the consequence of position. When Bernadotte became heir to a throne, the Prince Royal of Sweden was naturally Napoleon's enemy. "There are many passions and tempers of mankind," says Mr. Addison in the "Spectator," speaking a couple of years before their little differences between him and Mr. Pope took place, "which naturally dispose us to depress and vilify the merit of one rising in the esteem of mankind. All those who made their entrance into the world with the same advantages, and were once looked on as his equals, are apt to think the fame of his merits a reflection on their own deserts. Those, who were once his equals, envy and defame him, because they now see him the superior; and those who were once his superiors, because they look upon him as their equal." Did Mr. Addison, justly perhaps thinking, that as young Mr. Pope had not had the benefit of a university education, he couldn't know Greek, therefore he couldn't translate Homer, encourage his young friend, Mr. Tickell, of Queen's, to translate that poet, and aid him with his own known scholarship and skill?[1] It was natural that Mr. Addison should doubt of the learning of an amateur Grecian; should have a high opinion of Mr. Tickell, of Queen's; and should help that ingenious
- ↑ "That Tickell should have been guilty of a villainy seems to us highly improbable; that Addison should have been guilty of a villainy seems to us highly improbable; but that these two men should have conspired together to commit a villainy, seems, to us, improbable in a tenfold degree."—Macaulay.
