although a beautiful and sparkling poem, is not a satisfactory
translation of the "Iliad," and still less of the "Odyssey." He has
trailed along the naked lances of the Homeric lines so many flowers and
leaves that you can hardly recognise them, and feel that their point is
deadened and their power gone. This at least is our opinion; although
many to this day continue to admire these translations, and have even
said that if they are not Homer, they are something better.

The "Iliad" took him six years, and was a work which cost him much
anxiety as well as labour, the more as his scholarship was far from
profound. He was assisted in the undertaking by Parnell (who wrote the
Life of Homer), by Broome, Jortin, and others. The first volume appeared
in June 1715, and the other volumes followed at irregular intervals. He
began it in 1712, his twenty-fifth year, and finished it in 1718, his
thirtieth year. Previous to its appearance, his remuneration for his
poems had been small, and his circumstances were embarrassed; but the
result of the subscription, which amounted to L5320, 4s., rendered him
independent for life.

While at Binfield, he had often visited London; and there, in the
society of Howe, Garth, Parnell, and the rest, used to indulge in
occasional excesses, which did his feeble constitution no good; and
once, according to Colley Cibber, he narrowly escaped a serious scrape
in a house of a certain description,--Colley, by his own account,
"helping out the tomtit for the sake of Homer!" This statement, indeed,
Pope has denied; but his veracity was by no means his strongest point.
After writing a "Farewell to London," he retired, in 1715, to
Twickenham, along with his parents; and remained there, cultivating his
garden, digging his grottos, and diversifying his walks, till the end of
his days.