Note 21 — Chapter XI

Mr. Leslie Stephen has kindly drawn my attention to Elwin’s theory (Pope’s Works) that he followed the translation of J. Hughes, author of the Siege of Damascus. Hughes’s ‘translation’ was little more faithful than the current French versions; it is largely a work of imagination. Careful comparison does seem to show that Pope used this version, but he seems also to have used some of the very misleading French paraphrases. Elwin himself thinks Pope did not look at the original Latin.