When we turn from the man to the poet we have at once to change our key. A cleverer fellow than Pope never commenced author. He was in his own mundane way as determined to be a poet, and the best going, as John Milton himself. He took pains to be splendid--he polished and pruned. His first draft never reached the printer--though he sometimes said it did. This ought, I think, to endear him to us in these hasty days, when authors high and low think nothing of emptying the slops of their minds over their readers, without so much as a cry of 'Heads below!' Pope's translation of the _Iliad_ was his first great undertaking, and he worked at it like a Trojan. It was published by subscription for two guineas; that is, the first part was. His friends were set to work to collect subscribers. Caryll alone got thirty-eight. Pope fully entered into this. He was always alive to the value of his wares, and despised the foppery of those of his literary friends who would not make money out of their books, but would do so out of their country. He writes to Caryll: 'But I am in good earnest of late, too much a man of business to mind metaphors and similes. I find subscribing much superior to writing, and there is a sort of little epigram I more especially delight in, after the manner of rondeaus, which begin and end all in the same words, namely--"Received" and "A. Pope." These epigrams end smartly, and each of them is tagged with two guineas. Of these, as I have learnt, you have composed several ready for me to set my name to.' This is certainly much better than that trumpery walk in the moonshine. Pope had not at this time joined the Tories, and both parties subscribed. He cleared over 5,000 pounds by the _Iliad_. Over the _Odyssey_ he slackened, and employed two inferior wits to do half the books; but even after paying his journeymen he made nearly 4,000 pounds over the _Odyssey_. Well might he write in later life-- 'Since, thanks to Homer, I do live and thrive.' Pope was amongst the first of prosperous authors, and heads the clan of cunning fellows who have turned their lyrical cry into consols, and their odes into acres. Of the merits of this great work it is not necessary to speak at length. Mr. Edmund Yates tells a pleasant story of how one day, when an old school Homer lay on his table, Shirley Brooks sauntered in, and taking the book up, laid it down again, dryly observing: 'Ah! I see you have _Homer's_ Iliad! Well, I believe it is the best.' And so it is. Homer's Iliad is the best, and Pope's Homer's Iliad is the second best. Whose is the third best is controversy.