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Nestor lived in peace with his children, in Pylos, his native country.

Ulysses also, after innumerable troubles by sea and land, at last returned
in safety to Ithaca, which is the subject of Homer's Odyssey.

For what remains, I beg to be excused from the ceremonies of taking leave
at the end of my work, and from embarrassing myself, or others, with any
defences or apologies about it. But instead of endeavouring to raise a
vain monument to myself, of the merits or difficulties of it (which must
be left to the world, to truth, and to posterity), let me leave behind me
a memorial of my friendship with one of the most valuable of men, as well
as finest writers, of my age and country, one who has tried, and knows by
his own experience, how hard an undertaking it is to do justice to Homer,
and one whom (I am sure) sincerely rejoices with me at the period of my
labours. To him, therefore, having brought this long work to a conclusion,
I desire to dedicate it, and to have the honour and satisfaction of
placing together, in this manner, the names of Mr. CONGREVE, and of

March 25, 1720

A. POPE

Ton theon de eupoiia--to mae epi pleon me procophai en poiaetikn kai allois
epitaeoeimasi en ois isos a kateschethaen, ei aesthomaen emautan euodos
proionta.

M. AUREL ANTON _de Seipso,_ lib. i. Section 17.





END OF THE ILLIAD






FOOTNOTES


1 "What," says Archdeacon Wilberforce, "is the natural root of loyalty
as distinguished from such mere selfish desire of personal security
as is apt to take its place in civilized times, but that
consciousness of a natural bond among the families of men which
gives a fellow-feeling to whole clans and nations, and thus enlists
their affections in behalf of those time-honoured representatives of
their ancient blood, in whose success they feel a personal interest?
Hence the delight when we recognize an act of nobility or justice in
our hereditary princes

"'Tuque prior, tu parce genus qui ducis Olympo,
Projice tela manu _sanguis meus_'

"So strong is this feeling, that it regains an engrafted influence
even when history witnesses that vast convulsions have rent and
weakened it and the Celtic feeling towards the Stuarts has been
rekindled in our own days towards the grand daughter of George the
Third of Hanover.

"Somewhat similar may be seen in the disposition to idolize those
great lawgivers of man's race, who have given expression, in the
immortal language of song, to the deeper inspirations of our nature.
The thoughts of Homer or of Shakespere are the universal inheritance
of the human race.
In this mutual ground every man meets his
brother, they have been bet forth by the providence of God to
vindicate for all of us what nature could effect, and that, in these
representatives of our race, we might recognize our common
benefactors. '--_Doctrine of the Incarnation,_ pp. 9, 10.

2 Eikos de min aen kai mnaemoruna panton grapherthai. Vit. Hom. in
Schweigh Herodot t. iv. p. 299, sq. Section 6. I may observe that
this Life has been paraphrased in English by my learned young friend
Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie, and appended to my prose translation of the
Odyssey. The present abridgement however, will contain all that is
of use to the reader, for the biographical value of the treatise is
most insignificant.

3 --_I.