The attacks upon Windsor Forest appeared in a series of papers on "Pastorals" which were published in the Guardian (Nos. 22, 23, 28, 3o and 32). No mention was made of the poem, but everyone knew to whom the general principles referred. In the articles the introduction of Greek names, customs and deities was ridiculed and as Windsor Forest was fairly open to criticism on this ground, the real subject of the papers was manifest. The real sting of the criticisms, however, lay in their extravagant praise of the second-rate poet Ambrose Philips and the implied comparison with Pope. The latter characteristically succeeded in revenging himself. He secured the publication in the Guardian of an anonymous article which ostensibly attacked his own poems, but which actually, by quotation, disposed of the pretensions of Ambrose Philips, and ridiculed the Guardian's principles.
The links that attached Pope to the Tory party were strength ened by a new friendship. His first letter to Swift, who became warmly attached to him, is dated Dec. 8, 1713. Swift had been a leading member of the Brothers' Club, from which the famous Scriblerus Club seems to have been an offshoot. The leading members of this informal literary society were Swift, Arbuthnot, Congreve, Bishop Atterbury, Pope, Gay and Thomas Parnell. Their chief object was a general war against the dunces, waged with great spirit by Arbuthnot, Swift and Pope.
The estrangement from Addison was completed in connection with Pope's translation of Homer, which was definitely undertaken in 1713, and was published by subscription. Men of all parties subscribed, their unanimity being a striking proof of the position Pope had attained at the age of 25. But the unanimity was broken by a discordant note. A member of the Addison clique, Tickell, attempted to run a rival version. Pope suspected Addi son's instigation; Tickell had at least Addison's encouragement. Pope's famous character of Addison as "Atticus" in the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot (ii. 193-215) was, however, inspired by resent ment at insults that existed chiefly in his own imagination.
The translation of Homer was Pope's chief employment for 12 years. The new pieces in the miscellanies published in 1717, his "Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady," and his "Eloisa to Abelard," were probably written some years before their publication. The Iliad was delivered to the subscribers in instalments in 1715, 1717, 1718 and 172o. Pope's own defective scholarship made help necessary. William Broome and John Jortin supplied the bulk of the notes, and Thomas Parnell the preface. For the trans
lation of the Odyssey he took Elijah Fenton and Broome as coadjutors, who between them translated 12 out of the 24 books. (I, 4, 19 and 20 are by Fenton; 2, 6, 8, II, 12, 16, 18, 23, with notes to all the books, by Broome.) It was completed in 1725. Opinions have varied on the purely literary merits of the poem, but with regard to it as a translation few have differed from Bentley's criticism, "A fine poem, Mr. Pope, but you must not call it Homer." In 1722 he edited the poems of Thomas Parnell, and in 1725 made a considerable sum by an unsatisfactory edition of Shakespeare, in which he had the assistance of Fenton and Gay.
• Pope, who cleared £8,000 by the two translations, was thus rendered independent and enabled to live near London. The estate at Binfield was sold, and he removed with his parents to Maw son's buildings, Chiswick, in 1716, and in 1719 to Twickenham, to the house with which his name is associated. Here he prac tised elaborate gardening on a small scale, and built his famous grotto, which was really a tunnel under the road connecting the garden with the lawn on the Thames. He was constantly visited at Twickenham by his intimates, Dr. John Arbuthnot, John Gay, Bolingbroke (after his return in 1723), and Swift (during his brief visits to England in 1726 and 1727), and by many other friends of the Tory party. With Atterbury, bishop of Rochester, he was on terms of affectionate intimacy, but he blundered in his evidence when he was called as a witness on his behalf in 1723.
In 1717 his father died, and he appears to have turned to the Blounts for sympathy in what was to him a very serious bereave ment. He had early made the acquaintance of Martha and Teresa Blount, having probably met them first at the house of his neigh bour, Englefield of Whiteknights, who was their grandfather. Their home was at Mapledurham, near Reading. He began to correspond with Martha Blount in 1712, and after 1717, the letters are much more serious in tone. He quarrelled with Teresa, who had apparently injured or prevented his suit to her sister, but his friendship with Martha lasted all his life. So long as his mother lived he was unwearying in his attendance on her, but after her death in 1733 his association with Martha Blount was more constant. His earlier attachment to Lady Mary Wortley Montague was apparently a literary passion, which perished under Lady Mary's ridicule.