but hardly fame. That he obtained by his next poem, the 'Essay on
Criticism', which appeared in 1711. It was applauded in the 'Spectator',
and Pope seems about this time to have made the acquaintance of Addison
and the little senate which met in Button's coffee house. His poem the
'Messiah' appeared in the 'Spectator' in May 1712; the first draft of
'The Rape of the Lock' in a poetical miscellany in the same year, and
Addison's request, in 1713, that he compose a prologue for the tragedy
of 'Cato' set the final stamp upon his rank as a poet.

Pope's friendly relations with Addison and his circle were not, however,
long continued. In the year 1713 he gradually drew away from them and
came under the influence of Swift, then at the height of his power in
political and social life. Swift introduced him to the brilliant Tories,
politicians and lovers of letters, Harley, Bolingbroke, and Atterbury,
who were then at the head of affairs. Pope's new friends seem to have
treated him with a deference which he had never experienced before, and
which bound him to them in unbroken affection. Harley used to regret
that Pope's religion rendered him legally incapable of holding a
sinecure office in the government, such as was frequently bestowed in
those days upon men of letters, and Swift jestingly offered the young
poet twenty guineas to become a Protestant. But now, as later, Pope was
firmly resolved not to abandon the faith of his parents for the sake of
worldly advantage. And in order to secure the independence he valued so
highly he resolved to embark upon the great work of his life, the
translation of Homer.

"What led me into that," he told a friend long after, "was purely the
want of money. I had then none; not even to buy books." It seems that
about this time, 1713, Pope's father had experienced some heavy
financial losses, and the poet, whose receipts in money had so far been