His whole education had been irregular, and his earliest acquaintance with the poet was through the version of Ogilby.

It is not too much to say that his whole work bears the impress of a disposition to be satisfied with the general sense, rather than to dive deeply into the minute and delicate features of language.

Hence his whole work is to be looked upon rather as an elegant paraphrase than a translation.

There are, to be sure, certain conventional anecdotes, which prove that Pope consulted various friends, whose classical attainments were sounder than his own, during the undertaking; but it is probable that these examinations were the result rather of the contradictory versions already existing, than of a desire to make a perfect transcript of the original.

And in those days, what is called literal translation was less cultivated than at present.