...enabled him to purchase. It cannot be unwelcome to literary curiosity, that I deduce thus minutely the history of the English " Iliad." It is certainly the...great work, it must be very desirable to know how it was performed, and by what gradations it advanced to correctness. Of such an intellectual process the...

...achievements did the young author turn to French and Italian.69 Johnson praised Pope's translation of the Iliad: 'It is certainly the noblest version of poetry...one of the great events in the annals of Learning'. It was 'a performance which no age or nation can pretend to equal'.70 Johnson praised in Pope an expertise...

...deal of space to how the subscription was managed, then offers several pages of manuscript revisions: "To those who have skill to estimate the excellence...great work, it must be very desirable to know how it was performed, and by what gradations it advanced to correctness" (3: 119). By contrast, details about...

...the Iliad, but he thought that Pope's complete poem clearly surpassed it and other versions:74 it was "certainly the noblest version of poetry which the world has ever seen" (para. 93), and Pope's capacities had been fully taxed and more than fully expressed in translating...