ABSTRACT
‘The Gardens of Alcinous’ was first published on 29 September 1713. It was printed as part of Pope’s essay on gardens in The Guardian (no. 173), the eighth and last of Pope’s acknowledged contributions to that periodical, and possibly his last periodical essay of any kind. (For Pope’s relations with Addison and Steele, and his contributions to their periodicals, see Headnote to ‘Messiah’.) There it is introduced in the following terms:
The two most celebrated Wits of the World have each of them left us a particular Picture of a Garden [. . .] The Pieces I am speaking of are Virgil’s Account of the Garden of the old Corycian, and Homer’s of that of Alcinous. The first of these is already known to the English Reader, by the excellent Versions of Mr. Dryden and Mr. Addison. The other having never been attempted in our Language with any Elegance, and being the most beautiful Plan of this sort that can be imagined, I shall here present the Reader with a Translation of it.
