novelty, but I trust that my other annotations, while utterly disclaiming

high scholastic views, will be found to convey as much as is wanted; at

least, as far as the necessary limits of these volumes could be expected

to admit. To write a commentary on Homer is not my present aim; but if I

have made Pope's translation a little more entertaining and instructive to

a mass of miscellaneous readers, I shall consider my wishes satisfactorily

accomplished.

THEODORE ALOIS BUCKLEY.

Christ Church.

POPE'S PREFACE TO THE ILIAD OF HOMER

Homer is universally allowed to have had the greatest invention of any

writer whatever. The praise of judgment Virgil has justly contested with

him, and others may have their pretensions as to particular excellences;

but his invention remains yet unrivalled. Nor is it a wonder if he has

ever been acknowledged the greatest of poets, who most excelled in that

which is the very foundation of poetry. It is the invention that, in

different degrees, distinguishes all great geniuses: the utmost stretch of

The Iliad of Homer