In a collection of his
works printed in 1717 he included the _Epistle of Eloisa_ and
_Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady_, two poems inimitable for pathetic
beauty and finished melodious versification.

From 1715 till 1726 Pope was chiefly engaged on his translations of the
_Iliad_ and _Odyssey_, which, though wanting in time Homeric
simplicity, naturalness, and grandeur, are splendid poems. In 1728-29 he
published his greatest satire--the _Dunciad_, an attack on all
poetasters and pretended wits, and on all other persons against whom the
sensitive poet had conceived any enmity. In 1737 he gave to the world a
volume of his _Literary Correspondence_, containing some pleasant
gossip and observations, with choice passages of description but it
appears that the correspondence was manufactured for publication not
composed of actual letters addressed to the parties whose names are
given, and the collection was introduced to the public by means of an
elaborate stratagem on the part of the scheming poet. Between the years
1731 and 1739 he issued a series of poetical essays moral and
philosophical, with satires and imitations of Horace, all admirable for
sense, wit, spirit and brilliancy of these delightful productions, the
most celebrated is the _Essay on Man_ to which Bolingbroke is
believed to have contributed the spurious philosophy and false