Page:The American fugitive in Europe.djvu/254

246 No poet's pen was ever more thoroughly used to suppress vice than Pope's; and what he did was done conscientiously, as the following lines will show:

"Ask you what provocation I have had?

The strong antipathy of good to bad.

When Truth or Virtue an affront endures,

The affront is mine, my friend, and should be yours."

Pope is not only a poet of a high order, but as yet he is the unsurpassed translator of Homer.

My visit to Pope's villa was a short one, but it was attended with many pleasing incidents. I have derived much pleasure from reading his Iliad and other translations. The verse from the pen of Lord Denham, that heads this chapter, conveys but a faint idea of my estimate of Pope's genius and talents.