book ii.:

Tho beheld I fields and plains,

And now hills, and now mountains,

Now valeys, and now forestes,

And now unnethes great bestes,

Now riveres, now citees,

Now townes, and now great trees,

Now shippes sayling in the sea.--POPE.

Dennis objected to Pope's version that "if the whole creation was open

to his eyes" he must be too high "to discern such minute objects as

ships and trees." But the imagination in dreams conjures up appearances

which are beyond the compass of the waking powers, and it is therefore

strictly natural to represent events as passing in visions, which would

be unnatural in actual life. Added to this, Pope had before him Ovid's

description of the house of Fame, which is endued with the property of

enabling the beholder to distinguish the smallest objects however

remote:

Unde quod est usquam, quamvis regionibus absit,

Inspicitur.

Or as Sandys translates it,

Where all that's done, though far removed, appears.]

[Footnote 13: Dryden's translation of Ovid's Met. book xii.:

Confused and chiding, like the hollow roar

Of tides, receding from th' insulted shore;

Or like the broken thunder heard from far

When Jove at distance drives the rolling war.

This is more poetically expressed than the same image in our author.

Dryden's lines are superior to the original.--WARTON.

Pope copied Dryden's translation of Ovid, and for this reason did not

quote the parallel passage from Chaucer's second book of the House of

Fame, where the eagle, when they come within hearing of the swell of

indistinct voices, holds a colloquy with the poet on the phenomenon:

"And what sound is it like?" quoth he.

"Peter! beating of the sea,"

Quoth I, "against the rockes hollow,

When tempest doth the shippes swallow,

Or elles like the last humbling

After the clap of a thundring."

"Peter" is an exclamation; and the sense is, "By St. Peter it is like

the beating of the sea against the hollow rocks." In Pope's poem no

cause is assigned for the "wild promiscuous sound." In Chaucer it is

produced by the confluence of the talk upon earth, every word of which

is conveyed to the House of Fame.]

[Footnote 14: Chaucer's third book of Fame:

It stood upon so high a rock,

Higher standeth none in Spayne--

What manner stone this rock was,

For it was like a lymed glass,

But that it shone full more clere;

But of what congeled matere

It was, I niste redily;

But at the last espied I,

And found that it was every dele,

A rock of ice and not of stele.--POPE.

The temple of Fame is represented on a foundation of ice, to signify the

brittle nature and precarious tenure, as well as the difficult

attainment of that possession, according to the poet himself below, ver.

504:

So hard to gain, so easy to be lost.--WAKEFIELD.

Having complained that it was contrary to the laws of sight to suppose

that a prospect in sleep could be extended beyond the ordinary range of

mortal vision, Dennis proceeds to contend that for a rock to be

sustained in the air was contrary to the eternal laws of gravitation,

"which," says Pope sarcastically, in a manuscript note, "no dream ought

to be." The cavil of Dennis was as false in science as in criticism, for

it is not more contrary to the laws of gravitation for a rock to be

suspended in space than for the earth itself.]

[Footnote 15: Dryden, AEneis, vi. 193:

Smooth the descent, and easy is the way.]

[Footnote 16:

Tho saw I all the hill y-grave

With famous folkes names fele.

That had been in muchel wele

And her fames wide y-blow;

But well unneth might I know

Any letters for to rede

Their names by, for, out of drede,

They weren almost off-thawen so,

That of the letters one or two

Were molte away of every name,

So unfamous was woxe their fame;

But men said what may ever last.--POPE.]

[Footnote 17:

Tho gan I in myne harte cast,

That they were molte away for heate,

And not away with stormes beate.--POPE.]

[Footnote 18: Does not this use of the heat of the sun appear to be a

puerile and far-fetched conceit? What connection is there betwixt the

two sorts of excesses here mentioned? My purpose in animadverting so

frequently as I have done on this species of false thoughts is to guard

the reader, especially of the younger sort, from being betrayed by the

authority of so correct a writer as Pope into such specious and false

refinements of style.--WARTON.

Not only is the comparison defective, but the fundamental idea is

unfounded, for though excess of admiration may produce a temporary

reaction, the opinion of the world oscillates back to the middle line,

and no instance can be quoted of an author who has finally lost his due

reputation because he had once been overpraised. Chaucer makes a

different use of the image. In his poem the north side of the icy

mountain bears the names of the ancients which were safe from injury.

The sunny side bears the names of the moderns, and he perhaps intended

to intimate his opinion that the reason why their fame was less durable

than that of the Greeks and Romans was that they were a more luxurious

race, and did not in the same degree "scorn delights, and live laborious

days" for the sake of producing immortal works.]

[Footnote 19:

For on that other side I sey

Of that hill which northward ley,

How it was written full of names

Of folke, that had afore great fames,

Of olde time, and yet they were

As fresh as men had written hem there

The self day, right or that houre

That I upon hem gan to poure:

But well I wiste what it made;

It was conserved with the shade

(All the writing that I sye)

Of the castle that stoode on high,

And stood eke in so cold a place,

That heate might it not deface.--POPE.]

[Footnote 20: Though a strict verisimilitude be not required in the

descriptions of this visionary and allegorical kind of poetry, which

admits of every wild object that fancy may present in a dream, and where

it is sufficient if the moral meaning atone for the improbability, yet

men are naturally so desirous of truth that a reader is generally

pleased, in such a case, with some excuse or allusion that seems to

reconcile the description to probability and nature. The simile here is

of that sort, and renders it not wholly unlikely that a rock of ice

should remain for ever by mentioning something like it in our northern

regions agreeing with the accounts of our modern travellers.--POPE.]

[Footnote 21: "Mountains _propping_ the sky" was one of those vicious

common-places of poetry which falsify natural appearances.]

[Footnote 22: A real lover of painting will not be contented with a

single view and examination of this beautiful winter-piece; but will

return to it again and again with fresh delight. The images are

distinct, and the epithets lively and appropriate, especially the words

"pale," "unfelt," "impassive," "incumbent," "gathered."--WARTON.]

[Footnote 23: This excellent line was perhaps suggested by a fine

couplet in Addison's translation of an extract from Silius Italicus:

Stiff with eternal ice, and hid in snow,

That fell a thousand centuries ago.]

[Footnote 24: Dryden's Hind and Panther:

Eternal house not built with mortal hands.]

[Footnote 25: The temple is described to be square, the four fronts with

open gates facing the different quarters of the world, as an intimation

that all nations of the earth may alike be received into it. The western

front is of Grecian architecture: the Doric order was peculiarly sacred

to heroes and worthies. Those whose statues are after mentioned, were

the first names of old Greece in arms and arts.--POPE.

The exterior of the Doric temples abounded in sculptured figures, which

may be the reason that Pope supposes the order to have been "peculiarly

sacred to heroes and worthies," but it may be doubted whether he had any

good grounds for his assertion.]

[Footnote 26: The expression literally interpreted would signify that

the gates were placed on the top of columns. Pope could not have had

such a preposterous notion in his mind, and the meaning must be that the

lofty gates were hung upon columns. He copied a couplet in Dryden's

AEneis, vi. 744, where the translation misrepresents the original:

Wide is the fronting gate, and raised on high

With adamantine columns, threats the sky.]

[Footnote 27: Addison's Vision of the Table of Fame, in the Tatler: "In

the midst there stood a palace of a very glorious structure; it had four

great folding doors that faced the four several quarters of the world."

Charles Dryden's translation of the seventh Satire of Juvenal, ver. 245:

Behold how raised on high

A banquet house salutes the southern sky.]

[Footnote 28: Dryden, Juvenal, Sat. iii. 142:

No Thracian born,

But in that town which arms and arts adorn.]

[Footnote 29: In the early editions:

The fourfold walls in breathing statues grace.

Addison in his Letter from Italy had called the Roman statues "breathing

rocks."]

[Footnote 30: Addison's Letter from Italy:

Or teach their animated rocks to live.

And emperors in Parian marble frown.]

[Footnote 31: Milton, Par. Lost, i. 714:

Doric pillars overlaid

With golden architrave, nor did there want

Cornice or frieze, with bossy sculptures graven.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 32: Dryden, Ovid's Met. book xii.:

An ample goblet stood of antique mould

And rough with figures of the rising gold.

Dryden, AEn. viii. 830:

And Roman triumphs rising on the gold.

Addison's Letter from Italy:

And pillars rough with sculpture pierce the skies.]

[Footnote 33: This legendary hero was an Athenian knight-errant who, in

imitation of Hercules, went about doing battle with the scourges of

mankind, both human and animal.]

[Footnote 34: Minerva presented Perseus with her shield when he

undertook to kill the Gorgon, Medusa.]

[Footnote 35: This figure of Hercules is drawn with an eye to the

position of the famous statue of Farnese.--POPE.

It were to be wished that our author, whose knowledge and taste of the

fine arts were unquestionable, had taken more pains in describing so

famous a statue as that of the Farnesian Hercules; for he has omitted

the characteristical excellencies of this famous piece of Grecian

workmanship; namely, the uncommon breadth of the shoulders, the

knottiness and spaciousness of the chest, the firmness and protuberance

of the muscles in each limb, particularly the legs, and the majestic

vastness of the whole figure, undoubtedly designed by the artist to give

a full idea of strength, as the Venus de Medicis of beauty. To mention

the Hesperian apples, which the artist flung backwards, and almost

concealed as an inconsiderable object, and which therefore scarcely

appear in the statue, was below the notice of Pope.--WARTON.

Addison's Vision: "At the upper end sat Hercules, leaning an arm upon

his club."]

[Footnote 36: The pause at the word "strikes" renders the verse finely

descriptive of the circumstance. Milton, in Par. Lost, xi. 491, has

attempted this beauty with success:

And over them triumphant Death his dart

Shook, but delayed to strike.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 37: Milton, Par. Lost, i. 710:

a fabric huge

Rose like an exhalation.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 38: "Trees," says Dennis, "starting from their roots, a

mountain rolling into a wall, and a town rising like an exhalation are

things that are not to be shown in sculpture." This objection, that

"motion is represented as exhibited by sculpture," is said by Johnson,

"to be the most reasonable of Dennis' remarks," but Dennis neutralised

his own criticism when he added, that "sculpture can indeed show posture

and position, and from posture and position we may conclude that the

objects are in motion."]

[Footnote 39: Wakefield quotes from Milton (Par. Lost, ii. 4), the

expression, "barbaric pearl and gold," and from Addison's translation of

the second book of Ovid's Met. the line in which it is said that the

palace of the sun

With burnished gold and flaming jewels blazed.

[Footnote 40: Cyrus was the beginning of the Persian, as Ninus was of

the Assyrian monarchy.--POPE.]

[Footnote 41: The Magi and Chaldaeans (the chief of whom was Zoroaster)

employed their studies upon magic and astrology, which was, in a manner,

almost all the learning of the ancient Asian people. We have scarce any

account of a moral philosopher, except Confucius, the great law-giver of

the Chinese, who lived about two thousand years ago.--POPE.

There are several mistakes in Pope's note. Zoroaster was not a magician

who "waved the circling wand" of the necromancer. "The Magians," says

Plato, "teach the magic of Zoroaster, but this is the worship of the

Gods." His creed was theological, and had no connexion with sorcery.

Some of his nominal followers subsequently professed to be

fortune-tellers. Astrology was not a general characteristic of the

diverse nations who constituted the "ancient Asian people," and their

learning was by no means limited to it. The Hindoos, for instance, were

the precursors of Aristotle in logic, and the earliest metaphysicians

whose doctrines have come down to us. "The Indian philosophy," says M.

Cousin, "is so vast that all the philosophical systems are represented

there, and we may literally affirm that it is an abridgment of the

entire history of philosophy." Nor was Confucius the only oriental

"law-giver who taught the useful science to be good." The Hindoo body of

laws, which bears the name of Menu, was compiled centuries before

Confucius was born, and it is eminently a moral and religious, as well

as a political code.]

[Footnote 42: It was often erroneously stated that the Brahmins dwelt

always in groves. By the laws of Menu the life of a Brahmin was divided

into four portions, and it was during the third portion only that he was

commanded to become an anchorite in the woods, to sleep on the bare

ground, to feed on roots and fruit, to go clad in bark or the skin of

the black antelope, and to expose himself to the drenching rain and

scorching sun. The caste have ceased to conform to the primitive

discipline, and the old asceticism is now confined to individual

devotees. The functions which Pope ascribes to the Brahmins formed no

part of their practices. They did not pretend to "stop the moon," and

summon spirits to "midnight banquets." Pope copied Oldham's version of

Virgil's eighth Eclogue:

Charms in her wonted course can stop the moon.]

[Footnote 43: Addison's translation of a passage in Claudian:

Thin airy shapes, that o'er the furrows rise,

A dreadful scene! and skim before his eyes.]

[Footnote 44: Dryden's Palamon and Arcite:

And sigils framed in planetary hours.

Dryden's Virgil, AEn. vii. 25:

That watched the moon and planetary hour.]

[Footnote 45: Confucius flourished about two thousand three hundred

years ago, just before Pythagoras. He taught justice, obedience to

parents, humility, and universal benevolence: and he practised these

virtues when he was a first minister, and when he was reduced to poverty

and exile.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 46: The learning of the old Egyptian priests consisted for the

most part in geometry and astronomy: they also preserved the history of

their nation. Their greatest hero upon record is Sesostris, whose

actions and conquests may be seen at large in Diodorus, &c. He is said

to have caused the kings he vanquished to draw him in his chariot. The

posture of his statue, in these verses, is correspondent to the

description which Herodotus gives of one of them, remaining in his own

time.--POPE.]

[Footnote 47: The colossal statue of the celebrated Eastern tyrant is

not very strongly imagined. The word "hold" is particularly

feeble.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 48: Virgil's giant Bitias, AEn. ix. 958, has in Dryden's

translation, quoted by Wakefield, "a coat of double mail with scales of

gold."]

[Footnote 49: Two flatter lines upon such a subject cannot well be

imagined.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 50: The architecture is agreeable to that part of the

world.--POPE.]

[Footnote 51: The learning of the northern nations lay more obscure than

that of the rest. Zamolxis was the disciple of Pythagoras, who taught

the immortality of the soul to the Scythians.--POPE.

They worshipped Zamolxis, and thought they should go to him when they

died. He was said by the Greeks who dwelt on the shores of the

Hellespont, to have been the slave of Pythagoras before he became the

instructor of his countrymen, but Herodotus believed that if Zamolxis

ever existed, he was long anterior to the Greek philosopher.]

[Footnote 52: Odin, or Woden, was the great legislator and hero of the

Goths. They tell us of him, that, being subject to fits, he persuaded

his followers, that during those trances he received inspirations, from

whence he dictated his laws. He is said to have been the inventor of the

Runic characters.--POPE.]

[Footnote 53: Pope borrowed this idea from the passage he quotes at ver.

179, where Chaucer describes Statius as standing

Upon an iron pillar strong

That painted was, all endelong,

With tigers' blood in every place.]

[Footnote 54: These were the priests and poets of those people, so

celebrated for their savage virtue. Those heroic barbarians accounted it

a dishonour to die in their beds, and rushed on to certain death in the

prospect of an after-life, and for the glory of a song from their bards

in praise of their actions.--POPE.

The opinion was general among the Goths that men who died natural deaths

went into vast caves underground, all dark and miry, full of noisome

creatures, and there for ever grovelled in stench and misery. On the

contrary, all who died in battle went to the hall of Odin, their god of

war, where they were entertained at infinite tables in perpetual feasts,

carousing in bowls made of the skulls of the enemies they had

slain.--SIR W. TEMPLE.]

[Footnote 55:

It shone lighter than a glass,

And made well more than it was,

To semen every thing, ywis,

As kind of thinge Fames is.--POPE.]

[Footnote 56: Addison's Vision: "On a sudden the trumpet sounded; the

whole fabric shook, and the doors flew open."]

[Footnote 57: Milton, Par. Lost, i. 717:

The roof was fretted gold.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 58: The exterior of Chaucer's House of Fame,

Both the castle, and the tower

And eke the hall, and every bower

was of beryl, which Pope transfers to the inside of the building.

Chaucer says of the interior that

Every wall

Of it, and floor, and roof, and all

Was plated half a foote thick

Of gold.

This gold was covered, as grass clothes a meadow, with jewelled

ornaments

Fine, of the finest stones fair

That men read in the Lapidaire.]

[Footnote 59: Milton, Par. Lost, i. 726:

From the arched roof

Pendent by subtle magic many a row

Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed

With Naptha and Asphaltus, yielded light

As from a sky.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 60: Addison's Vision: "A band of historians took their station

at each door."]

[Footnote 61: Alexander the Great. The tiara was the crown peculiar to

the Asian princes. His desire to be thought the son of Jupiter Ammon,

caused him to wear the horns of that god, and to represent the same upon

his coins, which was continued by several of his successors.--POPE.]

[Footnote 62: Dryden, Ode to St. Cecilia:

A dragon's fiery form belied the god.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 63: As a warrior and a man of letters; for skill in both

capacities was supposed to be due to Minerva.]

[Footnote 64: Prior, in his Carmen Seculare, says of William III.,

How o'er himself as o'er the world he reigns.]

[Footnote 65: A concise and masterly stroke, which at once sets before

us the mixture of character, which appears in that extraordinary man,

Julius Caesar.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 66: "In other illustrious men you will observe that each

possessed some one shining quality, which was the foundation of his

fame: in Epaminondas all the virtues are found united; force of body,

eloquence of expression, vigour of mind, contempt of riches, gentleness

of disposition, and, what is chiefly to be regarded, courage and conduct

in war."--Diodorus Siculus, lib. xv.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 67: Timoleon had saved the life of his brother Timophanes in

the battle between the Argives and Corinthians; but afterwards killed

him when he affected the tyranny, preferring his duty to his country to

all the obligations of blood.--POPE.

Pope followed the narrative of Diodorus. Plutarch says that Timoleon did

not strike the blow, but stood by weeping, and giving his passive

countenance to the assassins. Some of the Corinthians applauded, and

some execrated his conduct. He was soon overtaken with remorse, and

shunning the haunts of men he passed years in anguish of mind.]

[Footnote 68: This triplet was not in the first edition.]

[Footnote 69: In the first edition,

Here too the wise and good their honours claim,

Much-suff'ring heroes of less noisy fame.

Pope did not perceive that in the attempt to improve the poetry he had

introduced an inconsistency. He winds up the preceding group of patriots

with the "wise Aurelius," whom he celebrates as an example of "unbounded

virtue," and the "much-suffering heroes" could not be instances of "less

guilty fame" than a man whose virtue was unbounded. The classification

was probably suggested by Addison's Vision in the Tatler of the Three

Roads of Life, and having his original in his mind when he composed his

poem, Pope avoided the inconsistency which he subsequently imported into

the passage. "The persons," says Addison, "who travelled up this great

path, were such whose thoughts were bent upon doing eminent services to

mankind, or promoting the good of their country. On each side of this

great road were several paths. These were most of them covered walks,

and received into them men of retired virtue, who proposed to themselves

the same end of their journey, though they chose to make it in shade and

obscurity."]

[Footnote 70: The names which follow are inappropriate examples of "fair

virtue's _silent_ train." The first on the list spent his days in

promulgating his philosophy, and they were all energetic public

characters who made a stir in the world. When Pope originated the

expression, he must have been thinking of the unobtrusive virtues of

private life, and he probably added the illustrations later without

observing the incongruity.]

[Footnote 71: Aristides, who for his great integrity was distinguished

by the appellation of the Just. When his countrymen would have banished

him by the ostracism, where it was the custom for every man to sign the

name of the person he voted to exile in an oyster-shell, a peasant, who

could not write, came to Aristides to do it for him, who readily signed

his own name.--POPE.]

[Footnote 72: Who, when he was about to drink the hemlock, charged his

son to forgive his enemies, and not to revenge his death on those

Athenians who had decreed it.--WARTON.

He was condemned to death B. C. 317, at the age of 85, on the charge of

treason to his country. Mistrusting the ability of Athens to maintain

its independence, he connived at the dominion of the Macedonian kings.

Many of those who admit his integrity contend that his policy was

mistaken and unpatriotic. His party regained the ascendancy after his

death, honoured his remains with a public funeral, and erected a statue

of brass to his memory.]

[Footnote 73: Very unpoetically designated. Agis might as well have been

left out, if all that could be said of him was that he was "not the last

of Spartan names."--BOWLES.

Agis, king of Sparta, was celebrated for his attempt to restore the

ancient Spartan regulations. Especially he was anxious to resume the

excess of land possessed by the rich and divide it among the poor. He

failed in his design, and was dethroned, and beheaded. At his execution

one of the officers of justice shed tears. "Lament me not," said Agis;

"I am happier than my murderers."]

[Footnote 74: In the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, Cato sided with

Pompey, and when the cause was lost, he stabbed himself in the bowels to

avoid being captured. He was found by his friends insensible, but alive,

and a physician began to sew up the wound. Cato recovered his

consciousness, pushed away the physician, tore open the wound, and

expired.]

[Footnote 75: A horrible spectre appeared to Brutus while he sat

meditating in his tent at night. "What art thou?" said Brutus, "and what

is thy business with me?" "I am thy evil genius," replied the spectre;

"thou wilt see me at Philippi." At Philippi the spectre rose up again

before him on the night preceding the battle in which he suffered a

total defeat. He destroyed himself in the night which followed.]

[Footnote 76: In the midst of the Temple, nearest the throne of Fame,

are placed the greatest names in learning of all antiquity. These are

described in such attitudes as express their different characters. The

columns on which they are raised are adorned with sculptures, taken from

the most striking subjects of their works, which sculpture bears a

resemblance, in its manner and character, to the manner and character of

their writings.--POPE.

This was a trite device, and is poorly applied in the present instance.

"The manner and character of the writings" of Homer, Virgil, Pindar,

Horace, Aristotle, and Cicero could hardly have been described in a

vaguer and more common-place way.]

[Footnote 77:

From the dees many a pillere,

Of metal that shone not full clere, &c.

Upon a pillere saw I stonde

That was of lede and iron fine,

Him of the sect Saturnine,

The Ebraike Josephus the old, &c.

Upon an iron piller strong,

That painted was all endelong,

With tigers' blood in every place,

The Tholosan that highte Stace,

That bare of Thebes up the fame, &c.--POPE.]

[Footnote 78:

Full wonder hye on a pillere

Of iron, he the great Omer,

And with him Dares and Titus, &c.--POPE.]

[Footnote 79: Pope has selected from Homer only three subjects as the

most interesting: Diomed wounding Venus, Hector slaying Patroclus, and

the same Hector dragged along at the wheels of Achilles' chariot. Are

these the most affecting and striking incidents of the Iliad? But it is

highly worth remarking, that this very incident of dragging the body of

Hector thrice round the walls of Troy, is absolutely not mentioned by

Homer. Heyne thinks that Virgil, for he first mentioned it, adopted the

circumstance from some Greek tragedy on the subject.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 80:

There saw I stand on a pillere

That was of tinned iron cleere,

The Latin poete Virgyle,

That hath bore up of a great while

The fame of pious AEneas.

And next him on a pillere was

Of copper, Venus' clerk Ovide,

That hath y-sowen wondrous wide

The great God of Love's name--

Tho saw I on a pillere by

Of iron wrought full sternely,

The greate poet Dan Lucan,

That on his shoulders bore up than

As high as that I mighte see,

The fame of Julius and Pompee.

And next him on a pillere stoode

Of sulphur, like as he were woode,

Dan Claudian, sothe for to tell,

That bare up all the fame of hell, &c.--POPE.

Since Homer is placed by Chaucer upon a pillar of iron, he places Virgil

upon iron tinned over, to indicate that the AEneis was based upon the

Iliad and was both more polished and less vigorous. The sulphur upon

which Claudian stands, is typical of the hell he described in his poem

on the Rape of Proserpine. Ovid, the poet of love, is put upon a pillar

of copper, because copper was the metal of Venus; and Lucan, like Homer,

has a pillar of iron allotted to him because he celebrated in his

Pharsalia the wars of Caesar and Pompey, and, as Chaucer says,

Iron Martes metal is,

Which that god is of battaile.]

[Footnote 81: Wakefield supposes that "modest majesty" was suggested by

Milton's phrase, "modest pride," in Par. Lost, iv. 310.]

[Footnote 82: For this expression Wakefield quotes Dryden, AEn. vi. 33.

There too in living sculpture might be seen

The mad affection of the Cretan queen.]

[Footnote 83: The rhyme is dearly purchased by such an inexcusable

inversion as "silver blight."]

[Footnote 84: Pindar being seated in a chariot, alludes to the chariot

races he celebrated in the Grecian games. The swans are emblems of

poetry, their soaring posture intimates the sublimity and activity of

his genius. Neptune presided over the Isthmian, and Jupiter over the

Olympian games.--POPE.]

[Footnote 85: A. Philips, Past. v. 95.

He sinks into the cords with solemn pace,

To give the swelling tones a bolder grace.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 86: "Distorted," which is always used in an unfavourable

sense, is a disparaging epithet by which to characterise the vehement

eagerness of the champions. It is not clear who or what they "threaten,"

whether the horses or each other, and in either case there is nothing

"great" in the image of a person uttering threats in a "distorted

posture."]

[Footnote 87: This expresses the mixed character of the odes of Horace:

the second of these verses alludes to that line of his,

Spiritum Graiae tenuem camoenae,

as another which follows, to

Exegi monumentum aere perennius.

The action of the doves hints at a passage in the fourth ode of his

third book:

Me fabulosae Vulture in Apulo

Altricis extra limen Apuliae,

Ludo fatigatumque somno,

Fronde nova puerum palumbes

Texere; mirum quod foret omnibus--

Ut tuto ab atris corpore viperis

Dormirem et ursis; ut premerer sacra

Lauroque, collataque myrto,

Non sine Dis animosus infans.

Which may be thus Englished:

While yet a child, I chanced to stray,

And in a desert sleeping lay;

The savage race withdrew, nor dared

To touch the muses' future bard;

But Cytherea's gentle dove

Myrtles and bays around me spread,

And crowned your infant poet's head

Sacred to music and to love.--POPE.

In addition to these passages, he had in his mind Hor. Epist. lib. i.

19, quoted by Wakefield:

Temperat Archilochi Musam pede mascula Sappho,

Temperat Alcaeus.]

[Footnote 88: Horace speaking, in his ode to Augustus, of the relative

glory of different families, says that the Julian star shone among all

the rest as the moon shines among the lesser lights. The star referred

to the comet which appeared for seven days the year after the death of

Julius Caesar, and which was supposed to indicate that he had become a

deity in the heavens. A star was sculptured in consequence on his statue

in the forum.]

[Footnote 89: Surely he might have selected for the basso rilievos about

the statue of Horace ornaments more manly and characteristical of his

genius.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 90: A very tame and lifeless verse indeed, alluding to the

treatise of Aristotle "concerning animals."--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 91: Pope here refers to Aristotle's treatise on the Heavens.]

[Footnote 92: This beautiful attitude is copied from a statue in the

collection which Lady Pomfret presented to the University of

Oxford.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 93: Addison's translation of some lines from Sannazarius:

And thou whose rival tow'rs invade the skies.

[Footnote 94: Chaucer in a passage, not quoted by Pope, represents Fame

as enthroned upon "a seat imperial," which was formed of rubies.]

[Footnote 95:

Methoughte that she was so lite

That the length of a cubite

Was longer than she seemed to be;

But thus soon in a while she,

Herself tho wonderly straight,

That with her feet she carthe reight,

And with her head she touched heaven.--POPE.]

[Footnote 96: This notion of the enlargement of the temple is also from

Chaucer, who says that it became in length, breadth, and height, a

thousand times bigger than it was at first.]

[Footnote 97: The corresponding passage in Chaucer is not quoted by

Pope, who translated from their common original, Virg. AEn. iv. 181:

Cui quot sunt corpore plumae,

Tot vigiles oculi subter, mirabile dictu,

Tot lunguae, totidem ora sonant, tot subrigit auris.]

[Footnote 98:

I heard about her throne y-sung

That all the palays walles rung;

So sung the mighty Muse, she

That cleped is Calliope,

And her eighte sisters eke.--POPE.

Pope should have continued the extract; for his next four lines were

prompted by the succeeding four in Chaucer:

And evermore eternally

They sing of Fame as tho heard I;

"Heried be thou and thy name

Goddess of renown or fame."

"Heried" means praised.]

[Footnote 99:

I heard a noise approchen blive,

That fared as bees done in a hive,

Against their time of out flying;

Right such a manere murmering,

For all the world it seemed me.

Tho gan I look about and see

That there came entring into th' hall,

A right great company withal;

And that of sundry regions,

Of all kind of conditions, &c.--POPE.]

[Footnote 100: This description is varied with improvements from Dryden,

AEneis, vi. 958.

About the boughs an airy nation flew

Thick as the humming bees that hunt the golden dew:

The winged army roams the field around,

The rivers and the rocks remurmer to the sound.--WAKEFIELD.

He was assisted by another passage in Dryden's Flower and Leaf:

Thick as the college of the bees in May,

When swarming o'er the dusky fields they fly,

Now to the flow'rs, and intercept the sky.]

[Footnote 101: So in Chaucer all degrees, "poor and rich" fall down on

their knees before Fame and beg her to grant them their petition.]

[Footnote 102: "The tattling quality of age which, as Sir William

Davenant says, is always narrative." Dryden's Dedication of

Juvenal.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 103:

And some of them she granted sone,

And some she warned well and fair,

And some she granted the contrair--

Right as her sister dame Fortune

Is wont to serven in commune.--POPE.

Chaucer and Pope describe Fame as bestowing reputation upon some, and

traducing others, when their deserts were equal, but neither Pope nor

Chaucer touch upon the truth that the same person is commonly both

lauded and denounced. This is finely expressed by Milton, Samson

Agonistes, ver. 971:--

Fame if not double-faced is double-mouthed,

And with contrary blast proclaims most deeds;

On both his wings, one black, the other white,

Bears greatest names in his wild aery flight.]

[Footnote 104: The idea is from Chaucer:

They hadde good fame each deserved

Although they were diversely served.

Besides the passage in Chaucer, Pope evidently recalled Creech's

translation of Juvenal, Sat. xiii. 132.

ev'ry age relates

That equal crimes have met unequal fates;

That sins alike, unlike rewards have found,

And whilst this villain's crucified the other's crowned.]

[Footnote 105: In Chaucer, Fame sends for Eolus, who comes with two

trumpets, a golden trumpet, from which he gives forth praises, and a

black trumpet of brass, from which he sends forth blasts of slander. In

Pope the golden trumpet is blown by the muses, and the trump of slander

sounds without the mention of any agent.]

[Footnote 106:

Tho came the thirde companye,

And gan up to the dees to hye,

And down on knees they fell anone,

And saiden: We ben everichone

Folke that han full truely

Deserved fame rightfully,

And prayen you it might be knowe

Right as it is, and forthe blowe.

I grant, quoth she, for now me list

That your good works shall be wist.

And yet ye shall have better loos,

Right in despite of all your foos,

Than worthy is, and that anone.

Let now (quoth she) thy trumpe gone--

And certes all the breath that went

Out of his trumpes mouthe smel'd

As men a pot of baume held

Among a basket full of roses.--POPE.]

[Footnote 107: Prior, Carmen Seculare:

In comely rank call ev'ry merit forth,

Imprint on ev'ry act its standard worth.]

[Footnote 108: The whole tribe of the "good and just," who obtain any

fame at all, are said by Pope to get more than they deserve. For this

notion there is certainly no foundation, unless he meant that the fact

of desiring reputation deprived virtue of the title to it.]

[Footnote 109:

Therewithal there came anone

Another huge companye,

Of good folke--

What did this Eolus, but he

Took out his black trump of brass,

That fouler than the devil was:

And gan this trumpe for to blowe,

As all the world should overthrowe.

Throughout every regione

Went this foule trumpes soune,

As swift as pellet out of gunne,

When fire is in the powder runne.

And such a smoke gan oute wende,

Out of the foule trumpes ende, &c.--POPE.]

[Footnote 110: In his account of the reception given by Fame to her

various suppliants, Pope is detailing the manner in which praise and

blame are dispensed in this world, and it is a departure from reality to

consign the entire race of conquerors to oblivion. However little they

may deserve fame, they at least obtain it. The inconsistency is the more

glaring that when he describes the temple in the opening of the poem, he

tells us that,

Within stood heroes, who through loud alarms,

In bloody fields pursued renown in arms.

[Footnote 111:

I saw anone the fifth route,

That to this lady gan loute,

And down on knees anone to fall,

And to her they besoughten all,

To hiden their good workes eke,

And said, they yeven not a leke

For no fame ne such renowne;

For they for contemplacyoune,

And Goddes love hadde ywrought,

Ne of fame would they ought.--POPE.]

[Footnote 112:

What, quoth she, and be ye wood?

And wene ye for to do good,

And for to have of it no fame?

Have ye despite to have my name?

Nay, ye shall lien everichone:

Blowe they trump, and that anone

(Quoth she) thou Eolus yhote,

And ring these folkes works be note,

That all the world may of it hear;

And he gan blow their loos so cleare,

In his golden clarioune,

Through the world went the soune,

All so kenely, and eke so soft,

That their fame was blowen aloft.--POPE.

Pope makes everybody obtain fame who seeks to avoid it, which is absurd.

Chaucer keeps to truth. The first company came,

And saiden, Certes, lady bright,

We have done well with all out might,

But we ne kepen have for fame,

Hide our workes and our name.

"I grant you all your asking," she replies; "let your works be dead."

The second company arrive immediately afterwards, and prefer the same

request in the lines versified by Pope, when Fame, with her usual

capriciousness, refuses their prayer, and orders Eolus to sound their

praises.]

[Footnote 113: An obvious imitation of a well-known verse in Denham:

Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 114: The reader might compare these twenty-eight lines

following, which contain the same matter, with eighty-four of Chaucer,

beginning thus:

Tho came the sixthe companye,

And gan faste to Fame cry, &c.,

being too prolix to be here inserted.--POPE.]

[Footnote 115: "A pretty fame," says Dennis, "when the very smartest of

these coxcombs is sure to have his name rotten before his carcase. When

the author introduced these fellows into the temple of Fame, he ought to

have made the chocolate-house, and the side-box, part of it." The

criticism was just. The contemptible creatures who buzzed their

profligate falsehoods for the hour, and were heard of no more, should

have been introduced, if at all, into the Temple of Rumour, and not into

the Temple of Fame. Pope followed Chaucer.]

[Footnote 116: Strokes of pleasantry and humour, and satirical

reflections on the foibles of common life, are unsuited to so grave and

majestic a poem. They appear as unnatural and out of place as one of the

burlesque scenes of Heemskirk would do in a solemn landscape of Poussin.

When I see such a line as

And at each blast a lady's honour dies

in the Temple of Fame, I lament as much to find it placed there as to

see shops and sheds and cottages erected among the ruins of Diocletian's

baths.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 117: Pope places the temple of Fame on a precipitous rock of

ice, and Dennis charges him with departing from his allegory when he

describes the self-indulgent multitude, who are "even fatigued with

ease," as having toiled up the "steep and slippery ascent" to present

themselves before the goddess. There is the same defect in Chaucer.]

[Footnote 118:

Tho come another companye

That Lad ydone the treachery, &c.--POPE.

Pope in this paragraph had not only Chaucer in view, but the passage of

Virgil where he describes the criminals in the infernal regions. The

second line of Pope's opening couplet was suggested by Dryden's

translation, AEneis, vi. 825:

Expel their parents and usurp the throne.]

[Footnote 119: A glance at the Revolution of 1688.--CROKER.]

[Footnote 120: The scene here changes from the Temple of Fame to that of

Rumour, which is almost entirely Chaucer's. The particulars follow:

Tho saw I stonde in a valey,

Under the castle faste by

A house, that Domus Dedali

That Labyrinthus cleped is,

Nas made so wonderly I wis,

Ne half so queintly ywrought;

And evermo, as swift as thought,

This queinte house aboute went,

That never more stille it stent--

And eke this house hath of entrees

As fele of leaves as ben on trees

In summer, when they grene ben;

And in the roof yet men may sene

A thousand holes, and well mo

To letten well the soune out go;

And by day in every tide

Ben all the doores open wide,

And by night each one unshet;

No porter is there one to let

No manner tydings in to pace:

Ne never rest is in that place.--POPE.]

[Footnote 121: This thought is transferred thither out of the second

book of Fame, where it takes up no less than one hundred and twenty

verses, beginning thus:

Geffray, thou wottost well this, &c.--POPE.]

[Footnote 122: From Chaucer:

If that thou

Throw on water now a stone,

Well wost thou it will make anon

A little roundel as a circle,

Paraunture broad as a covercle,

And right anon thou shalt see wele,

That circle will cause another wheel,

And that the third, and so forth, brother,

Every circle causing other,

And multiplying evermoe,

Till that it so far ygo

That it at bothe brinkes be.

* * * * * * * * * *

And right thus every word, ywis,

That loud or privy y-spoken is,

Moveth first an air about,

And of this moving, out of doubt,

Another air anon is moved,

As I have of the water proved

That every circle causeth other.

A "covercle" was the cover or lid of a pot.]

[Footnote 123: Dryden's version of Ovid, Met. xii.:

Whence all things, though remote, are viewed around

And hither bring their undulating sound.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 124:

Of werres, of peace, of marriages,

Of rest, of labour, of voyages,

Of abode, of dethe, of life,

Of love and hate, accord and strife,

Of loss, of lore, and of winnings,

Of hele, of sickness, and lessings,

Of divers transmutations

Of estates and eke of regions,

Of trust, of drede, of jealousy,

Of wit, of winning, of folly,

Of good, or bad governement,

Of fire, and of divers accident.--POPE.

The dismissal of Lord Oxford, the death of Queen Anne immediately

afterwards, on August 1, 1714, and the overthrow of Bolingbroke, were

events which had recently happened when Pope published his poem, and

there never was a time when "changes in the state," "the falls of

favourites," and "old mismanagements" were a more universal topic of

conversation.]

[Footnote 125:

But such a grete congregation

Of folke as I saw roame about,

Some within, and some without.

Was never seen, ne shall be eft--

And every wight that I saw there

Rowned everich in others ear

A newe tyding privily,

Or elles he told it openly

Right thus, and said, Knowst not thou

That is betide to night now?

No, quoth he, tell me what

And then he told him this and that, &c.--POPE.]

[Footnote 126:

Thus north and south

Went every tiding fro mouth to mouth,

And that encreasing evermo,

As fire is wont to quicken and go

From a sparkle sprong amiss,

Till all the citee brent up is.--POPE.]

[Footnote 127: Dryden, Ovid, Met. xii.:

Fame sits aloft.

In Ovid the scene is laid in the house of Fame. Pope lays it in the

house of Rumour, and having left Fame enthroned in her own temple, he

now represents her as permanently "sitting aloft" in a totally different

edifice.]

[Footnote 128:

And sometime I saw there at once,

A lesing and a sad sooth saw

That gonnen at adventure draw

Out of a window forth to pace--

And no man be he ever so wrothe,

Shall have one of these two, but bothe, &c.--POPE.]

[Footnote 129: The hint is taken from a passage in another part of the

third book, but here more naturally made the conclusion, with the

addition of a moral to the whole. In Chaucer, he only answers, "he came

to see the place;" and the book ends abruptly, with his being surprized

at the sight of a man of great authority, and awaking in a

fright.--POPE.

This is an imperfect representation. While Chaucer is standing in the

House of Fame, a person goes up to him,

And saide, Friend, what is thy name,

Artow come hither to have fame?

The poet disclaims any such intention, and protests that he has no

desire that his name should be known to a single soul. He is then asked

what he does there, and he replies that he who brought him to the place

promised him that he should learn new and wonderful things, in which, he

says, he has been disappointed, for he was aware before that people

coveted fame, though he was not hitherto acquainted with the dwelling of

the goddess, nor with her appearance and condition. His interrogator

answers that he perceives what it is he desires to know, and conducts

him to the house of Rumour. There he has revealed to him the falsehood

of the world, and especially of pilgrims and pardoners, which was an

important doctrine to be inculcated in those days. When the scene has

been fully disclosed, "a man of great authority" appears, and the poet

starts up from his sleep, by which he seems to intimate that the wise

and serious frown upon those who listen to idle tales. His awaking "half

afraid," is the result of his

Remembring well what I had seen,

And how high and far I had been

In my ghost.

Pope, by reserving the inquiry addressed to him for the end of the poem,

represents himself as being asked in the temple of Rumour whether he has

come there for fame, which, is not more, but much less natural than the

arrangement of Chaucer, who supposes the question to be put in the

temple of Fame itself. Nor would it have been congenial to Chaucer's

modest disposition to make himself the climax of the piece.]

[Footnote 130: Garth, in the preface to his Dispensary: "Reputation of

this sort is very hard to be got, and very easy to be

lost."--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 131: Cowley's Complaint:

Thou who rewardest but with popular breath

And that too after death.--WAKEFIELD.

Pope's moral is inconsistent with the previous tone of his poem. He has

not treated the "second life in others' breath" as "vain," but speaks of

the position of Homer, Aristotle, &c. in the temple of Fame as though it

were a substantial triumph, a real dignity, and a glorious reward. The

purport of his piece is to enforce, and not to depreciate, the value of

literary renown. His whole life attests that this was his genuine

opinion. He was not endowed with the equanimity which neither covets nor

despises reputation, and it was pure affectation when he pretended, in

the concluding paragraph, that he did not "call for the favours of

fame," and that he held posthumous fame, in particular, to be a

worthless possession.]

[Footnote 132: Dryden, in Palamon and Arcite, says of women that they

Still follow fortune where she leads the way.]

PASTORALS,

WITH A

DISCOURSE ON PASTORAL.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1704.

Rura mihi et rigui placeant in vallibus amnes,

Flumina amem, sylvasque, inglorius!--VIRG.

These Pastorals were written at the age of sixteen, and then passed

through the hands of Mr. Walsh, Mr. Wycherley, G. Granville, afterwards

Lord Lansdowne, Sir William Trumbull, Dr. Garth, Lord Halifax, Lord

Somers, Mr. Mainwaring, and others. All these gave our author the

greatest encouragement, and particularly Mr. Walsh, whom Mr. Dryden, in

his postscript to Virgil, calls the best critic of his age. "The

author," says he, "seems to have a particular genius for this kind of

poetry, and a judgment that much exceeds his years. He has taken very

freely from the ancients. But what he has mixed of his own with theirs

is no way inferior to what he has taken from them. It is not flattery at

all to say that Virgil had written nothing so good at his age. His

preface is very judicious and learned." Letter to Mr. Wycherley, Ap.

1705. The Lord Lansdowne, about the same time, mentioning the youth of

our poet, says, in a printed letter of the character of Mr. Wycherley,

that "if he goes on as he hath begun in the pastoral way, as Virgil

first tried his strength, we may hope to see English poetry vie with the

Roman." Notwithstanding the early time of their production, the author

esteemed these as the most correct in the versification, and musical in

the numbers, of all his works. The reason for his labouring them into so

much softness, was, doubtless, that this sort of poetry derives almost

its whole beauty from a natural ease of thought and smoothness of verse:

whereas that of most other kinds consist in the strength and fulness of

both. In a letter of his to Mr. Walsh about this time, we find an

enumeration of several niceties in versification, which perhaps have

never been strictly observed in any English poem, except in these

Pastorals. They were not printed till 1709.--POPE.

The sycophancy of A. Philips, who had prejudiced Mr. Addison against

Pope, occasioned those papers[1] in the Guardian, written by the latter,

in which there is an ironical preference given to the Pastorals of

Philips above his own, in order to support the profound judgment of

those who could not distinguish between the rural and the rustic, and on

that account condemned the Pastorals of Pope for wanting simplicity.

These papers were sent by an unknown hand to Steele, and the irony

escaping him, he communicated them to Mr. Pope, declaring he would never

publish any paper where one of the club was complimented at the expense

of another. Pope told him he was too delicate, and insisted that the

papers should be published in the Guardian. They were so. And the

pleasantry escaped all but Addison, who, taking Pope aside,[2] said to

him in his agreeable manner, "You have put your friends here in a very

ridiculous light, as will be seen when it is understood, as it soon must

be, that you were only laughing at the admirers of Philips." But this

ill conduct of Philips occasioned a more open ridicule of his Pastorals

in the mock poem called the Shepherd's Week, written by Gay. But though

more open, the object of it was ill understood[3] by those who were

strangers to the quarrel. These mistook the Shepherd's Week for a

burlesque of Virgil's Pastorals. How far this goes towards a vindication

of Philips's simple painting, let others judge.--WARBURTON.

In 1704 Pope wrote his Pastorals, which were shown to the poets and

critics of that time. As they well deserved, they were read with

admiration, and many praises were bestowed upon them and upon the

preface, which is both elegant and learned in a high degree. They were,

however, not published till five years afterwards. Cowley, Milton, and

Pope are distinguished among the English poets by the early exertion of

their powers; but the works of Cowley alone were published in his

childhood, and, therefore, of him only can it be certain that his

juvenile performances received no improvement from his maturer studies.

The Pastorals were at last printed [1709] in Tonson's Miscellany, in a

volume which began with the Pastorals of Philips, and ended with those

of Pope. It seems natural for a young poet to initiate himself by

pastorals, which, not professing to imitate real life, require no

experience, and exhibiting only the simple operation of unmingled

passions, admit no subtle reasoning or deep inquiry. Pope's Pastorals

are not, however, composed but with close thought; they have reference

to the time of the day, the seasons of the year, and the periods of

human life. The last, that which turns the attention upon age and death,

was the author's favourite. To tell of disappointment and misery, to

thicken the darkness of futurity, and perplex the labyrinth of

uncertainty, has been always a delicious employment of the poets. His

preference was probably just. I wish, however, that his fondness had not

overlooked the line in which the _Zephyrs_ are made _to lament in

silence_. To charge these pastorals with want of invention is to require

what was never intended. The imitations are so ambitiously frequent that

the writer evidently means rather to show his literature than his wit.

It is surely sufficient for an author of sixteen, not only to be able to

copy the poems of antiquity with judicious selection, but to have

obtained sufficient power of language and skill in metre to exhibit a

series of versification which had in English poetry no precedent, nor

has since had an imitation.--JOHNSON.

It is somewhat strange that in the pastorals of a young poet there

should not be found a single rural image that is new; but this, I am

afraid, is the case in the Pastorals before us. The ideas of Theocritus,

Virgil, and Spenser are, indeed, here exhibited in language equally

mellifluous and pure; but the descriptions and sentiments are trite and

common. To this assertion, formerly made, Dr. Johnson answered, "that no

invention was intended." He, therefore, allows the fact and the charge.

It is a confession of the very fault imputed to them. There _ought_ to

have been invention. It has been my fortune from my way of life,[4] to

have seen many compositions of youths of sixteen years old, far beyond

these Pastorals in point of genius and imagination, though not perhaps

of correctness. Their excellence, indeed, might be owing to having had

such a predecessor as Pope.[5] A mixture of British and Grecian ideas

may justly be deemed a blemish in these Pastorals, and propriety is

certainly violated when he couples Pactolus with Thames, and Windsor

with Hybla.[6] Complaints of immoderate heat, and wishes to be conveyed

to cooling caverns, when uttered by the inhabitants of Greece, have a

decorum and consistency, which they totally lose in the character of a

British Shepherd,[7] and, Theocrites, during the ardors of Sirius, must

have heard the murmurings of a brook, and the whispers of a pine, with

more home-felt pleasure than Pope could possibly experience upon the

same occasion. Pope himself informs us, in a note, that he judiciously

omitted the following verse:

And list'ning wolves grow milder as they hear

on account of the absurdity, which Spenser overlooked, of introducing

wolves into England. But on this principle, which is certainly a just

one, may it not be asked, why he should speak, the scene lying in

Windsor Forest, of the "sultry Sirius," of the "grateful clusters of

grapes," of "a pipe of reeds," the antique fistula, of "thanking Ceres

for a plentiful harvest," of "the sacrifice of lambs," with many other

instances that might be adduced to this purpose? That Pope, however, was

sensible of the importance of adapting images to the scene of action, is

obvious from the following example of his judgment; for in translating

Audiit Eurotas, jussitque ediscere lauros,

he has dexterously dropped the laurels appropriated to Eurotas, as he is

speaking of the river Thames, and has rendered it

Thames heard the numbers as he flowed along,

And bade his willows learn the moving song.

In the passages which Pope has imitated from Theocritus, and his Latin

translator, Virgil, he has merited but little applause. Upon the whole,

the principal merit of these Pastorals consists in their correct and

musical versification, musical to a degree of which rhyme could hardly

be thought capable, and in giving the truest specimen of that harmony in

English verse, which is now become indispensably necessary, and which

has so forcibly and universally influenced the public ear as to have

obliged every moderate rhymer to be at least melodious. Pope lengthened

the abruptness of Waller, and at the same time contracted the exuberance

of Dryden.--WARTON.

Dr. Johnson does not appear sufficiently attentive to the true character

and nature of pastoral poetry. No doubt it is natural for a young poet

to initiate himself by pastorals; for what youthful heart does not glow

at the descriptions of rural nature, and scenes that accord with its own

innocency and cheerfulness; but although pastorals do not, in the sense

of Dr. Johnson, imitate real life, nor require any great insight into

human passions and characters, yet there are many things necessary in

this species of composition, more than Dr. Johnson seems to require. The

chief thing is an eye for picturesque and rural scenery, and an intimate

acquaintance with those minute and particular appearances of nature,

which alone can give a lively and original colour to the painting of

pastoral poetry. To copy the common descriptions of spring or summer,

morning or evening, or to iterate from Virgil the same complaints of

the same shepherds, is not surely to write pastoral poetry. It is also

difficult to conceive where is "the close thought" with which Johnson

says Pope's Pastorals are composed. They are pleasing as copies of "the

poems of antiquity," although they exhibit no striking taste in the

"selection," and they certainly exhibit a series of musical

versification, which, till their appearance, had no precedent in English

poetry. If in particular passages, I have ventured to remark that Pope

has introduced false thoughts and conceits, let us remember that we

ought not so much to wonder that he admitted any, as that they were not

more. Dryden's earlier poems are infinitely more vitiated in this

respect.

Warton's observations are very just, but he does not seem sufficiently

to discriminate between the softness of individual lines, which is the

chief merit of these Pastorals, and the general harmony of poetic

numbers. Let it, however, be always remembered, that Pope gave the first

idea of mellifluence, and produced a softer and sweeter cadence than

before belonged to the English couplet. Dr. Johnson thinks it will be in

vain, after Pope, to endeavour to improve the English versification, and

that it is now carried to the _ne plus ultra_ of excellence.[8] This is

an opinion the validity of which I must be permitted to doubt. Pope

certainly gave a more correct and finished tone to the English

versification, but he sometimes wanted a variety of pause, and his nice

precision of every line prevented, in a few instances, a more musical

flow of modulated passages. But we are to consider what he did, not what

might be done, and surely there cannot be two opinions respecting his

improvement of the couplet though it does not follow that his general

rhythm has no imperfection. Johnson seems to have depreciated, or to

have been ignorant of, the metrical powers of some writers prior to

Pope. His ear seems to have been caught chiefly by Dryden, and as Pope's

versification was more equably (couplet with couplet being considered,

not passage with passage) connected than Dryden's, he thought therefore

that nothing could be added to Pope's versification. I should think it

the extreme of arrogance and folly to make my own ear the criterion of

music; but I cannot help thinking that Dryden, and of later days,

Cowper, are much more harmonious in their general versification than

Pope. I ought also to mention a neglected poem, not neglected on account

of its versification, but on account of its title and subject--Prior's

Solomon. Whoever candidly compares these writers together, unless his

ear be habituated to a certain recurrence of pauses precisely at the

end of a line, will not (though he will give the highest praise for

compactness, skill, precision, and force, to the undivided couplets of

Pope, separately considered)--will not, I think, assent to the position,

that in versification "what he found brickwork he left marble." I am not

afraid to own, that with the exception of the Epistle to Abelard, as

musical as it is pathetic, the verses of Pope want variety, and on this

account in some instances they want both force and harmony. In variety,

and variety only, let it be remembered, I think Pope deficient. It has

been doubted whether couplet verses ought ever to be broken. I will

appeal to Pope himself. Whenever he has done so, is there a judge of

poetical cadence who will not say it is harmonious? The instances are

few; but where they occur, are they not beautiful? If they had been too

often repeated the effect would be destroyed. But in long compositions

might not a greater variety of pauses have effect? Does not the ear feel

a lassitude at times? An idea has been started by some critics that "you

might as well have unequal columns to your house, as unequal couplets in

verse." This comparison, however, if it proves anything, proves too

much; for no one will say that every two verses in a long poem should in

quantity be exactly the same, the syllables the same, the pause the

same. This will not hold a moment in versification. If it did, then

Johnson's assertion falls to the ground; for then Dr. Darwin is a far

better versifier than Pope, and a very little pains would make a much

more consummate versificator than Dr. Darwin.--BOWLES.

Of all Pope's various and very freely-censured writings, there are none

that appear to have met with a harsher or more fastidious reception at

the hands of his commentators and critics than his Pastorals. Without

regarding them with a sufficient reference, either to the time of life

of the author, or the objects he had in view in their composition, they

have considered them as deficient in originality and strength of

thought, because they do not more greatly abound in new and striking

images. But to say nothing of the unreasonableness of requiring "new and

striking images," on a subject which has been obvious from the earliest

ages to all mankind, and has been the general theme of poetry in every

country, period, and language, it must be observed, that it was not the

intention of Pope to rely upon the strength of his own powers, or to

attempt an original style of pastoral composition. On the contrary, he

informs us at the close of his discourse, that if those pastorals have

any merit, it is to be attributed to some good old authors, "whose

works," says he, "as I have had leisure to study, so I hope I have not

wanted care to imitate." In conceding then to Pope, that he has

exhibited "the ideas of Theocritus, Virgil, and Spenser, in language

equally mellifluous and pure," Dr. Warton has granted every thing which

Pope endeavoured to accomplish; and the observation of Johnson, "that no

invention was intended," is, as far as the remark of Warton affects the

genius and character of Pope, a decisive answer. Nor although the scene

be laid in Windsor Forest, does there appear to be any impropriety in

referring to a pipe of reeds, the clusters of grapes, the bounty of

Ceres, and other objects connected with pastoral life, and for which the

poet has himself assigned a sufficient reason in the following

discourse. "If," he observes, "we would copy nature, it would be useful

to carry this idea along with us, that pastoral is an image of what they

call the golden age; so that we are not to describe our shepherds as

shepherds at this day really are, but as they may be conceived then to

have been when the best of men followed the employment;" to which he

adds, that "an air of piety to the gods should shine through the poem,

which so visibly appears in all the works of antiquity, and it ought to

preserve some relish of the old way of writing."--ROSCOE.

The manuscript of Pope's Pastorals is still preserved among the

Richardson papers. It was lent by Mr. T. B. Hollis to Wakefield, who has

noted the variations from the published text with minute fidelity.

Richardson has done the same in his copy of the quarto of 1717, and

gives this correct description of the handwriting of the original:--"The

manuscript title of the Discourse on Pastoral Poetry, viz., An Essay on

Pastoral, and the title of the Pastorals, are written by Mr. Pope in

printing capitals so perfectly beautiful, and so exactly imitated, that

one can hardly believe they are not really from the press; the same of

all the words which would have been printed in italics throughout the

whole, which are in common printing character, the general being in

italics, beautifully formed, so as in all to imitate a printed book, but

in a fine taste of type, and form of the page and margin." Pope has

written upon the manuscript, "Mem. This copy is that which passed

through the hands of Mr. Walsh, Mr. Congreve, Mr. Mainwaring, Dr. Garth,

Mr. Granville, Mr. Southern, Sir H. Sheers, Sir William Trumbull, Lord

Halifax, Lord Wharton, Marquis of Dorchester, Duke of Bucks, &c. Only

the third Eclogue was written since some of these saw the other three,

which were written as they here stand with the Essay, anno 1704. AEtatis

meae 16. The alterations from this copy were upon the objections of some

of these, or my own." In his published list of the persons who had read

the Pastorals in manuscript, Pope has added the names of Wycherley and

Lord Somers, and omitted the names of Congreve, Southern, Sir H. Sheers,

Lord Wharton, the Marquis of Dorchester, and the Duke of Buckingham. His

chief adviser seems to have been Walsh, who, of all his admiring

friends, gave him, he says, the greatest encouragement. "I cannot," Pope

wrote to him July 2, 1706, "omit the first opportunity of making you my

acknowledgments for reviewing these papers of mine. You have no less

right to correct me than the same hand that raised a tree has to prune

it." The Richardson collection contains a manuscript in which the poet

has transcribed from his Pastorals the various lines he thought

defective, and after stating his own objection to them, and subjoining

amended readings, he referred the task of selection to Walsh, who has

jotted down his decisions at the bottom of Pope's remarks. Both will be

found in the notes on the passages to which the comments of the author

and his critic relate.

There is no evidence, except the poet's own assertion, to prove that the

Pastorals were composed at the age of sixteen. They had been seen by

Walsh before April 20, 1705, if any dependence could be placed upon the

letter of that date which he wrote to Wycherly, when returning the

manuscript, but the letter rests on the authority of Pope alone, and

there is reason to question the correctness of the date. The letter of

Walsh to Wycherley concludes with the expression of a desire to be made

acquainted with Pope. "If," adds Walsh, "he will give himself the

trouble any morning to call at my house I shall be very glad to read the

verses over with him." The next letter is from Walsh to Pope, and the

opening sentence shows that his correspondence with the poet had only

just commenced. It appears from what follows that they had met in

London, that Walsh had carried Pope's verses into the country, and that

these verses were three of the Pastorals. Walsh expresses a hope that

when he returns to town, Pope will have some fresh verses to show him,

"for I make no doubt," he says, "but any one who writes so well, must

write more." These particulars evidently refer to the period when Walsh

first became acquainted with the Pastorals, and undertook to criticise

them. But the correspondence on the subject begins on June 24, 1706,

whence we should infer that it was in April, 1706, and not in 1705, that

Wycherley introduced Pope and his Pastorals to Walsh. The poet would

have departed from his usual practice if he had not falsified dates to

exaggerate his precocity. That he was past seventeen when he first

exhibited his Pastorals to his friends is confirmed by a passage from

the letter, in which George Granville sketches the character of

Wycherley, and invites an unnamed correspondent to meet him. "He shall

bring with him, if you will," says Granville, "a young poet, newly

inspired in the neighbourhood of Cooper's Hill, whom he and Walsh have

taken under their wing. His name is Pope. He is not above seventeen or

eighteen years of age, and promises miracles. If he goes on as he has

begun in the Pastoral way, as Virgil first tried his strength, we may

hope to see English poetry vie with the Roman, and this swan of Windsor

sing as sweetly as the Mantuan."[9] Whatever may be the true date of

the Pastorals, a portion of them certainly existed before April 20,

1706, on which day Tonson, the bookseller, wrote to Pope, "I have lately

seen a pastoral of yours in Mr. Walsh's and Congreve's hands, which is

extremely fine, and is generally approved of by the best judges in

poetry. I remember I have formerly seen you at my shop, and am sorry I

did not improve my acquaintance with you. If you design your poem for

the press, no person shall be more careful in printing of it, nor no one

can give a greater encouragement to it." Three years elapsed before the

Pastorals saw the light, when Tonson became the publisher, and they

appeared on May 2, 1709, in his Sixth Miscellany. The preface, which

Walsh had read in manuscript, and which he calls "very learned and

judicious," did not come out till 1717, and then bore the title of A

Discourse on Pastoral Poetry. Johnson, repeating the language of Walsh,

says that it is "learned in a high degree;" whereas it was avowedly

compiled from two or three recent essayists, and demanded nothing from

the poet to which the term learning could be properly applied. He owed

to his second-hand authorities the arbitrary and pedantic rules which

were framed from the practice of the ancients, and which were employed

by the mechanical critics of his day to repress the free forms of modern

genius. The style would have been remarkable for its maturity, if, as

Pope professed, it had been the produce of sixteen, but the Discourse

was not printed till he was twenty-nine, and he certainly did not send

it uncorrected into the world.

"It must appear strange," says De Quincey, "that Pope at twenty-one

should choose to come forward for the first time with a work composed at

sixteen. A difference of five years at that stage of life is of more

effect than of twenty at a later; and his own expanding judgment could

hardly fail to inform him that his Pastorals were by far the worst of

his works. In reality, let us not deny, that had Pope never written

anything else, his name would not have been known as a name even of

promise, but would probably have been redeemed from oblivion by some

satirist or writer of a Dunciad."[10] "Expanding judgment" is often a

feeble antidote to the partiality of an author for his own compositions,

and Pope always spoke of his Pastoral effusions with fond complacency.

He did, indeed, pretend to regret their publication. There was some

delay in bringing out the Miscellany, and on November 1, 1708, he wrote

thus to Cromwell: "But now I talk of the critics, I have good news to

tell you concerning myself, for which I expect you should congratulate

with me; it is, that beyond all my expectations, and far above my

demerits, I have been most mercifully reprieved by the sovereign power

of Jacob Tonson from being brought forth to public punishment, and

[have been] respited from time to time from the hands of those barbarous

executioners of the muses, whom I was just now speaking of. It often

happens that guilty poets, like other guilty criminals, when once they

are known and proclaimed, deliver themselves into the hands of justice

only to prevent others from doing it more to their disadvantage, and not

out of any ambition to spread their fame by being executed in the face

of the world, which is a fame but of short continuance." Pope was in his

twenty-first year, an age at which frankness commonly preponderates, and

he already abounded in the ostentatious profession of sentiments he did

not entertain. He had circulated the Pastorals among numerous authors,

he had invited their criticisms, he had continued to correct the poems

with fastidious care, he retained to the last a high opinion of their

merit, and it is impossible to credit his insinuation, that he did not

design them for the press, and that he only printed them to avoid a

surreptitious edition which nobody gave any sign of preparing. The

hypocrisy broke out again when the Miscellany had appeared. "Nothing,"

wrote Wycherley, May 17, 1709, "has lately been better received by the

public than your part of it. You have only displeased the critics by

pleasing them too well, having not left them a word to say for

themselves against you and your performances. In earnest, all the best

judges of good sense or poetry are admirers of yours, and like your part

of the book so well that the rest is liked the worse." Pope replied, "I

shall be satisfied if I can lose my time agreeably this way, without

losing my reputation. As for gaining any, I am as indifferent in the

matter as Falstaff was, and may say of fame as he did of honour, 'If it

comes, it comes unlooked for; and there's an end on't.'" This

affectation of indifference was kept up by him to the end of his days.

Yet he was all the time composing, polishing, and publishing; his whole

existence was passed in painstaking, and almost drudging authorship; he

left no means untried, dishonest as well as fair, to sustain, extend,

and perpetuate his reputation; and he pursued every person with

inveterate malice who presumed to question his poetical supremacy. In

spite of his boasted apathy, there cannot be found in the annals of the

irritable race a more anxious, jealous, intriguing candidate for fame.

In his letter to Wycherley, Walsh remarked of Pope's Pastorals, "It is

no flattery at all to say that Virgil had written nothing so good at his

age." Walsh must have been thinking of Virgil's Eclogues, which are his

most juvenile productions, though he is not supposed to have commenced

them till he was thirty years old. Pope admired them to excess, and in

his manhood he held to the belief that "it was difficult to find any

fault in them."[11] His desire was to repeat, with slight variations,

this ancient pattern, which he thought perfection. Virgil himself was a

plagiarist, but the Eclogues have more originality than the Pastorals.

The descriptions of both Virgil and Pope are artificial, but Virgil has

heart-felt touches from the life, of which the Pastorals afford no

trace. The taste of both was unformed, but the conceits of Virgil are

accompanied by a poetic vein which was not yet equally developed in

Pope. Since the Pastorals are an imitation of the Eclogues, it might be

expected, as usually happens in such cases, that the copy would have the

defects of the model in an exaggerated degree. Pope could not disguise

from himself that his verses were the echo of an echo; and in a letter

of July 2, 1706, he begged Walsh to tell him sincerely whether he had

not stretched the license of borrowing too far. Walsh admitted in his

answer, that some persons to whom he had shown the manuscript had made

this objection, but he professed not to share it, and comforted his

friend by the assurance, "that in all the common subjects of poetry the

thoughts are so obvious that whoever writes last must write things like

what have been said before." Roscoe has repeated the plea, and speaks of

"the unreasonableness" of expecting new images on a topic which "has

been the general theme of poetry in every country, period, and

language." He forgot that rural scenery and life had furnished abundant

novelty to Thomson, Cowper, Wordsworth, and Crabbe, whose pictures are

as fresh and unhacknied as if Theocritus and Virgil had never lived. "He

that walks behind," said Michael Angelo "can never go before;" and

originality was impossible when Pope's only notion of legitimate

pastoral was a slavish mimicry of classical remains. Had he drawn his

materials from the English landscape before his eyes, from the English

characters about his doors, and from the English usages and modes of

thought in his own day, he would have discovered a thousand particulars

in which he had not been anticipated by Greeks and Romans. He neglected

this inexhaustible territory, and bestowed so little attention upon the

realities around him, that though his descriptions are confined to the

barest generalities, they are not unfrequently false.

After contending that the triteness of the Pastorals was inevitable,

Roscoe puts forth a second defence to save the precocity of their

author. "The observation," he says, "of Johnson, that no invention was

intended, is, as far as the remark of Warton affects the genius and

character of Pope, a decisive answer." This must mean that he copied

from choice, and not from necessity, which is contradicted by the

confession of Pope himself, who acknowledges that he leant upon his

masters because he was unable to go alone.[12] Without his testimony we

should have been driven to the same conclusion, since every great poet

whose youthful verses have been preserved, began by imitating his

predecessors, and it would be absurd, in defiance of a general law, to

assume that Pope was gifted with a juvenile originality which his early

works belie. If he had been capable of higher flights, it would have

done him no honour to have employed his melodious verse in piecing

together stale, vapid, and often paltry ideas.

Johnson, to be sure, was of opinion that Pope in his Pastorals had

copied "the poems of antiquity with judicious selection," but this

approbation he does not seem to deserve. A large volume might be

composed consisting solely of faults which had their counterpart in

works of genius. The homage Pope paid to famous names seduced his

immature taste into the admiration of many a vicious passage, and he

endeavoured to emulate or outdo the frigid and hyperbolical conceits of

his prototypes. Throughout the Pastorals, for instance, the phenomena,

which are the effects of the seasons, are ascribed to the presence or

absence of the nymphs whom his minstrels celebrate. In spring, the skies

mourn in showers, the birds are hushed, and the flowers are closed till

Delia smiles, when forthwith the skies brighten, the flowers bloom, and

the birds sing. In summer, the shepherd boasts that the breezes shall

wait upon his heroine, and blow in the places where she walks; that the

trees where she sits shall crowd into a shade; that the flowers shall

rise up from the soil where she treads; and that vegetation shall

flourish where she turns her eyes. In autumn, the birds neglect their

song, the leaves fall from the trees, and the flowers droop because

Delia has gone away. In winter, the heavens are obscured by clouds, the

verdure has withered, the flocks refuse to graze the meadows, the bees

neglect their honey, and the streams overflow with tears because Daphne

is dead. This last pastoral, which was Pope's favourite, turns mainly on

the notion that winter is the consequence of heaven and earth deploring

the death of Mrs. Tempest. "Such," says Sandys, "is the sweetness and

power of poesy, as it makes that appear which were in prose both false

and ridiculous, to resemble the truth." Poetic fancy is separated from

extravagance by narrow boundaries; but there must be some affinity to

truth, or the understanding is repelled instead of the imagination being

captivated. No ideas can have less to recommend them than the hollow

rhapsodies of the Pastorals, for they are at once obvious and absurd.

"Poetry," said Wordsworth, "is the image of man and nature," and Pope's

fantastic superlatives are the image of neither. They never approximate

to the exaggeration of fervid passion, but both grief and love are

without the semblance of genuine feeling, and only excited the derision

of those who looked for a meaning beneath the glitter of words. "Pray

tell me the name of him I love," wrote Lady Mary Pierrepont, afterwards

the celebrated Lady Mary Wortley, "that I may sigh to the woods and

groves hereabouts, and teach it to the echo. Above all, let me know

whether it is most proper to walk in the woods, increasing the winds

with my sighs, or to sit by a purling stream, swelling the rivulet with

my tears."[13] This happy ridicule of a style of composition, which Pope

acknowledged ought "to be full of the greatest simplicity, in nature,"

was written a few months after the Pastorals were published, and appears

to have been suggested by them. The clever girl drew her notions from

life, and the perceptions of the young author were sophisticated by

books. Bowles believed that Pope was influenced "by the false taste of

Cowley at that time prevalent." Cowley's popularity, however, had ceased

for some years; the fashion he set had passed away; and Dryden reigned

in his stead. "He is sunk in his reputation," said this illustrious

successor in 1700, "because he could never forego any conceit which came

in his way, but swept, like a drag-net, great and small. For this

reason, though he must always be thought a great poet, he is no longer

esteemed a good writer, and for ten impressions which his works have had

in many successive years, yet at present a hundred books are scarcely

purchased once a twelvemonth."[14] The conceits in Pope's Pastorals were

derived from other sources. He took little from Cowley, and borrowed

none of his peculiarities.

Pope says, in his Discourse, that his Pastorals "have as much variety in

respect of the several seasons as Spenser's; that to add to this

variety, the several times of the day are observed, the rural

employments in each season or time of day, and the rural scenes or

places proper to such employments, not without some regard to the

several ages of man, and the different passions proper to each age."

Johnson has in consequence accorded to the Pastorals the praise of being

composed with "close thought;" but the conception was very imperfectly

executed, and in part is puerile. Spring and morning, summer and noon,

autumn and evening, winter and night, are coupled together, as if each

season was specially characterised by a single portion of the day,

selected for no other reason than because the order of succession is the

same. Between the several ages of man, and the seasons, there is an

obvious resemblance, which has furnished similes from time immemorial,

but there is no propriety in peopling a spring scene with children, and

a winter scene with the old, since all ages figure together in the

world, and manifest the feelings which belong to their years, whether it

happens to be winter or spring. If the plan had any merit, Pope did not

conform to it. The shepherds who sing in spring are grown up. The

shepherd who sings in summer is a boy. Winter is a funereal lament for a

young lady who was cut off in her prime, and has not the most distant

reference to old age. The different passions proper to each time of

life, which Pope professes to have distinguished, are altogether

overlooked. Love is the sole passion which animates the actors in

Spring, Summer, and Autumn; and the shepherd in Winter celebrates the

departed Daphne in the same lover-like rhapsodies which prevail

throughout the three preceding poems. The rural employments proper to

each season have been equally forgotten. Sheep-keeping and verse-making

are the only occupations, though the poet declares he had changed the

scene to suit the changing employment, and represents the first pastoral

as sung in a valley, the second on the banks of a stream, the third on a

hill, and the fourth in a grove. In place of the variety to which he

lays claim, we have a general sameness, and if he had kept faithfully to

the outline he sketched, he would, with his mode of composition, have

done little towards diversifying the series. He wanted the "intimate

acquaintance with those minute and particular appearances of nature

which," as Bowles says, "can alone give a lively and original colour to

the painting of pastoral poetry." The scenes of his four lays,--the

valley, the stream, the hill, and the grove,--are just mentioned, and

nothing more. There is no attempt to depict them to the mind, and it

does not contribute to variety simply to tell the reader that he is now

in a valley, and now upon a hill. The seasons themselves are only marked

by the superficial, notorious circumstances which convey no pleasure in

the repetition, unless they are accompanied by the nice discriminating

touches of an exact observer. To say that showers descend, that birds

sing, that crocuses blow, and that trees put forth their leaves in

spring, supplies the mind with no fresh ideas, nor assists in giving a

new beauty and a more definite form to the ideas we possessed before.

The genius of Pope was in another direction; and when we contrast the

picturesque details of Thomson's Seasons with the blank common-places of

the Pastorals, we perceive how wide is the interval between the elegant,

harmonious versifier, and the genuine poet of nature. Sheep are twice

mentioned in Pope's Winter, once at ver. 5,

Now sleeping flocks in their soft fleeces lie;

and again at ver. 37,

For her the flocks refuse their verdant food.

Widely different in life and vividness are the lines in which Thomson

paints the flocks under their true wintry aspect, when the snow is

falling, and has buried up the herbage.

The bleating kind

Eye the bleak heaven, and next the glist'ning earth,

With looks of dumb despair.

In a verse which is not original, but which is more descriptive than

usual, Pope speaks of the breezes which, in spring, blow gently among

the osiers:

Let vernal airs through trembling osiers play.

This is flat by the side of the passage in Thomson's Spring, where he

describes the effects of the lightest current of air upon the aspen:

Not a breath

Is heard to quiver through the closing woods,

Or rustling turn the many-twinkling leaves

Of aspen tall.

The epithet "closing" is happily applied to woods just bursting into

foliage, and the epithet "many-twinkling" is exquisitely appropriate to

the leaves of the aspen, which, when every other tree is still, and the

air can hardly be felt to stir, dance up and down incessantly, with an

endless play of light and shadow, and rustle as they wave joyously to

and fro. Nature scarce affords a prettier sight, or a more soothing

sound. These comparisons might be extended through pages, and they are

fair examples of Pope's inferiority in a style which was unsuited to his

turn of mind, and of which he had never formed adequate ideas.

Roscoe could perceive no impropriety in transferring classical customs

and mythology to the plains of Windsor. He conceived that every

objection was obviated by the announcement of Pope, "that pastoral is an

image of the golden age," which leaves us to infer, that during this

happy interlude our British shepherds adopted the manners and religion

of Greece. But the golden age was itself an exploded fable, which had

lost its hold on the imagination, and even if Englishmen in the

eighteenth century could have been beguiled by the dream, they could not

at least have been enthralled by the fiction, that Paradise was renewed

in England under the auspices of heathenism. The theory of a golden age

introduced a second inconsistency into the Pastorals without remedying

the first. Bad as is the defence, it cannot be pleaded on Pope's behalf;

for discarding in his Winter the notion of some remote and undefined

era, he has laid the scene in a particular year of the reign of Queen

Anne, and makes Lycidas declare that he will often sacrifice a lamb to

the deceased Mrs. Tempest, who died in 1703. There are several other

incongruities. "Zodiac" is too hard a term to be remembered correctly by

one of Pope's shepherds, a circumstance which is intended to denote the

little learning he possessed; and the same ignorant shepherd proceeds to

talk as glibly of Hybla, and Cynthus, and Idalia'a groves as if they had

been neighbouring parishes.

One characteristic of the Pastorals has been universally allowed--the

peculiar softness of the versification, which was considered by Pope to

be an essential quality of this species of composition. He told Spence

that he had scarce ever bestowed more labour in tuning his lines.[15] He

must have had less facility when he was learning the art than when he

was thoroughly practised in it; and since authors are apt to estimate

the result by the amount of toil it has cost them, the greater pains he

expended upon his early efforts may have been the reason that "he

esteemed the Pastorals as the most correct in the versification, and

musical in the numbers, of all his works." He certainly went forwards in

some of his later pieces. Windsor Forest, and the Epistle of Eloisa to

Abelard, are finer specimens of melody than the Pastorals. The poetic

harmony displayed by Pope in his youth refuted an axiom which Dryden

propounded in his lines to the memory of Oldham.

O early ripe! to thy abundant store

What could advancing age have added more?

It might, what nature never gives the young,

Have taught the smoothness of thy native tongue.

But satire needs not this, and wit will shine

Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line.

Many examples might be quoted in support of Dryden's position, but he

had failed to discover, what the later history of poetry has rendered

clear, that where there is not a defective ear, the softness or

ruggedness of juvenile verses depends upon the model. The imitative

faculty of boyhood is never more at home than in catching the trick of

metrical harmony. Dryden had used the heroic measure with consummate

skill, and no one who came after him could fall into the "harsh cadence"

of Oldham's Satires, and Cowley's Davideis, or rest satisfied with the

combination of rough and smooth in the productions of Sandys and Denham.

The music of the "mighty master" was on every tongue when Pope began "to

lisp in numbers." "I learned versification," he said to Spence, "wholly

from Dryden's works, who had improved it much beyond any of our former

poets; and would, probably, have brought it to its perfection, had not

he been unhappily obliged to write so often in haste."[16] What Dryden

did for Pope, Pope did for the next generation, and to compose

mellifluous verses became the common attainment of ordinary scribblers.

Cowper, in his Table Talk, has specially noticed this effect of Pope's

writings.

But he (his musical finesse was such,

So nice his ear, so delicate his touch)

Made poetry a mere mechanic art,

And every warbler has his tune by heart.

In metrical skill Pope was thought by most persons to have surpassed all

his predecessors. "He is the most harmonious poet," said Voltaire,

"that England ever had. He has reduced the sharp hissings of the English

trumpet to the sweet sounds of the flute."[17] Voltaire doubtless found

this opinion prevalent in the circle he frequented during his residence

in England, from 1720 to 1728; for his own knowledge of our language

would not have enabled him to distinguish the nicer shades of melody.

The English critics confirm his decision. Johnson declared that the

versification of the Pastorals had "no precedent, nor has since had an

imitation." Warton pronounced "that it was musical to a degree of which

rhyme could hardly be thought capable," and Bowles admitted that Pope

"had made the English couplet infinitely more smooth." To the few who

"censured his poetry as too uniformly musical, and as glutting the ear

with unvaried sweetness," Johnson replied, "I suspect this objection to

be the cant of those who judge by principles rather than perception; and

who would even themselves have less pleasure in his works, if he had

tried to relieve attention by studied discords, or affected to break his

lines, and vary his pauses."[18] Bowles sided with the cavillers, as

Johnson deemed them, and held that the want of breaks and of variety in

the pauses produced a monotony of sound. Lord Kames, on the contrary,

asserted that Pope was "eminent for variety of versification," and that

the variety of his pauses was the source of the "variety of his

melody."[19] I agree with the dissentients who think that his metre is

prone to a cloying mannerism, but I believe that the defect is ascribed

by Bowles to the wrong cause. Any one who compares the imperial march of

the metre in the Vanity of Human Wishes, with the sweet, but less

majestic Deserted Village, will perceive that the swell of the heroic

measure is capable of wide degrees. A poet judges of the harmony of his

verses by trying them on his ear, and the tendency is to set them all to

the same tune. This was Pope's error. He has in general, though not

always, intermixed the pauses, but he has not varied sufficiently the

swell and movement of his lines. Dryden, "in whose admirable ear," as

Gray remarks, "the music of our old versification still sounded,"[20]

rings the changes with wonderful ease and spirit, and is by turns soft

and stately, lively and solemn, familiar and sonorous, while he

preserves through all his transitions a freedom, a flow, and an

elasticity which never flag. His negligent lines, which are often

imputed to haste, have been thought by good writers to be intended to

avoid the surfeit of an equable strain. "Sometimes," says Dr. Trapp, "it

is not only allowable, but beautiful, to run into harsh and unequal

numbers. Mr. Dryden himself does it; and we may be sure he knew when he

did it as well as we could tell him. In a work intended for pleasure,

variety justifies the breach of almost any rule, provided it be done but

rarely."[21] There is extreme exaggeration in the language of Bowles

when he states that Pope "gave the first idea of mellifluence." Lines as

melodious may be counted in Dryden by the hundred. Pope only maintained

a more continuous softness, or, as Johnson puts it, "he discovered, by

perusing the works of Dryden, the most perfect fabric of English verse,

and habituated himself to that only which he found the best."[22] This

constantly recurring note, however attractive in itself, must always

appear a retrograde system, to those who appreciate the richer music of

more diversified modulations. The sameness of Pope's metre was the

reason that "every warbler had his tune by heart," and imitated it so

readily. There was a complexity in the incessant rise and fall of

Dryden's lines which mechanical verse-makers could only copy

imperfectly. The uniformity of Pope gave them little trouble. The

repetition soon fixed the brief lesson in their minds, and the petty

warblers almost rivalled their original in sound, though they were far

enough from approaching the beauty of his language, the terseness of his

style, the felicity of his ideas, and the weight of his sense.

As the Pastorals of Philips opened the sixth volume of Tonson's

Miscellany, De Quiucey conjectures that Pope's Pastorals may have been

placed at the end of the volume by his own desire. Both sets of verses,

by this arrangement, were more likely to attract attention, and invite

comparison. Pope appears not to have felt any jealousy at the outset.

Speaking of Philips's Pastorals in a letter to Cromwell, on October 28,

1710, a year and a half after the Miscellany was published, he said "he

agreed with the Tatler that we had no better eclogues in our language."

He particularly commended the lines which describe the musician playing

on the harp, and added that "nothing could be objected to them, except

that they were too lofty for pastoral." He changed his tone after the

essays on pastoral poetry had appeared in the Guardian. These papers

commenced with No. 22, and in No. 23, for April 7, 1713, some passages

are quoted from Philips to illustrate the qualities appropriate to the

pastoral style. In No. 30 there are more quotations from Philips to the

same purpose, and he and Spenser are singled out as the sole cultivators

of this species of composition, who "have copied and improved the

beauties of the ancients." The eulogium reached its climax in No. 32,

where it is asserted that there have been only four true masters of the

art in above two thousand years,--"Theocritus, who left his dominions to

Virgil; Virgil, who left his to his son Spenser; and Spenser, who was

succeeded by his eldest born Philips." It is not known who contributed

the essays, but it has been conjectured, without any evidence, that they

proceeded from Tickell. There cannot be a question that the author had a

friendship for Philips, or he would not have ranked him with Theocritus,

Virgil, and Spenser; and it is equally certain that he was not an

admirer of the Pastorals of Pope, which are passed over in silence, and

which violate the canons laid down by the critic. "I must observe," he

says, "that our countrymen have so good an opinion of the ancients, and

think so modestly of themselves, that the generality of pastoral writers

have either stolen all from the Greeks and Romans, or so servilely

imitated their manners and customs as makes them very ridiculous."[23]

The method of Philips is adduced in advantageous contrast. He is

commended for changing the details with the scene, and introducing

English ideas into English eclogues. A few months earlier similar praise

had been bestowed upon him by Addison, in the Spectator for October 30,

1712. "When we are at school," said Addison in his essay, "it is

necessary for us to be acquainted with the system of pagan theology, and

we may be allowed to enliven a theme or point an epigram with a heathen

god; but no thought is beautiful which is not just, and no thought can

be just which is not founded in truth, or at least in that which passes

for such. If any are of opinion that there is a necessity of admitting

these classical legends into our serious compositions, in order to give

them a more poetical turn, I would recommend to their consideration the

Pastorals of Mr. Philips. One would have thought it impossible for this

kind of poetry to have subsisted without fauns and satyrs, wood-nymphs

and water-nymphs, with all the tribe of rural deities. But we see he has

given a new life, and a more natural beauty, to this way of writing, by

substituting in the place of these antiquated fables the superstitious

mythology which prevails among the shepherds of our own country."

Addison had previously commenced the reformation by excluding pagan

machinery from his Campaign. It needed but a small amount of taste to

share his opinions, and the writer in the Guardian can hardly be charged

with hostility to Pope for not commending Pastorals which, apart from

their melodious language, were little better than a medley of unnatural

compliments, and unmeaning mythology. Contemporary criticism is more

often corrupted by the kindness of friendship than by the spite of

enmity, but the effect is sometimes the same, and the undue exaltation

of Philips increased the comparative contempt which was cast upon Pope.

He had reason to be annoyed, and it was not much compensation that the

prettiest lines of his January and May were quoted in one of the papers

on Pastoral, to show that fairies could be rendered attractive in verse.

The scheme Pope devised for redressing the wrong, was to send a paper to

the Guardian in which he ridiculed the Pastorals of his rival and

applauded his own. "With an unexampled and unequalled artifice of

irony," says Dr. Johnson, "though he himself has always the advantage,

he gives the preference to Philips." In the opening sentence of the

essay Pope is described as "a gentleman whose character it is, that he

takes the greatest care of his works before they are published, and the

least concern for them afterwards."[24] He followed his invariable habit

of boasting his pre-eminence in the very virtue he was defying, and

attached this vaunt to a criticism in which his morbid "concern" for his

works had induced him to become his own reviewer and eulogist. He was

liberal in his self-laudation, and assured the public that though his

Pastorals might not fulfil the strict definition laid down in the

Guardian, they were, like Virgil's, "something better." To prove the

inferiority of Philips he selected three of his worst passages, and

contrasted them with three of his own. He picked out a dozen foolish

lines from his rival, and alleged that they were specimens of his

ordinary manner. He subjoined some ludicrous imitations of his style,

which are only not an outrageous caricature because they have no

resemblance at all to the original. The faults of Philips did not

require to be exaggerated. The absurdities of his satirist are different

in kind, but they are not less in degree. Some defects they had in

common, and as self-love is blind, Pope did not perceive that most of

his comments recoiled upon himself. He objected that Philips had

introduced wolves into England, where they formerly existed, and the

critic forgot that the imaginary golden age, which he maintained in his

Discourse was the only era of Pastoral, must be assigned to a period

long anterior to their extirpation. Or if the piping shepherds, who

composed and chanted poems, were to be considered as existing

personages, credibility was not more violated in supposing that Windsor

Forest was still haunted by wolves than by heathen gods and

goddesses,--in imagining the lambs to be preyed upon by a wild beast,

than in picturing Christian bards employed in sacrificing them to Mrs.

Tempest with an exact observance of pagan rites. He took especial credit

for having kept to the circumstances proper to a particular season of

the year, and a certain time of the day, and exposed the ignorance of

Philips, who, says he, "by a poetical creation, hath raised up finer

beds of flowers than the most industrious gardener; his roses, lilies,

and daffodils blow in the same season." Pope might have remembered that

in his own Pastorals he had made roses, violets, and crocuses bloom

together, which drew from George Steevens the remark, that he has rarely

mentioned flowers without some mistake of the kind. The nicest observers

of nature are not exempt from these oversights. The swine in Ivanhoe

feed on acorns under the trees in the middle of summer, and though

Walter Scott, at the end of the Monastery, alluded playfully to the

anachronism, he never cared to correct the error. A more important

charge, in which Pope is most of all open to retaliation, was that

Philip's Pastorals "gave manifest proof of his knowledge of books."

While it was admitted that "his competitor had imitated some single

thoughts of the ancients," Philips was held up as a wholesale

depredator. He does, indeed, abound in the stock ideas which had served

a hundred versifiers. He is a warbler who whistles an old tune, but he

is not without a few notes which have a semblance of originality, and

these are wanting in his accuser. Inferior to the Pastorals of Pope in

polish and versification, the Pastorals of Philips are, on the whole,

superior in their substance. The trial of skill between the musician and

the nightingale, which forms the subject of the fifth Pastoral, is

narrated with singular sweetness, and may still be read with pleasure.

In true poetic feeling it is much beyond anything in the Pastorals of

his scoffing critic. Philips owed his advantage to his maturer years,

and not to the brilliancy of his talents; he was thirty-four when

Tonson's Miscellany appeared, and Pope was but twenty-one. The powers of

Philips remained stationary, and he ranks low among the minor poets.

Pope quickly ripened into genius, and reigned without a competitor. The

exaggerated panegyrics of the Guardian could not confer a reputation

upon Philips he did not deserve, and Pope derived none of his celebrity

from the gross expedient of exalting himself, and decrying his

antagonist. There is nothing which is less affected by unjust praise and

unjust detraction than an author's works. They are there to speak for

themselves, and no amount of petty artifices can long raise them higher

or sink them lower than they merit.

Pope was a contributor to the Guardian, and on cordial terms with the

editor, but he could not ask to have a paper inserted in which he had

drawn a comparison between his own Pastorals and those of his rival, and

awarded himself the palm. He therefore sent the criticism anonymously,

and Steele, as we are told by Warburton, not discovering that the praise

of Philips and the censure of Pope were both ironical, showed the

manuscript to the latter, and assured him that he would "never publish

any paper where one of the club was complimented at the expense of

another." His ingenuous ally affected magnanimity, and prevailed upon

Steele to print the essay. The irony which could not be detected by the

wits at Button's might well escape less cultivated minds. Ayre, in his

Memoirs of Pope, in 1745, and Dilworth, in 1760, both believed that the

criticism was to be interpreted literally, that Steele was the author of

it, and that it was dictated by friendship for Philips. Small as was the

ability of these biographers, they may be supposed to have shared the

common opinion. This continued to be the accepted doctrine in the next

generation; and the celebrated circle in which Hannah More lived were

unanimous in holding that the essay was not satirical. "The whole

criticism," she wrote August 4, 1783, "appears to me a burlesque, but I

have some reason to think I am in the wrong, as I have all the world

against me. That a writer of so pure a taste could be in earnest when he

talks of the elegance of Diggon Davy, and exalts all that trash of

Philips's, whose simplicity is silliness, I cannot bring myself to

believe." She found it still more difficult to believe that the author

could be serious in asserting that Hobbinol and Lobbin are names

agreeable to the delicacy of an English ear.[25] Hannah More judged of

Philips by the wretched extracts in the Guardian. Her accomplished

friends could hardly have admired them; and it must have been for a

different reason that the purpose of the essay was misunderstood. Warton

says that the misapprehension arose from "the skill with which the irony

was conducted." It would be more natural to infer that the execution was

defective when the vast majority of literary men mistook the design. The

satire, in fact, is imperfectly sustained, and passages, which the

author intended for irony, appeared to the reader to be plain common

sense. "Mr. Pope," he says of himself, "hath fallen into the same error

with Virgil. His names are borrowed from Theocritus and Virgil, which

are improper to the scenes of his Pastorals. He introduces Daphnis,

Alexis, and Thyrsis on British plains, as Virgil had done before him on

the Mantuan." Habit had reconciled Pope to the affectation of calling

English shepherds Daphnis and Thyrsis, but "the names," as De Quincey

says, "are rank with childishness," and the public, who felt the

practice to be absurd, concluded that the censure was real. "It may,"

said Pope, "be observed, as a farther beauty of this pastoral, that the

words nymph, dryad, naiad, faun, Cupid, or satyr, are not once mentioned

through the whole," which was a sneer at Addison's commendation of

Philips for rejecting those dreary nonentities; but the public, who had

been nauseated with them, could not detect a covert sarcasm in the

repetition of the praise by the writer in the Guardian. The circumstance

which seemed to Warton to render the irony transparent was the remark,

that "Philips had with great judgment described wolves in England," but

the ridicule was based upon ignorance, and must have been lost upon

every one who was aware that wolves abounded in the antique period to

which the pastorals referred. Bowles, who knew that the paper was

ironical, yet imagined that Pope was serious in the opening portion,

where it is asserted that Virgil has not above a couple of "true

pastorals," and that Theocritus has scarcely more. This part, however,

of the essay was in the same sarcastic vein with the rest. The previous

critic in the Guardian had laid down the rule that a pastoral should

reflect "the golden age of innocence," and Pope, to deprive Philips of

the benefit of the definition, endeavoured to show that Theocritus and

Virgil had hardly ever conformed to it. He did not mean seriously to

admit that his competitor was a more genuine pastoral poet than Virgil

and Theocritus. His object was to throw ridicule on the definition

itself, albeit he adopted it in his Discourse on Pastoral Poetry when he

was no longer engaged in disparaging Philips.

Nothing can be clearer than that Pope was instigated to write the essay

in the Guardian by his jealousy of the praise which had been bestowed

upon his rival. The course he took was discreditable, and Warburton,

without attempting a direct apology, pretends that the incident which

influenced the poet was the misrepresentations made of him to Addison by

Philips. Ruffhead adds that the calumny consisted in the assertion that

Pope was "engaged in the intrigues of the tory ministry." This would be

a good reason for his exposing the mis-statement, but would be a poor

excuse for his writing an anonymous attack upon Philips's Pastorals, and

a panegyric upon his own. The defence, which would be inadequate if it

was true, is indubitably incorrect. The account of Warburton did not

appear till Philips was dead. Pope, while Philips was living, published

an account, in the shape of a letter to Caryll, the date and contents of

which prove that Philips did not bring his charge against Pope till a

full year after the paper had been printed in the Guardian.[26] The poet

adds that when they meet he will inform Caryll "of the secret grounds of

Philips's malignity," and Warburton himself subjoins in a note "These

grounds were Mr. Pope's writing the ironical comparison between his own

and Philips's Pastorals." The strong presumption from the nature of the

case that Pope was actuated by literary envy is thus confirmed. The

criticism in the Guardian was not provoked by the malignity of Philips,

but the bitterness of Philips was the consequence of the criticism. In

1790, Mr. J. C. Walker, the Italian scholar, sent to the Gentleman's

Magazine an alleged remark of Philips to the same effect. "When the

comparison," says Mr. Walker, "between the Pastorals of Pope and

Philips appeared, Philips was secretary to Primate Boulter, and then in

Ireland. Dining one day with the officers of the Prerogative Court, the

comparison became the subject of conversation, and Philips said he knew

it was written by Pope, adding, 'I wonder why the little crooked bastard

should attack me, who never offended him either in word or deed?' This I

had from a gentleman who was present."[27] If the conversation ever

occurred, the gentleman was mistaken in supposing that the criticism was

recent, for the paper in the Guardian came out in 1713, and it was not

till more than ten years afterwards that Philips went with Archbishop

Boulter to Ireland. The story is unnecessary to prove that Pope was the

aggressor, which is sufficiently evident from independent testimony.

Unhappily for himself, he began at the outset of his career to stir up

those enmities which were the torment of his existence. By his attack

upon Dennis, in the Essay on Criticism, he invited the scurrility of

that rabid pamphleteer, and by what Bowles calls his "unmanly hostility"

to Philips he was reduced to the shame of being scared away from

Button's by the no less unmanly retaliation of his victim, who, at some

period of the quarrel, hung up a birch, and declared that he would use

it on "his rival Arcadian," if he showed his face in the coffee-room.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: There was only one paper.]

[Footnote 2: Warburton implies that Addison's remark to Pope was made

immediately after the essay appeared in the Guardian, in which case Pope

could have lost no time in avowing that he was the author of the

criticism when once it was in print, for Addison had no suspicion of him

from internal evidence. "He did not," says Spence, "discover Mr. Pope's

style in the letter on Pastorals, which he published in the Guardian;

but then that was a disguised style."]

[Footnote 3: The effect of reality and truth became conspicuous, even

when the intention was to show them grovelling and degraded. Gay's

pastorals became popular, and were read with delight as just

representations of rural manners and occupations, by those who had no

interest in the rivalry of the poets, nor knowledge of the critical

dispute.--JOHNSON.]

[Footnote 4: Warton was master of Winchester school.]

[Footnote 5: But if Pope had no invention, and had exhibited in his

Pastorals no new or striking images, how could his example have led the

way to others, "in point of genius and imagination," whatever it might

have done in point of correctness?--ROSCOE.]

[Footnote 6: They are not coupled but contra-distinguished, and surely

the poet might draw a contrast from Greece without being chargeable with

a faulty mixture of British and Grecian ideas.--RUFFHEAD.]

[Footnote 7: That such causes of complaint will more frequently occur in

the Grecian climate is unquestionable; but is it necessary to make a

complaint of this kind consistent that every day should be a dog-day?

The British shepherd might very consistently describe what he often

felt, and we have days in England which might make even a Grecian

faint.--RUFFHEAD.]

[Footnote 8: "New sentiments and new images," says Johnson, in his Life

of Pope, "others may produce; but to attempt any further improvement of

versification will be dangerous. Art and diligence have done their best,

and what shall be added will be the effort of tedious toil and needless

curiosity."]

[Footnote 9: Works of Lord Lansdowne, vol. ii. p. 113.]

[Footnote 10: De Quincey's Works, vol. xv. p. 114.]

[Footnote 11: Singer's Spence, p. 162.]

[Footnote 12: Spence, p. 211.]

[Footnote 13: Works of Lady Mary Wortley, ed. Thomas, vol. i. p. 166.]

[Footnote 14: Dryden, Preface to Fables, Ancient and Modern.]

[Footnote 15: Spence, p. 236.]

[Footnote 16: Spence, p. 212.]

[Footnote 17: Oeuvres, ed. Beuchot, tom. xxxvii. p. 258.]

[Footnote 18: Lives of the Poets, ed. Cunningham, vol. iii. p. 136. The

principle which Johnson derided in his Life of Pope he had upheld in No.

86 of the Rambler: "We are soon wearied with the perpetual recurrence of

the same cadence. Necessity has therefore enforced the mixed measure, in

which some variation of the accents is allowed. This, though it always

injures the harmony of the line considered by itself, yet compensates

the loss by relieving us from the continual tyranny of the same sound,

and makes us more sensible of the harmony of the pure measure."]

[Footnote 19: Elements of Criticism, 6th ed. vol. ii. p. 143, 155.]

[Footnote 20: Gray's Works, ed. Mitford, vol. v. p. 303.]

[Footnote 21: Trapp's Virgil, vol. i. p. lxxix.]

[Footnote 22: Lives of the Poets, vol. iii. p. 136.]

[Footnote 23: Guardian, No. 30, April 15, 1713.]

[Footnote 24: Guardian, No. 40, April 27, 1713.]

[Footnote 25: Life of Hannah More, vol. i. p. 301.]

[Footnote 26: Pope to Caryll, June 8, 1714.]

[Footnote 27: Nichols, Illustrations of Lit. Hist. vol. vii. 713.]

A DISCOURSE

ON

PASTORAL POETRY.[1]

There are not, I believe, a greater number of any sort of verses than of

those which are called pastorals; nor a smaller, than of those which are

truly so. It therefore seems necessary to give some account of this kind

of poem; and it is my design to comprise in this short paper the

substance of those numerous dissertations the critics have made on the

subject, without omitting any of their rules in my own favour. You will

also find some points reconciled, about which they seem to differ, and a

few remarks, which, I think, have escaped their observation.

The original of poetry is ascribed to that age which succeeded the

creation of the world: and as the keeping of flocks seems to have been

the first employment of mankind, the most ancient sort of poetry was

probably pastoral.[2] It is natural to imagine, that the leisure of

those ancient shepherds admitting and inviting some diversion, none was

so proper to that solitary and sedentary life as singing; and that in

their songs they took occasion to celebrate their own felicity. From

hence a poem was invented, and afterwards improved to a perfect image of

that happy time; which, by giving us an esteem for the virtues of a

former age, might recommend them to the present. And since the life of

shepherds was attended with more tranquillity than any other rural

employment, the poets chose to introduce their persons, from whom it

received the name of pastoral.

A pastoral is an imitation of the action of a shepherd, or one

considered under that character. The form of this imitation is dramatic,

or narrative, or mixed of both[3]; the fable simple; the manners not too

polite nor too rustic: the thoughts are plain, yet admit a little

quickness and passion, but that short and flowing: the expression

humble, yet as pure as the language will afford; neat, but not florid;

easy, and yet lively. In short, the fable, manners, thoughts, and

expressions are full of the greatest simplicity in nature.

The complete character of this poem consists in simplicity[4], brevity,

and delicacy; the two first of which render an eclogue natural, and the

last delightful.

If we would copy nature, it may be useful to take this idea along with

us, that pastoral is an image of what they call the golden age. So that

we are not to describe our shepherds as shepherds at this day really

are, but as they may be conceived then to have been; when the best of

men followed the employment.[5] To carry this resemblance yet further,

it would not be amiss to give these shepherds some skill in astronomy,

as far as it may be useful to that sort of life. And an air of piety to

the gods should shine through the poem, which so visibly appears in all

the works of antiquity; and it ought to preserve some relish of the old

way of writing; the connection should be loose, the narrations and

descriptions short,[6] and the periods concise. Yet it is not

sufficient, that the sentences only be brief, the whole eclogue should

be so too. For we cannot suppose poetry in those days to have been the

business of men, but their recreation at vacant hours.[7]

But with respect to the present age, nothing more conduces to make these

composures natural, than when some knowledge in rural affairs is

discovered.[8] This may be made to appear rather done by chance than on

design, and sometimes is best shown by inference; lest by too much study

to seem natural, we destroy that easy simplicity from whence arises the

delight. For what is inviting in this sort of poetry, as Fontenelle

observes, proceeds not so much from the idea of that business, as of the

tranquillity of a country life.

We must therefore use some illusion to render a pastoral delightful; and

this consists in exposing the best side only of a shepherd's life, and

in concealing its miseries.[9] Nor is it enough to introduce shepherds

discoursing together in a natural way: but a regard must be had to the

subject, that it contain some particular beauty in itself, and that it

be different in every eclogue. Besides, in each of them a designed scene

or prospect is to be presented to our view, which should likewise have

its variety.[10] This variety is obtained in a great degree by frequent

comparisons, drawn from the most agreeable objects of the country; by

interrogations to things inanimate; by beautiful digressions, but those

short; sometimes by insisting a little on circumstances; and lastly, by

elegant turns on the words, which render the numbers extremely sweet and

pleasing. As for the numbers themselves, though they are properly of the

heroic measure, they should be the smoothest, the most easy and flowing

imaginable.

It is by rules like these that we ought to judge of pastoral. And since

the instructions given for any art are to be delivered as that art is in

perfection, they must of necessity be derived from those in whom it is

acknowledged so to be. It is therefore from the practice of Theocritus

and Virgil (the only undisputed authors of pastoral) that the critics

have drawn the foregoing notions concerning it.

Theocritus excels all others in nature and simplicity. The subjects of

his Idyllia are purely pastoral; but he is not so exact in his persons,

having introduced reapers and fishermen[11] as well as shepherds.[12]

He is apt to be too long in his descriptions, of which that of the cup

in the first pastoral is a remarkable instance.[13] In the manners he

seems a little defective, for his swains are sometimes abusive and

immodest, and perhaps too much inclining to rusticity; for instance, in

his fourth and fifth Idyllia. But it is enough that all others learnt

their excellencies from him, and that his dialect alone has a secret

charm in it, which no other could ever attain.

Virgil, who copies Theocritus, refines upon his original;[14] and in all

points, where judgment is principally concerned, he is much superior to

his master. Though some of his subjects are not pastoral in themselves,

but only seem to be such, they have a wonderful variety in them,[15]

which the Greek was a stranger to.[16] He exceeds him in regularity and

brevity, and falls short of him in nothing but simplicity and propriety

of style; the first of which perhaps was the fault of his age, and the

last of his language.

Among the moderns, their success has been greatest who have most

endeavoured to make these ancients their pattern. The most considerable

genius appears in the famous Tasso, and our Spenser. Tasso in his Aminta

has far excelled all the pastoral writers, as in his Gierusalemme he has

outdone the epic poets of his country. But as this piece seems to have

been the original of a new sort of poem, the pastoral comedy, in Italy,

it cannot so well be considered as a copy of the ancients.[17] Spenser's

Calendar, in Mr. Dryden's opinion, is the most complete work of this

kind which any nation has produced ever since the time of Virgil.[18]

Not but that he may be thought imperfect in some few points. His

Eclogues are somewhat too long, if we compare them with the

ancients.[19] He is sometimes too allegorical, and treats of matters of

religion in a pastoral style, as the Mantuan had done before him. He has

employed the lyric measure, which is contrary to the practice of the old

poets. His stanza is not still the same, nor always well chosen. This

last may be the reason his expression is sometimes not concise enough:

for the tetrastic has obliged him to extend his sense to the length of

four lines, which would have been more closely confined in the couplet.

In the manners, thoughts, and characters, he comes near to Theocritus

himself; though, notwithstanding all the care he has taken, he is

certainly inferior in his dialect: for the Doric had its beauty and

propriety in the time of Theocritus; it was used in part of Greece, and

frequent in the mouths of many of the greatest persons, whereas the old

English and country phrases of Spenser were either entirely obsolete, or

spoken only by people of the lowest condition.[20] As there is a

difference betwixt simplicity and rusticity, so the expression of simple

thoughts should be plain, but not clownish. The addition he has made of

a calendar to his Eclogues, is very beautiful; since by this, besides

the general moral of innocence and simplicity, which is common to other

authors of pastoral, he has one peculiar to himself; he compares human

life to the several seasons, and at once exposes to his readers a view

of the great and little worlds, in their various changes and

aspects.[21] Yet the scrupulous division of his pastorals into months,

has obliged him either to repeat the same description, in other words,

for three months together; or, when it was exhausted before, entirely to

omit it: whence it comes to pass that some of his Eclogues (as the

sixth, eighth, and tenth, for example) have nothing but their titles to

distinguish them. The reason is evident, because the year has not that

variety in it to furnish every month with a particular description, as

it may every season.

Of the following Eclogues I shall only say, that these four comprehend

all the subjects which the critics upon Theocritus and Virgil will allow

to be fit for pastoral: that they have as much variety of description,

in respect of the several seasons, as Spenser's: that in order to add to

this variety, the several times of the day are observed, the rural

employments in each season or time of day, and the rural scenes or

places proper to such employments; not without some regard to the

several ages of man, and the different passions proper to each age. But

after all, if they have any merit, it is to be attributed to some good

old authors, whose works as I had leisure to study, so I hope I have not

wanted care to imitate.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Written at sixteen years of age.--POPE.

This sensible and judicious discourse written at so early an age is a

more extraordinary production than the Pastorals that follow it. Our

author has chiefly drawn his observations from Rapin, Fontenelle, and

the preface to Dryden's Virgil. A translation of Rapin's Discourse had

been some years before prefixed to Creech's translation of Theocritus,

and is no extraordinary piece of criticism. And though Hume highly

praises the Discourse of Fontenelle, yet Dr. Hurd thinks it only rather

more tolerable than his Pastorals.--WARTON.

Hume had said that there could not be a finer piece of criticism than

Fontenelle's Dissertation on Pastorals, but that the Pastorals

themselves displayed false taste, and did not exemplify the rules laid

down in the criticism.]

[Footnote 2: Fontenelle's Discourse of Pastorals.--POPE.]

[Footnote 3: Heinsius in Theocr.--POPE.]

[Footnote 4: Rapin de Carm. Past., P. 2.--POPE.]

[Footnote 5: I cannot easily discover why it is thought necessary to

refer descriptions of a rural state to the golden age, nor can I

perceive that any writer has consistently preserved the Arcadian manners

and sentiments. The only reason that I have read on which this rule has

been founded is that, according to the customs of modern life, it is

improbable that shepherds should be capable of harmonious numbers, or

delicate sentiments; and therefore, the reader must exalt his ideas of

the pastoral character by carrying his thoughts back to the age in which

the care of herds and flocks was the employment of the wisest and

greatest men. These reasoners seem to have been led into their

hypothesis by considering pastoral, not in general, as a representation

of rural nature, and consequently as exhibiting the ideas and sentiments

of those, whoever they are, to whom the country affords pleasure or

employment, but simply as a dialogue or narrative of men actually

tending sheep, and busied in the lowest and most laborious offices; from

whence they very readily concluded, since characters must necessarily be

preserved, that either the sentiments must sink to the level of the

speakers, or the speakers must be raised to the height of the

sentiments. In consequence of these original errors, a thousand precepts

have been given, which have only contributed to perplex and

confound.--JOHNSON.]

[Footnote 6: Rapin, Reflex. sur l'Art. Poet. d'Arist., P. ii. Refl.

xxvii.--POPE.]

[Footnote 7: Pope took this remark from Dr. Knightly Chetwood's Preface

to the Pastorals in Dryden's Virgil: "Not only the sentences should be

short and smart, but the whole piece should be so too, for poetry and

pastime was not the business of men's lives in those days, but only

their seasonable recreation after necessary hours." The rule is purely

fanciful. By continuing the same subject from week to week, a shepherd

could as easily find leisure to compose a single piece of a thousand

lines as ten pieces of a hundred lines each. Most of the laws of

pastoral poetry which Pope has collected are equally unfounded.]

[Footnote 8: Pref. to Virg. Past. in Dryd. Virg.--POPE.]

[Footnote 9: Fontenelle's Disc. of Pastorals.--POPE.]

[Footnote 10: See the forementioned Preface.--POPE.]

[Footnote 11: [Greek: THERISTAI], Idyl. x. and [Greek: ALIEIS], Idyl.

xxi.--POPE.

Pope's definition of Pastoral is too confined. In fact, his Pastoral

Discourse seems made to fit _his_ Pastorals. For the same reason he

would not class as a true Pastoral the most interesting of all Virgil's

Eclogues,--I mean the first, which is founded on fact, which has the

most tender and touching strokes of nature, and the plot of which is

entirely pastoral, being the complaint of a shepherd obliged to leave

the fields of his infancy, and yield the possession to soldiers and

strangers. Pope says, because it relates to soldiers, it is not

pastoral; but how little of a military cast is seen in it. The soldier

is mentioned, but only as far as was absolutely necessary, and always in

connection with the rural imagery from whence the most exquisite touches

are derived. Pope's pastoral ideas, with the exception of the Messiah,

seem to have been taken from the least interesting and poetic scenes of

the ancient eclogue,--the Wager, the Contest, the Riddle, the alternate

praises of Daphne or Delia, the common-place complaint of the lover, &c.

The more interesting and picturesque subjects were excluded, as not

being properly pastoral according to his definition.--BOWLES.

In saying that Pope would not allow Virgil's first eclogue to be "a true

pastoral," Bowles refers to the paper in the Guardian, where the design

was to laugh at the strict definition which would exclude a poem from

the pastoral class on such frivolous grounds. In the same jesting tone,

Pope asserts that the third eclogue must be set aside, because it

introduces "calumny and railing, which are not proper to a state of

concord," and the eighth, because it has a shepherd "whom an inviting

precipice tempts to self-destruction."]

[Footnote 12: The tenth and twenty-first Idyll here alluded to contain

some of the most exquisite strokes of nature and true poetry anywhere to

be met with, as does the beautiful description of the carving on the

cup, which, indeed is not a cup, but a very large pastoral vessel or

cauldron.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 13: In what does the great father of the pastoral excel all

others? In "simplicity, and nature." I admit with Pope, but more

particularly in one circumstance, which seems to have escaped general

attention, and that circumstance is the picturesque. Pope says he is too

long in his descriptions, particularly of the cup. Was not Pope, a

professed admirer of painting, aware that the description of that cup

contains touches of the most delightful and highly-finished landscape?

The old fisherman, and the broken rock in one scene; in another, the

beautiful contrast of the little boy weaving his rush-work, and so

intent on it, that he forgets the vineyard he was set to guard. We see

him in the foreground of the piece. Then there is his scrip, and the fox

eyeing it askance; the ripe and purple vineyard, and the other fox

treading down the grapes whilst he continues at his work. Add to these

circumstances the wild and beautiful Sicilian scenery, and where can

there be found more perfect landscapes in the works, which these

pictures peculiarly resemble, of Vernet or Gainsborough? Considered in

this view, how rich, wild, and various are the landscapes of the old

Sicilian, and we cannot but wonder that so many striking and original

traits should be passed over by a "youthful bard," who professed to

select from, and to copy the ancients.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 14: He refines indeed so much, as to make him, on this very

account, much inferior to the beautiful simplicity of his

original.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 15: It is difficult to conceive where is the "wonderful

variety" in Virgil's Eclogues which "the Greek was a stranger to." Many

of the more poetical parts of Virgil are copied literally from

Theocritus; but are weakened by being made more general, and often lose

much of their picturesque and poetical effect from that

circumstance.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 16: Rapin. Refl. on Arist., P. ii. Refl. xxvii. Pref. to the

Ecl. in Dryden's Virgil.--POPE.]

[Footnote 17: The Aminta of Tasso is here erroneously mentioned by Pope

as the very first pastoral comedy that appeared in Italy. But it is

certain that Il Sacrificio of Agostino Beccari was the first, who boasts

of it in his prologue, and who died very old in 1590.--WARTON.

"There were," says Roscoe, "several writers of pastoral in Italy prior

to those mentioned either by Pope or Warton." Roscoe mistook the

question, which was, who was the first author of the pastoral _drama_?

None of the prior pastoral writers he enumerates produced a drama, and

Warton was right in giving the precedency to Beccari.]

[Footnote 18: Dedication to Virg. Ecl.--POPE.]

[Footnote 19: In the manuscript Pope had added, "Some of them contain

two hundred lines, and others considerably exceed that number."]

[Footnote 20: Johnson remarks that while the notion that rustic

characters ought to use rustic phraseology, led to the adoption in

pastorals "of a mangled dialect which no human being ever could have

spoken," the authors had the inconsistency to invest their personages

with a refinement of thought which was incompatible with coarse and

vulgar diction. "Spenser," he continues, "begins one of his pastorals

with studied barbarity:

Diggon Davie, I bid her good day;

Or Diggon her is, or I missay.

_Dig._ Her wus her while it was day-light,

But now her is a most wretched wight.

What will the reader imagine to be the subject on which speakers like

these exercise their eloquence? Will he not be somewhat disappointed

when he finds them met together to condemn the corruptions of the church

of Rome? Surely at the same time that a shepherd learns theology, he may

gain some acquaintance with his native language."]

[Footnote 21: "It was from hence," the poet went on to say in his

manuscript, "I took my first design of the following eclogues. For,

looking upon Spenser as the father of English pastoral, I thought myself

unworthy to be esteemed even the meanest of his sons, unless I bore some

resemblance of him. But, as it happens with degenerate offspring, not

only to recede from the virtues, but to dwindle from the bulk of their

ancestor; so I have copied Spenser in miniature, and reduced his twelve

months into four seasons." When Pope published his Pastorals he stated

that three of them were imitated from Virgil and Theocritus, which

occasioned his cancelling this passage where he speaks as if he had

taken Spenser alone for his model.]

SPRING:

THE FIRST PASTORAL,

OR

DAMON.

TO SIR WILLIAM TRUMBULL.[1]

First in these fields I try the sylvan strains,[2]

Nor blush to sport on Windsor's blissful plains:[3]

Fair Thames, flow gently from thy sacred spring,[4]

While on thy banks Sicilian[5] muses sing;

Let vernal airs through trembling osiers play,[6] 5

And Albion's cliffs resound the rural lay.[7]

You, that too wise for pride, too good for pow'r,[8]

Enjoy the glory to be great no more,

And carrying with you all the world can boast,[9]

To all the world illustriously are lost! 10

O let my muse her slender reed inspire,

Till in your native shades[10] you tune the lyre:

So when the nightingale to rest removes,

The thrush may chant to the forsaken groves,[11]

But, charmed to silence, listens while she sings, 15

And all th' aerial audience clap their wings.[12]

Soon as the flocks shook off the nightly dews,[13]

Two swains, whom love kept wakeful, and the muse,

Poured o'er the whit'ning[14] vale their fleecy care,

Fresh as the morn, and as the season fair:[15] 20

The dawn now blushing on the mountain's side,

Thus Daphnis spoke, and Strephon thus replied.[16]

DAPHNIS.

Hear how the birds, on ev'ry bloomy spray,[17]

With joyous music wake the dawning day![18]

Why sit we mute, when early linnets sing, 25

When warbling Philomel salutes the spring?[19]

Why sit we sad, when Phosphor[20] shines so clear,

And lavish nature paints the purple[21] year?[22]

STREPHON.

Sing then, and Damon shall attend the strain,

While yon slow oxen turn the furrowed plain. 30

Here the bright crocus and blue vi'let glow,[23]

Here western winds on breathing[24] roses blow.[25]

I'll stake yon lamb that near the fountain plays,

And from the brink his dancing shade surveys.[26]

DAPHNIS.

And I this bowl, where wanton ivy twines,[27] 35

And swelling clusters bend the curling vines:[28]

Four figures rising from the work appear,[29]

The various seasons of the rolling year;[30]

And what is that, which binds the radiant sky,

Where twelve fair signs in beauteous order lie?[31] 40

DAMON.

Then sing by turns, by turns the muses sing;[32]

Now hawthorns blossom, now the daisies spring,

Now leaves the trees, and flow'rs adorn the ground;

Begin, the vales shall ev'ry note rebound.[33]

STREPHON.

Inspire me, Phoebus, in my Delia's praise,[34] 45

With Waller's strains, or Granville's moving lays![35]

A milk-white bull shall at your altars stand,

That threats a fight, and spurns the rising sand.[36]

DAPHNIS.

O Love! for Sylvia let me gain the prize,[37]

And make my tongue victorious as her eyes: 50

No lambs or sheep for victims I'll impart,

Thy victim, Love, shall be the shepherd's heart.

STREPHON.

Me gentle Delia beckons from the plain,

Then hid in shades, eludes her eager swain;[38]

But feigns a laugh to see me search around, 55

And by that laugh the willing fair is found.[39]

DAPHNIS.

The sprightly Sylvia trips along the green,

She runs, but hopes she does not run unseen,[40]

While a kind glance at her pursuer flies,[41]

How much at variance are her feet and eyes![42] 60

STREPHON.[43]

O'er golden sand let rich Pactolus flow,[44]

And trees weep amber on the banks of Po;[45]

Bright Thames's shores the brightest beauties yield,

Feed here, my lambs, I'll seek no distant field.

DAPHNIS.

Celestial Venus haunts Idalia's groves; 65

Diana Cynthus, Ceres Hybla loves;

If Windsor-shades delight the matchless maid,

Cynthus and Hybla yield to Windsor-shade.[46]

STREPHON.

All nature mourns, the skies relent in show'rs,[47]

Hushed are the birds, and closed the drooping flow'rs; 70

If Delia smile, the flow'rs begin to spring,

The skies to brighten, and the birds to sing.[48]

DAPHNIS.

All nature laughs,[49] the groves are fresh and fair,

The sun's mild lustre warms the vital air;

If Sylvia smiles, new glories gild the shore, 75

And vanquished nature seems to charm no more.[50]

STREPHON.

In spring the fields, in autumn hills I love,

At morn the plains, at noon the shady grove,

But Delia always; absent from her sight,

Nor plains at morn, nor groves at noon delight. 80

DAPHNIS.

Sylvia's like autumn ripe, yet mild as May,

More bright than noon, yet fresh as early day;[51]

Ev'n spring displeases, when she shines not here;

But blest with her, 'tis spring throughout the year.

STREPHON.

Say, Daphnis, say, in what glad soil appears, 85

A wondrous tree that sacred monarchs bears;[52]

Tell me but this, and I'll[53] disclaim the prize,

And give the conquest to thy Sylvia's eyes.

DAPHNIS.

Nay tell me first, in what more happy fields[54]

The thistle springs, to which the lily yields:[55] 90

And then a nobler prize I will resign;

For Sylvia, charming Sylvia shall be thine.

DAMON.

Cease to contend; for, Daphnis, I decree

The bowl to Strephon, and the lamb to thee.[56]

Blest swains, whose nymphs in ev'ry grace excel; 95

Blest nymphs, whose swains those graces sing so well!

Now rise, and haste to yonder woodbine bow'rs,

A soft retreat from sudden vernal show'rs;

The turf with rural dainties shall be crowned,[57]

While op'ning blooms diffuse their sweets around. 100

For see! the gath'ring flocks to shelter tend,

And from the Pleiads[58] fruitful show'rs descend.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Our author's friendship with this gentleman commenced at

very unequal years; he was under sixteen, but Sir William above sixty,

and had lately resigned his employment of secretary of state to King

William.--POPE.

This amiable old man, who had been a fellow of All Souls College,

Oxford, and doctor of civil law, was sent by Charles II. judge advocate

to Tangier, and afterwards in a public character to Florence, to Turin,

to Paris; and by James II. ambassador to Constantinople; to which city

he went through the continent on foot. He was afterwards a lord of the

treasury, and secretary of state, with the Duke of Shrewsbury, which

office he resigned 1697, and retiring to East Hampstead, died there in

December, 1716, aged seventy-seven. Nothing of his writing remains but

an elegant character of Archbishop Dolben.--WARTON.

Pope says that Sir William Trumbull had "lately" resigned his office at

the period of their acquaintance, but seven years had elapsed after the

date of Sir William's retirement, before Pope had reached the age of

sixteen.]

[Footnote 2:

Prima Syracusio dignata est ludere versu,

Nostra nec erubuit sylvas habitare Thalia.

Ecl. vi. 1.

This is the general exordium and opening of the Pastorals, in imitation

of the sixth of Virgil, which some have therefore not improbably thought

to have been the first originally. In the beginnings of the other three

Pastorals, he imitates expressly those which now stand first of the

three chief poets in this kind, Spenser, Virgil, Theocritus.

A shepherd's boy (he seeks no better name)--

Beneath the shade a spreading beech displays,--

Thyrsis, the Music of that murm'ring Spring,--

are manifestly imitations of

"--A shepherd's boy (no better do him call)."

"--Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi."

"--[Greek: Hadu ti to psithyrisma kai ha pitys, aitole, tena.]"--POPE.]

[Footnote 3: Pope not only imitated the lines he quotes from Virgil,

but, as Wakefield points out, was also indebted to Dryden's translation

of them.

I first transferred to Rome Sicilian strains:

Nor blushed the Doric muse to dwell on Mantuan plains.

Originally Pope had written,

First in these fields I sing the sylvan strains,

Nor blush to sport in Windsor's peaceful plains.

Upon this he says to Walsh, "Objection that the letter is hunted too

much--_sing the sylvan_--_peaceful plains_--and that the word _sing_ is

used two lines afterwards, _Sicilian muses sing_." He proposed to read

"try" in the place of "sing;" "happy" instead of "peaceful," and adds,

"Quaere. If _try_ be not properer in relation to _first_, as we first

attempt a thing; and more modest? and if _happy_ be not more than

_peaceful_?" Walsh replies, "_Try_ is better than _sing_. _Happy_ does

not sound right, the first syllable being short. Perhaps you may find a

better word than _peaceful_ as _flow'ry_." Pope rejected all three

epithets, and substituted "blissful."]

[Footnote 4: Evidently imitated from Spenser's Prothalamion:

Sweet Thames run softly till I end my song.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 5: Because Theocritus, the father of Pastoral Poetry, was a

Sicilian.--PROFESSOR MARTYN.]

[Footnote 6: Paradise Regained, ii. 27:

Where winds with reeds and osiers whisp'ring play.

Dryden, Theodore and Honoria:

The winds within the quiv'ring branches played.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 7: Roscommon's Essay on Translated Verse:

And Albion's rocks repeat his rural song.--WAKEFIELD.

The term "Albion's cliffs," which is usually appropriated to the steeps

that bound the sea-shore, is applied by Pope to the hills about

Windsor.]

[Footnote 8: The expression in this verse is philosophically just. True

wisdom is the knowledge of ourselves, which terminates in a conviction

of our absolute insignificancy with respect to God, and our relative

inferiority in many instances to the accomplishments of our own species:

and power is encompassed with such a multiplicity of dangerous

temptations as to be almost incompatible with virtue. A passage in

Lucan, viii. 493, is very apposite:

exeat aula

Qui vult esse pius. Virtus et summa potestas

Non coeunt.

He who would spotless live from courts must go:

No union power supreme and virtue know.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 9: Waller, The Maid's Tragedy Altered:

Happy is she that from the world retires,

And carries with her what the world admires.--WILKES.]

[Footnote 10: Sir W. Trumbull was born in Windsor-forest, to which he

retreated after he had resigned the post of secretary of state of King

William III.--POPE.

The address to Trumbull was not in the original manuscript which passed

through his hands, and the lines were probably added when the Pastorals

were prepared for the press. "Little Pope," wrote Sir William to the

Rev. Ralph Bridges on May 2, 1709, "was here two days ago, always full

of poetry and services to Mr. Bridges. I saw in the advertisement, after

he was gone, the Miscellany is published, or publishing, by Jacob

Tonson, wherein are his Pastorals, and which is worse, I am told one of

them is inscribed to my worship." A more inappropriate panegyric could

not have been devised than to pretend that Trumbull was among poets what

the nightingale was among birds. The retired statesman had a true taste

for literature, but his efforts as a versifier had been limited to a

dozen lines translated from Martial.]

[Footnote 11: Warton observes that the nightingale does not sing till

the other birds are at rest. This is a mistake; the nightingale sings by

day as well as at night, but the expressions "to rest removes" and

"forsaken groves" give an idea of evening, in which case there would be

certainly an error in making the thrush "chant" after the nightingale.

As to the thrush being "charmed to silence" at any time by the

nightingale, and the "aerial audience" applauding, it is allowable as a

fanciful allusion, perhaps, though the circumstance is contrary to

nature and fact.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 12: Concanen, in a pamphlet called A Supplement to the

Profound, objected to the use of an image borrowed from the theatre, and

Pope, in vindication of his line, has written "Dryden" in the margin,

alluding doubtless to a couplet in Dryden's verses to the Duchess of

York:

Each poet of the air her glory sings

And round him the pleased audience clap their wings.

Every one must feel the image to be burlesque, and even Dryden's

authority cannot recommend it.]

[Footnote 13: The scene of this Pastoral a valley, the time the morning.

It stood originally thus,

Daphnis and Strephon to the shades retired,

Both warmed by love, and by the muse inspired,

Fresh as the morn, and as the season fair,

In flow'ry vales they fed their fleecy care;

And while Aurora gilds the mountain's side,

Thus Daphnis spoke, and Strephon thus replied.--POPE.

There was in the manuscript a still earlier, and perhaps better, version

of the first two lines:

Daphnis and Strephon led their flocks along,

Both famed for love and both renowned in song.

They were however borrowed from Lycon, an Eclogue, in the fifth part of

Tonson's Miscellany:

Strephon and Damon's flocks together fed,

Both famed for wit, and famed for beauty both.

Wakefield points out that the opening verse of the couplet, as it stands

in the text, was indebted to Congreve's Tears of Amaryllis for Amyntas:

When woolly flocks their bleating cries renew,

And from their fleecy sides first shake the silver dew.]

[Footnote 14: The epithet "whitening" most happily describes the

progressive effect of the light.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 15: Dryden's Palamon and Arcite:

Fresh as the month, and as the morning fair.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 16: From Virgil, Ecl. vii. 20:

Hos Corydon, illos referebat in ordine Thyrsis.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 17: Milton's first sonnet:

O! nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray

Warblest at eve!--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 18: Congreve's Tears of Amaryllis for Amyntas:

When grateful birds prepare their thanks to pay,

And warble hymns to hail the dawning day.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 19: Waller's Chloris and Hylas:

Hylas, oh Hylas! why sit we mute

Now that each bird saluteth the spring.--WAKEFIELD.

Concanen having commented in the Supplement to the Profound upon the

impropriety "of making an English clown call a well-known bird by a

classical name," Pope wrote in the margin, "Spenser and Ph." The

remainder of the second name has been cut off by the binder. Pope's

memory deceived him if A. Philips was meant, for the nightingale is not

once called Philomela in his Pastorals.]

[Footnote 20: Phosphor was the Greek name for the planet Venus when she

appeared as a morning star.]

[Footnote 21: Purple is here used in the Latin sense of the brightest,

most vivid colouring in general, not of that specific tint so

called.--WARBURTON.]

[Footnote 22: Dryden in his Cock and Fox:

See, my dear!

How lavish nature has adorned the year.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 23: In the manuscript this verse ran

There the pale primrose and the vi'let glow,

which was evidently borrowed from a line in Dryden's Cock and Fox,

quoted by Wakefield:

How the pale primrose and the vi'let spring.

The first edition of the Pastorals had

Here on green banks the blushing vi'lets glow,

and this reading was retained till the edition of Warburton. It probably

at last occurred to the poet that as people do not blush blue or purple,

the epithet "blushing" was inapplicable to the violet.]

[Footnote 24: "Breathing" means breathing odours, and Wakefield quotes

Paradise Lost, ii. 244:

his altar breathes

Ambrosial odours and ambrosial flowers.]

[Footnote 25: Pope rarely mentions flowers without being guilty of some

mistake as to the seasons they blow in. Who ever saw roses, crocuses,

and violets in bloom at the same time?--STEEVENS.]

[Footnote 26: The first reading was,

And his own image from the bank surveys.--POPE.

Pope submitted the reading in the note, and that in the text to Walsh,

and asked which was the best. Walsh preferred the text.]

[Footnote 27:

Lenta quibus torno facili superaddita vitis,

Diffusos edera vestit pallente corymbos. Virg.--POPE.]

[Footnote 28: Variation:

And clusters lurk beneath the curling vines.--POPE.

Dryden's Virgil, Eclogues:

The grapes in clusters lurk beneath the vines.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 29: Dryden, AEn. viii. 830:

And Roman triumphs rising on the gold.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 30: The subject of these Pastorals engraven on the bowl is not

without its propriety. The Shepherd's hesitation at the name of the

zodiac imitates that in Virgil, Ecl. iii. 40:

et quis fuit alter,

Descripsit radio totum qui gentibus orbem?--POPE.

Creech's translation of Eclogue iii.:

And showed the various seasons of the year.

Pope also drew upon Dryden's version of the passage:

Two figures on the sides embossed appear,

Conon, and what's his name who made the sphere,

And showed the seasons of the sliding year?

Virgil's commentators cannot agree upon the name which the shepherd had

forgotten, but they unite in commending the stroke of nature which

represents a rustic poet as unable to recall the name of a man of

science.]

[Footnote 31: Dryden, Georg. i. 328.

And cross their limits cut a sloping way,

Which the twelve signs in beauteous order sway.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 32: Literally from Virgil, Ecl. iii. 59:

Alternis dicetis: amant alterna Camoenae,

Et nunc omnis ager, nunc omnis parturit arbos,

Nunc frondent sylvae, nunc formosissimus annus.--POPE.

Creech's translation:

play

By turns, for verse the muses love by turns.

The usage was for the second speaker to imitate the idea started by the

first, and endeavour to outdo him in his vaunt. All the speeches

throughout the contest consisted of the same number of lines. In the

third eclogue of Virgil we have two rivals and an umpire. One of the

antagonists stakes a carved bowl, the other a cow; and the final effort

of each poet is to propound a riddle, upon which the umpire interposes,

and declares that the candidates are equal in merit. Pope keeps close to

his original.]

[Footnote 33: Dryden, Ecl. x. 11.

And echo, from the vales, the tuneful voice rebound.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 34: In place of this couplet the original manuscript read,

Ye fountain nymphs, propitious to the swain,

Now grant me Phoebus', or Alexis' strain.

Pope imitated Virgil, Ecl. vii. 21:

Mihi carmen,

Quale meo Codro, concedite: proxima Phoebi

Versibus ille facit.]

[Footnote 35: George Granville, afterwards Lord Lansdowne, known for his

poems, most of which he composed very young, and proposed Waller as his

model.--POPE.]

[Footnote 36: Virgil, Ecl. iii. 86:

Pascite taurum,

Qui cornu petat, et pedibus jam spargat arenam.--POPE.

Dryden, AEn. ix. 859:

A snow-white steer before thy altar led:

And dares the fight, and spurns the yellow sands.--WAKEFIELD.

The second line of the couplet in the text ran thus in the original

manuscript:

With butting horns, and heels that spurn the sand.

This also was from Dryden, Ecl. iii. 135:

With spurning heels, and with a butting head.]

[Footnote 37: Originally thus in the manuscript:

Pan, let my numbers equal Strephon's lays,

Of Parian stone thy statue will I raise;

But if I conquer and augment my fold,

Thy Parian statue shall be changed to gold.--WARBURTON.

This he formed on Dryden's Vir. Ecl. vii. 45:

Thy statue then of Parian stone shall stand;

But if the falling lambs increase my fold,

Thy marble statue shall be turned to gold.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 38: Pope had at first written,

The lovely Chloris beckons from the plain,

Then hides in shades from her deluded swain.

"Objection," he says, in the paper he submitted to Walsh, "that _hides_

without the accusative _herself_ is not good English, and that _from her

deluded swain_ is needless. Alteration:

The wanton Chloris beckons from the plain,

Then, hid in shades, eludes her eager swain.

Quaere. If _wanton_ be more significant than _lovely_; if _eludes_ be

properer in this case than _deluded_; if _eager_ be an expressive

epithet to the swain who searches for his mistress?"

Walsh. "_Wanton_ applied to a woman is equivocal, and therefore not

proper. _Eludes_ is properer than _deluded_. _Eager_ is very well."]

[Footnote 39: He owes this thought to Horace, Ode i. 9, 21.--WAKEFIELD.

Or rather to the version of Dryden, since the lines of Pope have a

closer resemblance to the translation than to the original:

The laugh that guides thee to the mark,

When the kind nymph would coyness feign,

And hides but to be found again.]

[Footnote 40: Imitation of Virgil, Ecl. iii. 64:

Malo me Galatea petit, lasciva puella,

Et fugit ad salices, et se cupit ante videri.--POPE.

He probably consulted Creech's translation of the passage in Virgil:

Sly Galatea drives me o'er the green,

And apples throws, then hides, yet would be seen.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 41: Dryden's Don Sebastian;

A brisk Arabian girl came tripping by;

Passing, she cast at him a sidelong glance,

And looked behind, in hopes to be pursued.--STEEVENS.]

[Footnote 42: A very trifling and false conceit.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 43: In place of the next speech of Strephon, and the reply of

Daphnis, the dialogue continued thus in the original manuscript:

STREPHON.

Go, flow'ry wreath, and let my Silvia know,

Compared to thine how bright her beauties show;

Then die; and dying, teach the lovely maid

How soon the brightest beauties are decayed.

DAPHNIS.

Go, tuneful bird, that pleased the woods so long,

Of Amaryllis learn a sweeter song;

To heav'n arising then her notes convey,

For heav'n alone is worthy such a lay.

The speech of Strephon is an echo of Waller's well-known song:

Go, lovely rose,

Tell her that wastes her time and me,

That now she knows

When I resemble her to thee,

How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Then die, that she

The common fate of all things rare

May read in thee;

How small a part of time they share,

That are so wondrous sweet and fair.

The speech of Daphnis is from Dryden's Virgil, Ecl. iii. 113:

Winds, on your wings to heav'n her accents bear,

Such words as heav'n alone is fit to hear.]

[Footnote 44: It stood thus at first:

Let rich Iberia golden fleeces boast,

Her purple wool the proud Assyrian coast,

Blest Thames's shores, &c.--POPE.]

[Footnote 45: It is evident from the mention of the "golden sands" of

Pactolus, and the "amber" of the poplars in connection with the Thames,

that he had in view Denham's description in Cooper's Hill:

Though with those streams he no resemblance hold,

Whose foam is amber, and their gravel gold.--WAKEFIELD.

The sisters of Phaeton, according to the classical fable, were, upon the

death of their brother, turned into poplars on the banks of the Po, and

the tears which dropt from these trees were said to be converted into

amber.]

[Footnote 46: This couplet is a palpable imitation of Virgil, Ecl. vii.

67:

Saepius at si me, Lycida formose, revisas,

Fraxinus in silvis cedet tibi, pinus in hortis.--WAKEFIELD.

The entire speech is a parody of the lines quoted by Wakefield, and of

the lines which immediately precede them in Virgil's Eclogue. The

passage omitted by Wakefield is thus translated in vol. i. of Tonson's

Miscellany:

Bacchus the vine, the laurel Phoebus loves;

Fair Venus cherishes the myrtle groves;

Phyllis the hazel loves, while Phyllis loves that tree,

Myrtles and laurels of less fame shall be.]

[Footnote 47: Virg. Ecl. vii. 57:

Aret ager, vitio moriens sitit aeris herba [&c.]

Phyllidis adventu nostrae nemus omne virebit.--POPE.]

[Footnote 48: These verses were thus at first:

All nature mourns, the birds their songs deny,

Nor wasted brooks the thirsty flow'rs supply;

If Delia smile, the flow'rs begin to spring,

The brooks to murmur, and the birds to sing.--POPE.

Wakefield remarks that the last couplet of the original version, which

is but slightly modified in the text, was closely imitated from

Addison's Epilogue to the British Enchanters:

The desert smiles, the woods begin to grow,

The birds to warble, and the springs to flow.]

[Footnote 49: Dryden, Ecl. vii. 76:

And lavish nature laughs.]

[Footnote 50: Pope had at first written,

If Sylvia smiles she brightens all the shore,

The sun's outshined, and nature charms no more.

This he submitted to Walsh. Pope. "Quaere, whether to say the sun is

outshined be too bold and hyperbolical?" Walsh. "For pastoral it is."

Pope. "If it should be softened with _seems_? Do you approve any of

these alterations?

If Sylvia smile, she brightens all the shore,

{ All nature seems outshined, and charms no more.

{ Light seems outshined, and nature charms no more.

{ And vanquished nature seems to shine no more.

Quaere, which of these three?" Walsh. "The last of these three I like

best."]

[Footnote 51: Cowley, Davideis, iii. 553:

Hot as ripe noon, sweet as the blooming day,

Like July furious, but more fair than May.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 52: An allusion to the royal oak, in which Charles II. had

been hid from the pursuit after the battle of Worcester.--POPE.

This wretched pun on the word "bears" is called "dextrous" by Wakefield,

but Warton says that it is "one of the most trifling and puerile

conceits" in all Pope's works, and is only exceeded in badness by the

riddle "which follows of the thistle and the lily."]

[Footnote 53: The contraction "I'll," which often occurs in these

pastorals, is familiar and undignified.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 54: It was thus in the manuscript:

Nay, tell me first what region canst thou find

In which by thistles lilies are outshined?

If all thy skill can make the meaning known,

The prize, the victor's prize, shall be thy own.--WAKEFIELD.

Pope submitted the first two lines to Walsh in conjunction with the

version in the text. "Quaere, which of these couplets is better

expressed, and better numbers? and whether it is better here to use

_thistle_ or _thistles_, _lily_ or _lilies_, singular or plural? The

epithet _more happy_ refers to something going before." Walsh. "The

second couplet [the text] is best; and singular, I think better than

plural."]

[Footnote 55: Alludes to the device of the Scots' monarchs, the thistle,

worn by Queen Anne; and to the arms of France, the _fleur de lys_. The

two riddles are in imitation of those in Virg. Ecl. iii. 106:

Dic quibus in terris inscripti nomina regum

Nascantur flores, et Phyllida solus habeto.--POPE.

Thus translated by Dryden;

Nay, tell me first in what new region springs

A flow'r that bears inscribed the names of kings;

And thou shalt gain a present as divine

As Phoebus' self, for Phyllis shall be thine.

Either the commentators on Virgil have not hit upon the true solution of

his riddles, or they are not at all superior to the parody of Pope.]

[Footnote 56: This is from Virg. Ecl. iii. 109:

Et vitula tu dignus, et hic.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 57: Originally:

The turf with country dainties shall be spread,

And trees with twining branches shade your head.--POPE.]

[Footnote 58: The Pleiades rose with the sun in April, and the poet

ascribes the April showers to their influence.]

SUMMER:

THE SECOND PASTORAL,

OR

ALEXIS.[1]

TO DR. GARTH.[2]

A shepherd's boy (he seeks no better name)[3]

Led forth his flocks[4] along the silver Thame,[5]

Where dancing sun-beams on the waters played,[6]

And verdant alders formed a quiv'ring[7] shade;[8]

Soft as he mourned, the streams forgot to flow,[9] 5

The flocks around a dumb compassion show,[10]

The Naiads wept in ev'ry wat'ry bow'r,

And Jove consented in a silent show'r.[11]

Accept, O GARTH! the muse's early lays,

That adds this wreath of ivy to thy bays;[12] 10

Hear what from love unpractised hearts endure,

From love, the sole disease thou canst not cure.

Ye shady beeches, and ye cooling streams,

Defence from Phoebus', not from Cupid's beams,[13]

To you I mourn; nor to the deaf I sing,[14] 15

"The woods shall answer, and their echo ring."[15]

The hills and rocks attend my doleful lay,

Why art thou prouder and more hard than they?[16]

The bleating sheep with my complaints agree,

They parched with heat, and I inflamed by thee.[17] 20

The sultry Sirius burns the thirsty plains,[18]

While in thy heart eternal winter reigns.[19]

Where stray ye, muses, in what lawn or grove,[20]

While your Alexis pines in hopeless love?

In those fair fields where sacred Isis glides, 25

Or else where Cam his winding vales divides?[21]

As in the crystal stream I view my face,[22]

Fresh rising blushes paint the wat'ry glass;

But since those graces please thy eyes no more,

I shun the fountains which I sought before. 30

Once I was skilled in ev'ry herb that grew,

And ev'ry plant that drinks the morning dew;[23]

Ah wretched shepherd, what avails thy art,

To cure thy lambs, but not to heal thy heart![24]

Let other swains attend the rural care, 35

Feed fairer flocks, or richer fleeces shear:[25]

But nigh yon' mountain[26] let me tune my lays,

Embrace my love, and bind my brows with bays.[27]

That flute is mine which Colin's[28] tuneful breath

Inspired when living, and bequeathed in death:[29] 40

He said; Alexis, take this pipe,[30] the same

That taught the groves my Rosalinda's name:[31]

But now the reeds shall hang on yonder tree,[32]

For ever silent, since despised by thee.

Oh! were I made by some transforming pow'r 45

The captive bird that sings within thy bow'r![33]

Then might my voice thy list'ning ears employ,

And I those kisses he receives enjoy.

And yet my numbers please the rural throng,[34]

Rough satyrs dance, and Pan applauds the song:[35] 50

The nymphs, forsaking ev'ry cave and spring,[36]

Their early fruit, and milk-white turtles bring![37]

Each am'rous nymph prefers her gifts in vain,

On you their gifts are all bestowed again.[38]

For you the swains their fairest flow'rs design, 55

And in one garland all their beauties join;

Accept the wreath which you deserve alone,

In whom all beauties are comprised in one.

See what delights in sylvan scenes appear!

Descending gods have found Elysium here.[39] 60

In woods bright Venus with Adonis strayed;

And chaste Diana haunts the forest-shade.

Come, lovely nymph, and bless the silent hours,

When swains from shearing seek their nightly bow'rs;

When weary reapers quit the sultry field,[40] 65

And crowned with corn their thanks to Ceres yield.

This harmless grove no lurking viper hides,[41]

But in my breast the serpent love abides.[42]

Here bees from blossoms sip the rosy dew,

But your Alexis knows no sweets but you. 70

O deign to visit our forsaken seats,

The mossy fountains, and the green retreats![43]

Where'er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade;

Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade;

Where'er you tread, the blushing flow'rs shall rise,[44] 75

And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.[45]

O! how I long with you to pass my days,[46]

Invoke the muses, and resound your praise!

Your praise the birds shall chant in ev'ry grove,[47]

And winds shall waft it to the pow'rs above.[48] 80

But would you sing, and rival Orpheus' strain,[49]

The wond'ring forests soon should dance[50] again,

The moving mountains hear the pow'rful call,

And headlong streams hang list'ning in their fall.[51]

But see, the shepherds shun the noon-day heat, 85

The lowing herds to murm'ring brooks retreat,[52]

To closer shades the panting flocks remove;

Ye gods! and is there no relief for love?[53]

But soon the sun with milder rays descends

To the cool ocean, where his journey ends:[54] 90

On me love's fiercer flames for ever prey,[55]

By night he scorches, as he burns by day.[56]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: The scene of this Pastoral by the river side, suitable to

the heat of the season: the time noon.--POPE.]

[Footnote 2: Dr. Samuel Garth, author of the Dispensary, was one of the

first friends of the author, whose acquaintance with him began at

fourteen or fifteen. Their friendship continued from the year 1703 to

1718, which was that of his death.--POPE.

He was a man of the sweetest disposition, amiable manners, and universal

benevolence. All parties, at a time when party violence was at a great

height, joined in praising and loving him. One of the most exquisite

pieces of wit ever written by Addison, is a defence of Garth against the

Examiner, 1710. It is unfortunate that this second Pastoral, the worst

of the four, should be inscribed to the best judge of all Pope's four

friends to whom they were addressed.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 3: This was one of the passages submitted to Walsh.

"Objection," remarks Pope, "against the parenthesis, _he seeks no better

name_. Quaere. Would it be anything better to say,

A shepherd's boy, who sung for love, not fame, etc.

Or,

A shepherd's boy, who fed an amorous flame.

Quaere, which of all these is the best, or are none of them good." Walsh

preferred the parenthesis in the text. "It is Spenser's way," he said,

"and I think better than the others."]

[Footnote 4: Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar:

A shepherd boy (no better do him call)

Led forth his flock.--BOWLES.

Pope's second Pastoral is an ostensible imitation of Spenser's first

eclogue, which is devoted to a lover's complaint, but though Pope has

echoed some of the sentiments of Spenser, and appropriated an occasional

line, his style has little resemblance to that of his model.]

[Footnote 5: "An inaccurate word," says Warton, "instead of Thames;" and

rendered confusing by the fact that there is a real river Thame, which

is a tributary of the Thames. Milton has used the same licence, and

speaks of the "royal towered Thame" in his lines on the English rivers.]

[Footnote 6: Originally thus in the MS.:

There to the winds Headrigg plained his hapless love,

And Amaryllis filled the vocal grove.--WARBURTON.]

[Footnote 7: Dryden's Theodore and Honoria:

The winds within the quiv'ring branches played,

And dancing trees a mournful music made.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 8: Ver. 1, 2, 3, 4, were thus printed in the first edition:

A faithful swain, whom Love had taught to sing,

Bewailed his fate beside a silver spring;

Where gentle Thames his winding waters leads

Through verdant forests, and through flow'ry meads.--POPE.]

[Footnote 9: Dryden's Virg. Ecl. viii. 3:

To which the savage lynxes list'ning stood;

The rivers stood on heaps, and stopped the running flood.

Milton, Comus, 494:

Thyrsis, whose artful strains have oft delayed

The puddling brook to hear his madrigal.--WAKEFIELD.

Garth, in his Dispensary, canto iv., says that, when Prior sings,

The banks of Rhine a pleased attention show,

And silver Sequana forgets to flow.]

[Footnote 10: Milton, Comus:

That dumb things shall be moved to sympathise.--STEEVENS.

In the tears of Amaryllis for Amyntas, Congreve says of the tigers and

wolves, that

They dumb distress and new compassion show.]

[Footnote 11: Virg. Ecl. vii. 60:

Jupiter et laeto descendet plurimus imbri.--POPE.

In the original manuscript the couplet was slightly different:

Relenting Naiads wept in ev'ry bow'r,

And Jove consented in a silent show'r.

Pope. "Objection, that the Naiads weeping in bowers is not so proper,

being water nymphs, and that the word _consented_ is doubted by some to

whom I have shown these verses. Alteration:

The Naiads wept in ev'ry wat'ry bow'r,

And Jove relented in a silent show'r.

Quaere. Which of these do you like best?" Walsh. "The first. Upon second

thoughts I think the second is best." Pope ended by adopting the first

line of the second version, and the second line of the first.]

[Footnote 12: This is taken from Virg. Ecl. viii. 12.--WAKEFIELD.

Dryden's translation, ver. 17:

Amidst thy laurels let this ivy twine,

Thine was my earliest muse.

Ivy, with the Romans, was the emblem of literary success, and the laurel

crown was worn by a victorious general at a triumph. As Pollio, to whom

Virgil addressed his eighth eclogue, was both a conqueror and a poet,

the double garland allotted to him was appropriate, but there was no

fitness in the application of the passage to Garth.]

[Footnote 13: A harsh line, and a false and affected thought.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 14: Virg. Ecl. x. 8.

Non canimus surdis: respondent omnia sylvae.--POPE.

Ogilby's translation of the verse in Virgil:

Nor to the deaf do we our numbers sing,

Since woods, in answ'ring us, with echoes ring.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 15: A line out of Spenser's Epithalamion.--POPE.]

[Footnote 16: A line unworthy our author, containing a false and trivial

thought; as is also the 22nd line.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 17: Pope says his merit in these Pastorals is his copying from

the ancients. Can anything like this, and other conceits, be found in

the natural and unaffected language of Virgil? No such thing. But what

do we find in Dryden's imitation of Virgil, Ecl. ii. 13:

The creaking locusts with my voice conspire,

They fried with heat, and I with fierce desire.

This is Virgil's:

Sole sub ardenti resonant arbusta cicadis.

And Pope had the imitation in his eye, not the original.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 18: So Virgil says of Sirius, or the dog-star, Geor. ii. 353:

hiulca siti findit Canis aestifer arva.

"Gassendi has well remarked," says Arnauld in his Logic, "that nothing

could be less probable than the notion that the dog-star is the cause of

the extraordinary heat which prevails in what are called the dog days,

because as Sirius is on the other side of the equator, the effects of

the star should be greatest at the places where it is most

perpendicular, whereas the dog days here are the winter season there.

Whence the inhabitants of those countries have much more reason to

believe that the dog-star brings cold than we have to believe that it

causes heat."]

[Footnote 19: The Shepherd's Calendar of Spenser:

Such rage as winter's reigneth in my heart.]

[Footnote 20: Virg. Ecl. x. 9, out of Theocritus:

Quae nemora, aut qui vos saltus habuere, puellae

Naiades, indigno cum Gallus amore periret?

Nam neque Parnassi vobis juga, nam neque Pindi,

Ulla moram fecere, neque Aoniae Aganippe.--POPE.

Ogilby's translation:

Say, Naiades, where were you, in what grove,

Or lawn, when Gallus fell by ill-matched love.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 21: Addison's Campaign:

Or where the Seine her flow'ry fields divides,

Or where the Loire through winding vineyards glides.--WAKEFIELD.

Pope wrote at random. The Cam does not divide vales, but runs, or rather

creeps, through one of the flattest districts in England.]

[Footnote 22:

Oft in the crystal spring I cast a view,

And equalled Hylas, if the glass be true;

But since those graces meet my eyes no more, shun, etc.

Virgil again (Ecl. ii. 25), from the Cyclops of Theocritus:

nuper me in littore vidi,

Cum placidum ventis staret mare; non ego Daphnim,

Judice te, metuam, si nunquam fallit imago.--POPE.

In his first version, which is closer to Virgil than the second, Pope

had in his mind Dryden's translation, Ecl. ii. 33:

and if the glass be true,

With Daphnis I may vie.]

[Footnote 23: Milton, Penseroso, ver. 172:

And every herb that sips the dew.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 24: This is an obvious imitation of those trite lines in Ovid,

Met. i. 522:

herbarum subjecta potentia nobis.

Hei mihi, quod nullis amor est medicabilis herbis;

Nec prosunt domino, quae prosunt omnibus, artes.--WAKEFIELD.

Dryden's translation:

What herbs and simples grow

In fields and forests, all their pow'rs I know.

To cure the pains of love no plant avails,

And his own physic the physician fails.

It is remarkable that the imitation in the text of some of the most

hacknied lines in classical literature, should be one of four passages

quoted by Ruffhead, to prove that all the images in Pope's Pastorals had

not been borrowed from preceding poets.]

[Footnote 25: The only faulty rhymes, _care_ and _shear_, perhaps in

these poems, where the versification is in general so exact and

correct.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 26: The scene is laid upon the banks of the Thames, and

"mountain" is a term inapplicable to any of the neighbouring hills. Pope

was too intent upon copying Virgil to pay much regard to the

characteristics of the English landscape.]

[Footnote 27: It is not easy to conceive a more harsh and clashing line

than this. There is the same imagery in Theocritus (Idyll viii. 55), but

it is made more striking by the circumstances and picturesque

accompaniments, as well as by the extraordinary effect of the lines

adapted to the subject.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 28: The name taken by Spenser in his Eclogues, where his

mistress is celebrated under that of Rosalinda.--POPE.]

[Footnote 29: Virg. Ecl. ii. 36:

Est mihi disparibus septem compacta cicutis

Fistula, Damoetas dono mihi quam dedit olim,

Et dixit moriens, Te nunc habet ista secundum.--POPE.

Pope's couplet originally ran thus:

Of slender reeds a tuneful flute I have.

The tuneful flute which dying Colin gave.

"Objection," he says to Walsh, "that the first line is too much

transposed from the natural order of the words, and that the rhyme is

inharmonious." He subjoined the couplet in the text, and asked, "Which

of these is best?" to which Walsh replies, "The second."]

[Footnote 30: Dr. Johnson says, "that every intelligent reader sickens

at the mention of the crook and the pipe, the sheep and the kids." This

appears to be an unjust and harsh condemnation of all pastoral

poetry.--WARTON.

Surely Dr. Johnson's decrying the affected introduction of "crook and

pipe," &c., into English pastorals, is not a condemnation of all

pastoral poetry. Dr. Johnson certainly could not very highly relish this

species of poetry, witness his harsh criticisms on Milton's exquisite

Lycidas; but we almost forgive his severity on several genuine pieces of

poetic excellence, when we consider that he has done a service to truth

and nature in speaking with a proper and dignified contempt for such

trite puerilities.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 31: Virg. Ecl. i. 5:

Formosam resonare doces Amaryllida silvas.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 32: Imitated from Virg. Ecl. vii. 24:

Hic arguta sacra pendebit fistula pinu.--WAKEFIELD.

Dryden's translation:

The praise of artful numbers I resign,

And hang my harp upon the sacred pine.]

[Footnote 33: This thought is formed on one in Theocritus iii. 12, and

our poet had before him Dryden's translation of that Idyllium:

Some god transform me by his heav'nly pow'r,

E'en to a bee to buzz within your bow'r.--WAKEFIELD.

Warton prefers the image of Theocritus, as more wild, more delicate, and

more uncommon. It is natural for a lover to wish that he might be

anything that could come near to his lady. But we more naturally desire

to be that which she fondles and caresses, than to be that which she

avoids, at least would neglect. The superior delicacy of Theocritus I

cannot discover, nor can indeed find, that either in the one or the

other image there is any want of delicacy.--JOHNSON.

Pope had at first written:

Some pitying god permit me to be made

The bird that sings beneath thy myrtle shade.

He submitted this couplet and the emendation in the text to Walsh, and

said, "The epithet _captive_ seems necessary to explain the thought, on

account of _those kisses_ in the last line [of the paragraph]. Quaere. If

these be better than the other?" Walsh. "The second are the best, for it

is not enough to _permit_ you to be made, but to make you."]

[Footnote 34: Virg. Ecl. ix. 33:

me quoque dicunt

Vatem pastores.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 35: Milton's Lycidas, ver. 34:

Rough satyrs danced.

Dryden's Virgil, Ecl. vi. 42:

He raised his voice, and soon a num'rous throng

Of tripping satyrs crowded to the song.

Pan was the god of shepherds, the inventor of the pastoral pipe of

reeds, and himself a skilful musician. "The ancient images," says

Archbishop Whately, "represent him as partly in the human form, and

partly in that of a goat, with horns and cloven hoofs. And hence it is

that, by a kind of tradition, we often see, even at this day,

representations of Satan in this form. For the early christians seem to

have thought that it was he whom the pagans adored under the name of

Pan."]

[Footnote 36: Spenser's Elegy on the death of Sir P. Sidney:

Come forth, ye nymphs, forsake your wat'ry bowers,

Forsake your mossy caves.]

[Footnote 37: Spenser's Astrophel:

And many a nymph both of the wood and brook,

Soon as his oaten pipe began to shrill,

Both chrystal wells, and shady groves forsook

To hear the charms of his enchanting skill;

And brought him presents, flow'rs if it were prime,

Or mellow fruit if it were harvest time.]

[Footnote 38: From the Shepherd's Calendar of Spenser:

His clownish gifts and courtsies I disdain,

His kids, his cracknels, and his early fruit;

Ah, foolish Hobbinol, thy gifts been vain,

Colin them gives to Hobbinol again.]

[Footnote 39: Virg. Ecl. ii. 60:

habitarunt dii quoque sylvas.

Ecl. x. 18:

Et formosus oves ad flumina pavit Adonis.--POPE.

Dryden's translation of the first line is

The gods to live in woods have left the skies.

The second line he expanded into a couplet:

Along the streams, his flock Adonis led,

And yet the queen of beauty blest his bed.

This last verse has nothing answering to it in Virgil, but it suggested

ver. 63 of the pastoral to Pope, who copied Dryden, and not the

original.]

[Footnote 40: This is formed from Virg. Ecl. ii. 10:

rapido fessis messoribus aestu.

The reapers tired with sultry heats.--Ogilby.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 41: He had in his mind Virg. Ecl. iii. 93:

Frigidus, O pueri, fugite hinc! latet anguis in herba.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 42: I think these two lines would not have passed without

animadversion in any of our great schools.--WARTON.

Another couplet followed in the manuscript:

Here Tereus mourns, and Itys tells his pain,

Of Progne they, and I of you complain.

The horrible mythological story of Progne killing her son Itys, and

serving up his flesh to her husband Tereus out of revenge for his

violence to her sister Philomela, had no connection with the plaintive

sighs of a love-sick swain for an absent mistress. The inappropriateness

of the allusion was no doubt the reason why Pope omitted the couplet.]

[Footnote 43: Virg. Ecl. vii. 45:

Muscosi fontes--mossy fountains.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 44: This thought occurs in several authors. Persius, Sat. ii.

39,

Quicquid calcaverit hic, rosa fiat.

Butler finely ridicules this trite fancy of the poets:

Where'er you tread your foot shall set

The primrose and the violet.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 45: The six lines from ver. 71 to ver. 76 stood thus in the

original manuscript:

Oh, deign to grace our happy rural seats,

Our mossy fountains, and our green retreats;

While you your presence to the groves deny,

Our flowers are faded, and our brooks are dry;

Though with'ring herbs lay dying on the plain,

At your return they shall be green again.

The two last couplets were copied from Dryden's Virg. Ecl. vii. 77:

But if Alexis from our mountains fly,

Ev'n running rivers leave their channels dry.

And ver. 81:

But, if returning Phyllis bless the plain,

The grass revives, the woods are green again.

In Pope's next version, the four lines "While you, &c.," ran as follows:

Winds, where you walk, shall gently fan the glade,

Or,

Where'er you walk fresh gales shall fan the glade,

Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade,

Flow'rs where you tread in painted pride shall rise,

Or,

Where'er you tread the purple flow'rs shall rise,

And all things flourish where you turn your eyes!

Walsh preferred the second form of the passage to the original draught;

and of the variations in the second form he preferred the lines

beginning "Where'er you walk," and "Where'er you tread."]

[Footnote 46: He had in view Virg. Ecl. x. 43:

hic ipso tecum consumerer aevo.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 47:

Your praise the tuneful birds to heav'n shall bear,

And list'ning wolves grow milder as they hear.

So the verses were originally written. But the author, young as he was,

soon found the absurdity which Spenser himself overlooked, of

introducing wolves into England.--POPE.

There was no absurdity upon the principle of Pope, that the scene of

pastorals was to be laid in the golden age, which could not be supposed

to be subsequent to the reign of Edward I. when wolves still existed in

this island. They lingered in Scotland in the reign of Charles II., and

in Ireland in the reign of Queen Anne.]

[Footnote 48: Virg. Ecl. iii. 73:

Partem aliquam, venti, Divum referatis ad aures.--POPE.]

[Footnote 49: In place of this couplet and the next, the original MS.

had these lines:

Such magic music dwells within your name,

The voice of Orpheus no such pow'r could claim;

Had you then lived, when he the forests drew,

The trees and Orpheus both had followed you.]

[Footnote 50: This verse is debased by the word _dance_. But he followed

Dryden in Ecl. iii. 69:

Where Orpheus on his lyre laments his love,

With beasts encompassed, and a dancing grove.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 51: Lucan vi. 473:

de rupe pependit

Abscissa fixus torrens; amnisque cucurrit

Non qua pronus erat.

Streams have run back at murmurs of her tongue,

And torrents from the rock suspended hung. Rowe.--STEEVENS.

"The line _And headlong streams_," says Ruffhead, "surely presents a new

image and a bold one too." Bold indeed! Pope has carried the idea into

extravagance when he makes the stream not only "listening," but "hang

listening in its headlong fall." An idea of this sort will only bear

just touching; the mind then does not perceive its violence; if it be

brought before the eyes too minutely, it becomes almost

ridiculous.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 52: In the MS.:

But see the southing sun displays his beams,

See Tityrus leads his herd to silver streams.]

[Footnote 53: Virg. Ecl. ii. 68:

Me tamen urit amor, quis enim modus adsit amori?--POPE.

He had Dryden's translation of the passage in Virgil before him:

Cool breezes now the raging heats remove:

Ah, cruel heav'n, that made no cure for love.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 54: The phrase "where his journey ends" is mean and prosaic,

nor by any means adequately conveys the sentiment required, which is

this,--The sun grows milder by degrees, and is at length extinguished in

the ocean, but my flames know neither abatement nor

intermission.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 55: Variation:

Me love inflames, nor will his fires allay.--POPE.]

[Footnote 56: This is certainly the poorest of Pope's pastorals, and it

has many false thoughts and conceits. But the ingenuous and candid

critic will always bear in mind the early age at which they were

written, and the false taste of Cowley at that time

prevalent.--BOWLES.]

AUTUMN:

THE THIRD PASTORAL,[1]

OR

HYLAS AND AEGON.

TO MR. WYCHERLEY.[2]

Beneath the shade a spreading beech displays,[3]

Hylas and AEgon sung their rural lays;

This mourned a faithless, that an absent love,[4]

And Delia's name and Doris' filled the grove.[5]

Ye Mantuan nymphs, your sacred succour bring; 5

Hylas and AEgon's rural lays I sing.

Thou,[6] whom the nine, with Plautus' wit inspire,

The art of Terence, and Menander's fire;

Whose sense instructs us,[7] and whose humour charms,

Whose judgment sways us, and whose spirit[8] warms! 10

Oh, skilled in nature![9] see the hearts of swains,

Their artless passions, and their tender pains.[10]

Now setting Phoebus shone serenely bright,

And fleecy clouds were streaked with purple light;

When tuneful Hylas with melodious moan, 15

Taught rocks to weep, and made the mountains groan.[11]

Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs away![12]

To Delia's ear the tender notes convey.

As some sad turtle[13] his lost love deplores

And with deep murmurs fills the sounding shores; 20

Thus, far from Delia, to the winds I mourn,

Alike unheard, unpitied, and forlorn.

Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs along!

For her, the feathered quires neglect their song:

For her, the limes their pleasing shades deny; 25

For her, the lilies hang their heads and die.

Ye flow'rs that droop, forsaken by the spring,

Ye birds that, left by summer, cease to sing,

Ye trees that fade when autumn-heats remove,

Say, is not absence death to those who love?[14] 30

Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs away!

Cursed be the fields that cause my Delia's stay;

Fade ev'ry blossom, wither ev'ry tree,[15]

Die ev'ry flower, and perish all but she.

What have I said? where'er my Delia flies, 35

Let spring attend, and sudden flow'rs arise;

Let op'ning roses knotted oaks adorn,[16]

And liquid amber drop from ev'ry thorn.

Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs along!

The birds shall cease to tune their ev'ning song, 40

The winds to breathe, the waving woods to move,

And streams to murmur, ere I cease to love.[17]

Not bubbling fountains to the thirsty swain,[18]

Not balmy sleep to lab'rers faint with pain,[19]

Not show'rs to larks, or sunshine to the bee, 45

Are half so charming as thy sight to me.[20]

Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs away!

Come, Delia, come; ah, why this long delay?

Through rocks and caves the name of Delia sounds,

Delia, each cave and echoing rock rebounds. 50

Ye pow'rs, what pleasing frenzy soothes my mind!

Do lovers dream, or is my Delia kind?[21]

She comes, my Delia comes!--Now cease my lay,[22]

And cease, ye gales, to bear my sighs away!

Next AEgon sung, while Windsor groves admired; 55

Rehearse, ye muses, what yourselves inspired.

Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strain!

Of perjured Doris, dying I complain:[23]

Here, where the mountains, less'ning as they rise,

Lose the low vales, and steal into the skies: 60

While lab'ring oxen, spent with toil and heat,

In their loose traces from the field retreat:[24]

While curling smokes from village tops are seen,

And the fleet shades glide o'er the dusky green.[25]

Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful lay! 65

Beneath yon poplar oft we passed the day:

Oft on the rind I carved her am'rous vows,[26]

While she with garlands hung the bending boughs:

The garlands fade, the vows are worn away;

So dies her love, and so my hopes decay. 70

Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strain!

Now bright Arcturus[27] glads the teeming grain,

Now golden fruits on loaded branches shine,

And grateful clusters swell with floods of wine;[28]

Now blushing berries paint the yellow grove; 75

Just Gods! shall all things yield returns but love?

Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful lay!

The shepherds cry, "Thy flocks are left a prey"--

Ah! what avails it me, the flocks to keep,

Who lost my heart while I preserved my sheep? 80

Pan came, and asked, what magic caused my smart,[29]

Or what ill eyes[30] malignant glances dart?[31]

What eyes but hers, alas, have pow'r to move![32]

And is there magic but what dwells in love!

Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strains; 85

I'll fly from shepherds, flocks, and flow'ry plains,

From shepherds, flocks, and plains, I may remove,

Forsake mankind, and all the world--but love!

I know thee, Love! on foreign mountains bred,[33]

Wolves gave thee suck, and savage tigers fed.[34] 90

Thou wert from AEtna's burning entrails torn,

Got by fierce whirlwinds, and in thunder born![35]

Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful lay!

Farewell, ye woods, adieu the light of day!

One leap from yonder cliff shall end my pains,[36] 95

No more, ye hills, no more resound my strains!

Thus sung the shepherds till th' approach of night,

The skies yet blushing with departing light,[37]

When falling dews with spangles decked the glade,

And the low sun had lengthened ev'ry shade.[38] 100

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: This Pastoral consists of two parts, like the eighth of

Virgil: the scene, a hill; the time, at sunset.--POPE.]

[Footnote 2: Mr. Wycherley, a famous author of comedies; of which the

most celebrated were the Plain-Dealer and Country-Wife. He was a writer

of infinite spirit, satire, and wit. The only objection made to him was,

that he had too much. However, he was followed in the same way by Mr.

Congreve, though with a little more correctness.--POPE.]

[Footnote 3: Formed on Dryden's version of Ecl. i. 1:

Beneath the shade which beechen boughs diffuse.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 4: Before the edition of 1736 the couplet ran thus:

To whose complaints the list'ning forests bend,

While one his mistress mourns, and one his friend.

In keeping with this announcement the song of Hylas, which forms the

first portion of the Pastoral, was devoted to mourning an absent

_shepherd_, and not, as at present, an absent _shepherdess_. When Pope

made his lines commemorative of love, instead of friendship, he did

little more than change the name of the man (Thyrsis) to that of a woman

(Delia), and substitute the feminine for the masculine pronoun. The

extravagant idea expressed in the first line of the rejected couplet is

found in Oldham's translation of Moschus:

And trees leaned their attentive branches down.

There is nothing of the kind in the Greek text.]

[Footnote 5: From Dryden's version of Ecl. i. 5:

While stretched at ease you sing your happy loves,

And Amaryllis fills the shady groves.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 6: Wycherley.]

[Footnote 7: He was always very careful in his encomiums not to fall

into ridicule, the trap which weak and prostitute flatterers rarely

escape. For "sense," he would willingly have said "moral;" propriety

required it. But this dramatic poet's moral was remarkably faulty. His

plays are all shamefully profligate, both in the dialogue and

action.--WARBURTON.

Warburton's note has more the appearance of an insidious attack upon

Pope than of serious commendation; for if, as Warburton assumes, the

panegyric in the text has reference to the plays and not to the man, it

was a misplaced "encomium" to say that Wycherley "instructed" the world

by the "sense," and "swayed" them by the "judgment," which were

manifested "in a shamefully profligate dialogue and action."]

[Footnote 8: The reading was "rapture" in all editions till that of

1736.]

[Footnote 9: Few writers have less nature in them than

Wycherley.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 10: Till the edition of 1736 the following lines stood in

place of the couplet in the text:

Attend the muse, though low her numbers be,

She sings of friendship, and she sings to thee.]

[Footnote 11: Pope had Waller's Thyrsis and Galatea in his memory:

Made the wide country echo to your moan,

The list'ning trees, and savage mountains groan.--WAKEFIELD.

The groans of the trees and mountains are, in Waller's poem, the echo of

the mourner's lamentations, but to this Pope has added that the "moan"

made "the rocks weep," which has no resemblance to anything in nature.]

[Footnote 12: The lines from verse 17 to 30 are very beautiful, tender,

and melodious.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 13: It was a time-honoured fancy that the "moan" of the

turtle-dove was a lament for the loss of its mate. _Turtur_, the Latin

name for the bird, is a correct representation of its monotonous note.

The poets commonly call it simply the turtle, but since the term, to

quote the explanation of Johnson in his Dictionary, is also "used by

sailors and gluttons for a tortoise" the description of its "deep

murmurs" as "filling the sounding shores," calls up this secondary

sense, and gives an air of ludicrousness to the passage.]

[Footnote 14: This whole passage is imitated from Sir Philip Sidney's

Arcadia, Book iii. p. 712, 8vo ed.:

Earth, brook, flow'rs, pipe, lamb, dove,

Say all, and I with them,

Absence is death, or worse, to them that love.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 15: Congreve's Mourning Muse of Alexis:

Fade all ye flow'rs, and wither all ye woods.]

[Footnote 16: Virg. Ecl. viii. 52:

aurea durae

Mala ferant quercus, narcisso floreat alnus;

Pinguia corticibus sudent electra myricae.--POPE.

His obligations are also due to Dryden's version of Ecl. iv. 21:

Unlaboured harvests shall the fields adorn,

And clustered grapes shall blush on ev'ry thorn:

And knotted oaks shall show'rs of honey weep,

And through the matted grass the liquid gold shall creep.

Bowles, in his translation of Theocritus, Idyll. v., assisted our bard:

On brambles now let violets be born,

And op'ning roses blush on ev'ry thorn.

He seems to have had in view also the third Eclogue of Walsh:

Upon hard oaks let blushing peaches grow,

And from the brambles liquid amber flow.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 17: These four lines followed in the MS.:

With him through Libyia's burning plains I'll go,

On Alpine mountains tread th' eternal snow;

Yet feel no heat but what our loves impart,

And dread no coldness but in Thyrsis' heart.--WARBURTON.

Wakefield remarks that the second line in this passage is taken from

Dryden's Virg. Ecl. x. 71:

And climb the frozen Alps, and tread th' eternal snow.]

[Footnote 18: Virg. Ecl. v. 46:

Quale sopor fessis in gramine, quale per aestum

Dulcis aquae saliente sitim restinguere rivo.--POPE.]

[Footnote 19: "Faint with pain" is both flat and improper. It is

fatigue, and not pain that makes them faint.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 20: The turn of the last four lines is evidently borrowed from

Drummond of Hawthornden, a charming but neglected poet.

To virgins flow'rs, to sun-burnt earth the rain,

To mariners fair winds amid the main,

Cool shades to pilgrims, whom hot glances burn,

Are not so pleasing as thy blest return.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 21: Virg. Ecl. viii. 108:

an, qui amant, ipsi sibi somnia fingunt?--POPE.

In the first edition, conformably to the original plan of the Pastoral,

the passage stood thus:

Do lovers dream, or is my shepherd kind?

He comes, my shepherd comes.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 22: From Virg. Ecl. viii. 110:

Parcite, ab urbe venit, jam parcite carmina, Daphnis.

Stafford's translation in Dryden's Miscellany:

Cease, cease, my charms,

My Daphnis comes, he comes, he flies into my arms.]

[Footnote 23: Dryden's Virg. Ecl. viii. 26, 29:

While I my Nisa's perjured faith deplore.

Yet shall my dying breath to heav'n complain.]

[Footnote 24: This imagery is borrowed from Milton's Comus, ver. 290:

Two such I saw, what time the laboured ox

In his loose traces from the furrow came.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 25: Variation:

And the fleet shades fly gliding o'er the green.--POPE.

These two verses are obviously adumbrated from the conclusion of

Virgil's first eclogue, and Dryden's version of it:

For see yon sunny hill the shade extends

And curling smoke from cottages ascends.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 26: This fancy he derived from Virgil, Ecl. x. 53:

tenerisque meos incidere amores Arboribus.

The rind of ev'ry plant her name shall know. Dryden.--WAKEFIELD.

Garth's Dispensary, Canto vi:

Their wounded bark records some broken vow,

And willow garlands hang on ev'ry bough.]

[Footnote 27: According to the ancients, the weather was stormy for a

few days when Arcturus rose with the sun, which took place in September,

and Pope apparently means that rain at this crisis was beneficial to the

standing corn. The harvest at the beginning of the last century was not

so early as it is now.]

[Footnote 28: The scene is in Windsor Forest; so this image is not so

exact.--WARBURTON.]

[Footnote 29: This is taken from Virg. Ecl. x. 26, 21:

Pan deus Arcadiae venit . . . .

Omnes, unde amor iste, rogant tibi.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 30: Virg. Ecl. iii. 103:

Nescio quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos.--POPE.

Dryden's version of the original:

What magic has bewitched the woolly dams,

And what ill eyes beheld the tender lambs.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 31: It should be "darted;" the present tense is used for the

sake of the rhyme.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 32: Variation:

What eyes but hers, alas! have pow'r on me;

Oh mighty Love! what magic is like thee?--POPE.]

[Footnote 33: Virg. Ecl. viii. 43:

Nunc scio quid sit amor. Duris in cotibus illum, etc.--POPE.

Stafford's version of the original in Dryden's Miscellanies:

I know thee, Love! on mountains thou wast bred.

Pope was not unmindful of Dryden's translation:

I know thee, Love! in deserts thou wert bred,

And at the dugs of savage tigers fed.

He had in view also a passage in the AEneid, iv. 366, and Dryden's

version of it:

But hewn from hardened entrails of a rock,

And rough Hyrcanian tigers gave thee suck.

Nor did our author overlook the parallel passage in Ovid's Epistle of

Dido to AEneas, and Dryden's translation thereof:

From hardened oak, or from a rock's cold womb,

At least thou art from some fierce tigress come;

Or on rough seas, from their foundation torn,

Got by the winds, and in a tempest born.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 34: Till the edition of Warburton, this couplet was as

follows:

I know thee, Love! wild as the raging main,

More fell than tigers on the Lybian plain.]

[Footnote 35: Were a man to meet with such a nondescript monster as the

following, viz.: "Love out of Mount AEtna by a Whirlwind," he would

suppose himself reading the Racing Calendar. Yet this hybrid creature is

one of the many zoological monsters to whom the Pastorals introduce

us.--DE QUINCY.

Sentiments like these, as they have no ground in nature, are of little

value in any poem, but in pastoral they are particularly liable to

censure, because it wants that exaltation above common life, which in

tragic or heroic writings often reconciles us to bold flights and daring

figures.--JOHNSON.]

[Footnote 36: Virg. Ecl. viii. 59:

Praeceps aerii specula de montis in undas

Deferar.

From yon high cliff I plunge into the main. Dryden.--WAKEFIELD.

This passage in Pope is a strong instance of the abnegation of feeling

in his Pastorals. The shepherd proclaims at the beginning of his chant

that it is his dying speech, and at the end that he has resolved upon

immediate suicide. Having announced the tragedy, Pope treats it with

total indifference, and quietly adds, "Thus sung the shepherds," &c.]

[Footnote 37: Ver. 98, 100. There is a little inaccuracy here; the first

line makes the time after sunset; the second before.--WARBURTON.

Pope had at first written:

Thus sung the swains while day yet strove with night,

And heav'n yet languished with departing light.

"Quaere," he says to Walsh, "if languish be a proper word?" and Walsh

answers, "Not very proper."]

[Footnote 38: Virg. Ecl. ii. 67:

Et sol decedens crescentes duplicat umbras.

The shadows lengthen as the sun grows low. Dryden.--WAKEFIELD.

"Objection," Pope said to Walsh, "that to mention the sunset after

twilight (_day yet strove with night_) is improper. Is the following

alteration anything better?

And the brown ev'ning lengthened ev'ry shade."

Walsh. "It is not the evening, but the sun being low that lengthens the

shades, otherwise the second passage is the best."]

WINTER:[1]

THE FOURTH PASTORAL,

OR

DAPHNE.

TO THE MEMORY OF MRS. TEMPEST.[2]

LYCIDAS.

Thyrsis, the music of that murm'ring spring

Is not so mournful as the strains you sing;[3]

Nor rivers winding through the vales below,[4]

So sweetly warble, or so smoothly flow.[5]

Now sleeping flocks on their soft fleeces lie, 5

The moon, serene in glory, mounts the sky,

While silent birds forget their tuneful lays,

Oh sing of Daphne's fate, and Daphne's praise![6]

THYRSIS.

Behold the groves that shine with silver frost,

Their beauty withered, and their verdure lost! 10

Here shall I try the sweet Alexis' strain,

That called the list'ning dryads to the plain?[7]

Thames heard the numbers as he flowed along,

And bade his willows learn the moving song.[8]

LYCIDAS.

So may kind rains[9] their vital moisture yield, 15

And swell the future harvest of the field.

Begin; this charge the dying Daphne gave,[10]

And said, "Ye shepherds sing around my grave!"

Sing, while beside the shaded tomb I mourn,

And with fresh bays her rural shrine adorn.[11] 20

THYRSIS.

Ye gentle muses, leave your crystal spring,

Let nymphs and sylvans cypress garlands bring

Ye weeping loves, the stream with myrtles hide,[12]

And break your bows, as when Adonis died;[13]

And with your golden darts, now useless grown, 25

Inscribe a verse on this relenting stone:

"Let nature change, let heav'n and earth deplore,

"Fair Daphne's dead, and love is now no more!"[14]

'Tis done, and nature's various charms decay,[15]

See gloomy clouds obscure the cheerful day! 30

Now hung with pearls the dropping trees appear,[16]

Their faded honours scattered on her bier.[17]

See, where on earth the flow'ry glories lie,

With her they flourished, and with her they die.[18]

Ah what avail the beauties nature wore? 35

Fair Daphne's dead, and beauty is no more!

For her the flocks refuse their verdant food,

The thirsty heifers shun the gliding flood,[19]

The silver swans her hapless fate bemoan,

In notes more sad than when they sing their own;[20] 40

In hollow caves[21] sweet echo[22] silent lies,[23]

Silent, or only to her name replies:[24]

Her name with pleasure once she taught the shore,

Now Daphne's dead, and pleasure is no more!

No grateful dews descend from ev'ning skies, 45

Nor morning odours from the flow'rs arise;

No rich perfumes refresh the fruitful field,

No fragrant herbs their native incense yield.[25]

The balmy zephyrs, silent since her death,

Lament the ceasing of a sweeter breath;[26] 50

Th' industrious bees neglect their golden store![27]

Fair Daphne's dead, and sweetness is no more![28]

No more the mountain larks, while Daphne sings,[29]

Shall list'ning in mid-air suspend their wings;[30]

No more the birds shall imitate her lays,[31] 55

Or hushed with wonder, hearken from the sprays:

No more the streams their murmurs shall forbear,

A sweeter music than their own to hear,[32]

But tell the reeds, and tell the vocal shore,

Fair Daphne's dead, and music is no more! 60

Her fate is whispered by the gentle breeze,

And told in sighs to all the trembling trees;

The trembling trees, in ev'ry plain and wood,

Her fate remurmur to the silver flood;[33]

The silver flood, so lately calm, appears 65

Swelled[34] with new passion, and o'erflows with tears;[35]

The winds, and trees, and floods, her death deplore,[36]

Daphne, our grief! our glory now no more!

But see! where Daphne wond'ring mounts on high[37]

Above the clouds, above the starry sky![38] 70

Eternal beauties grace the shining scene,

Fields ever fresh, and groves for ever green!

There while you rest in amaranthine bow'rs,

Or from those meads select unfading flow'rs,

Behold us kindly, who your name implore, 75

Daphne our goddess! and our grief no more!

LYCIDAS.

How all things listen, while thy muse complains![39]

Such silence waits on Philomela's strains,

In some still ev'ning, when the whisp'ring breeze

Pants on the leaves, and dies upon the trees.[40] 80

To thee, bright goddess, oft a lamb shall bleed,[41]

If teeming ewes increase my fleecy breed.

While plants their shade, or flow'rs their odours give,[42]

Thy name, thy honour, and thy praise shall live![43]

THYRSIS.

But see, Orion sheds unwholesome dews:[44] 85

Arise; the pines a noxious shade diffuse;

Sharp Boreas blows, and nature feels decay,

Time conquers all, and we must time obey,[45]

Adieu ye vales, ye mountains, streams, and groves,

Adieu ye shepherds' rural lays and loves; 90

Adieu, my flocks;[46] farewell, ye sylvan crew;

Daphne, farewell; and all the word adieu![47]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: This was the poet's favourite Pastoral.--WARBURTON.

It is professedly an imitation of Theocritus, whom Pope does not

resemble, and whose Idylls he could only have read in a translation. The

sources from which he really borrowed his materials will be seen in the

notes.]

[Footnote 2: This lady was of ancient family in Yorkshire, and

particularly admired by the author's friend Mr. Walsh, who having

celebrated her in a Pastoral Elegy, desired his friend to do the same,

as appears from one of his letters, dated Sept. 9, 1706. "Your last

Eclogue being on the same subject with mine on Mrs. Tempest's death, I

should take it very kindly in you to give it a little turn, as if it

were to the memory of the same lady." Her death having happened on the

night of the great storm in 1703, gave a propriety to this Eclogue,

which in its general turn alludes to it. The scene of the Pastoral lies

in a grove, the time at midnight.--POPE.

I do not find any lines that allude to the great storm of which the poet

speaks.--WARTON.

Nor I. On the contrary, all the allusions to the winds are of the

gentler kind,--"balmy Zephyrs," "whispering breezes" and so forth. Miss

Tempest was the daughter of Henry Tempest, of Newton Grange, York, and

grand-daughter of Sir John Tempest, Bart. She died unmarried. When

Pope's Pastoral first appeared in Tonson's Miscellany, it was entitled

"To the memory of a Fair Young Lady."--CROKER.]

[Footnote 3: This couplet was constructed from Creech's translation of

the first Idyll of Theocritus:

And, shepherd, sweeter notes thy pipe do fill

Than murm'ring springs that roll from yonder hill.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 4: Suggested by Virg. Ecl. v. 83:

nec quae

Saxosas inter decurrunt flumina valles.

For winding streams that through the valley glide. Dryden.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 5: Milton, Par. Lost, v. 195:

Fountains, and ye that warble, as ye flow,

Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise.]

[Footnote 6: Variation:

In the warm folds the tender flocks remain,

The cattle slumber on the silent plain,

While silent birds neglect their tuneful lays,

Let us, dear Thyrsis, sing of Daphne's praise.--POPE.

It was originally,

Now in warm folds the tender flock remains.

Pope. "Objection to the word _remains_. I do not know whether these

following be better or no, and desire your opinion.

Now while the groves in Cynthia's beams are dressed,

And folded flocks in their soft fleeces rest;

While sleeping birds, etc.

Or,

While Cynthia tips with silver all the groves,

And scarce the winds the topmast branches moves.

or

While the bright moon with silver tips the grove,

And not a breeze the quiv'ring branches move."

Walsh. "I think the last the best, but might not even that be mended?"]

[Footnote 7: Garth's Dispensary, Canto iv.:

As tuneful Congreve tries his rural strains,

Pan quits the woods, the list'ning fauns the plains.

Dryden's Virgil, Ecl. vi. 100:

And called the mountain ashes to the plain.

Among the poems of Congreve is one entitled "The Mourning Muse of

Alexis, a Pastoral lamenting the death of Queen Mary." This was the

"sweet Alexis strain" to which Pope referred, and which the Thames "bade

his willows learn."]

[Footnote 8: Virg. Ecl. vi. 83:

Audiit Eurotas, jussitque ediscere lauros.--POPE.

Admitting that a river gently flowing may be imagined a sensible being

listening to a song, I cannot enter into the conceit of the river's

ordering his laurels to learn the song. Here all resemblance to anything

real is quite lost. This however is copied literally by Pope.--LORD

KAMES.]

[Footnote 9: There is some connection implied between the "kind rains"

and the "willows learning the song," but I cannot trace the idea.]

[Footnote 10: Virg. Ecl. v. 41:

mandat fieri sibi talia Daphnis.]

[Footnote 11: Rowe's Ambitious Step-Mother:

And with fresh roses strew thy virgin urn.--STEEVENS.]

[Footnote 12: Ver. 23, 24, 25. Virg. Ecl. v. 40, 42:

inducite fontibus umbras.... Et tumulum facite, et tumulo superaddite

carmen.--POPE.

If the idea of "hiding the stream with myrtles" have either beauty or

propriety, I am unable to discover them. Our poet unfortunately followed

Dryden's turn of the original phrase in Virgil:

With cypress boughs the crystal fountains hide.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 13: This image is taken from Ovid's elegy on the death of

Tibullus, Amor. iii. 9. 6:

Ecce! puer Veneris fert eversamque pharetram,

Et fractos arcus, et sine luce facem.--WAKEFIELD.

Ovid copied Bion. Idyl. 1. The Greek poet represents the Loves as

trampling upon their bows and arrows, and breaking their quivers in the

first paroxysm of their grief for Adonis. In place of this natural burst

of uncontrollable sorrow, the shepherd, in Pope, invokes the Loves to

break their bows at his instigation. When their darts are said in the

next line to be henceforth useless, the sense must be that nobody would

love any woman again since Mrs. Tempest was dead. Such hyperboles can

neither touch the heart nor gratify the understanding. The Pastorals

were verse exercises in which every pretence to real emotion was laid

aside, for Pope was not even acquainted with the lady of whom he utters

these extravagances.]

[Footnote 14: This is imitated from Walsh's Pastoral on the death of

Mrs. Tempest in Dryden's Miscellanies, vol. v. p. 323:

Now shepherds! now lament, and now deplore!

Delia is dead, and beauty is no more.--WAKEFIELD.

Congreve's Mourning Muse of Alexis:

All nature mourns; the floods and rocks deplore

And cry with me, Pastora is no more.]

[Footnote 15: Originally thus in the MS.

'Tis done, and nature's changed since you are gone;

Behold the clouds have put their mourning on.--WARBURTON.

This low conceit, which our poet abandoned for the present reading, was

borrowed from Oldham's version of the elegy of Moschus:

For thee, dear swain, for thee, his much-loved son,

Does Phoebus clouds of mourning black put on.--WAKEFIELD.

When Pope submitted the rejected and the adopted reading to Walsh, the

critic replied, "_Clouds put on mourning_ is too conceited for pastoral.

The second is better, and _the thick_ or _the dark_ I like better than

_sable_." The last verse of the couplet in the text was then

See sable clouds eclipse the cheerful day.]

[Footnote 16: Dryden's pastoral elegy on the death of Amyntas:

'Twas on a joyless and a gloomy morn,

Wet was the grass and hung with pearls the thorn.

So in his version of Virgil, Ecl. x. 20:

And hung with humid pearls the lowly shrub appears.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 17: Spenser's Colin Clout:

The fields with faded flow'rs did seem to mourn.]

[Footnote 18: Oldham's translation of Moschus:

Each flower fades and hangs its withered head,

And scorns to thrive or live now thou art dead.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 19: Variation:

For her the flocks the dewy herbs disdain,

Nor hungry heifers graze the tender plain.--POPE.

Dryden's Virg. Ecl. v. 38:

The thirsty cattle of themselves abstained

From water, and their grassy fare disdained.

Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar, November, ver. 123, where

The feeble flocks in field refuse their former food,

because Dido is dead.]

[Footnote 20: Oldham's translation of Moschus:

Ye gentle swans....

In doleful notes the heavy loss bewail

Such as you sing at your own funeral.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 21: Cowley in his verses on Echo:

Ah! gentle nymph! who lik'st so well

In hollow solitary caves to dwell.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 22: This expression of "sweet echo" is taken from

Comus.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 23: Oldham's translation of Moschus:

Sad echo too does in deep silence moan,

Since thou art mute, since thou art speechless grown.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 24: The couplet was different in the early editions:

Echo no more the rural song rebounds;

Her name alone the mournful echo sounds.]

[Footnote 25: In the MS.

Which but for you did all its incense yield.

This, with the reading in the text, was laid before Walsh, who selected

the latter.]

[Footnote 26: Oldham's translation of Moschus:

Fair Galatea too laments thy death,

Laments the ceasing of thy tuneful breath.

Sedley's Elegy:

Here sportive zephyrs cease their selfish play

Despairing now to fetch perfumes away.--WAKEFIELD.

The couplet in the text is the third passage in Pope's Pastorals for

which Ruffhead claims the merit of originality. The quotations of

Wakefield show that the thought and the language are alike borrowed, and

the only novelty is the bull, pointed out by Johnson, of making the

_zephyrs_ lament in _silence_.]

[Footnote 27: Oldham's version of Moschus:

The painful bees neglect their wonted toil.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 28: The same:

Alas! what boots it now thy hives to store,

When thou, that wast all sweetness, art no more.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 29: In the original draught Pope had again introduced the

wolves, and the first four lines of this paragraph stood thus:

No more the wolves, when you your numbers try,

Shall cease to follow, and the lambs to fly:

No more the birds shall imitate your lays,

Or, charmed to silence, listen from the sprays.]

[Footnote 30: The image of the birds listening with their wings

suspended in mid-air is striking, and, I trust, new.--RUFFHEAD.

This circumstance of the lark suspending its wings in mid-air is highly

beautiful, because there is a _veri similitudo_ in it, which is not the

case where a waterfall is made to be suspended by the power of

music.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 31: Oldham's translation of Moschus:

The feathered choir that used to throng

In list'ning flocks to learn his well-tuned song.

The line in the text was the earliest reading in the manuscript, but did

not appear in print till the edition of Warburton. The reading in the

previous editions was,

No more the nightingales repeat her lays.

This idea of the nightingale repeating the lays is amplified by Philips

in his Fifth Pastoral, who copied it, according to Pope in the Guardian,

from Strada. Thence also it must have been borrowed by Pope, and he may

have restored the primitive version to get rid of the coincidence.]

[Footnote 32: The _veri similitudo_, which Bowles commends in the

description of the lark, is not to be found in the notion of the streams

ceasing to murmur that they might listen to the song of Daphne. Milton

does a similar violence to fact and imagination in his Comus, ver. 494,

and many lesser poets, before and after him, adopted the poor conceit.]

[Footnote 33: Dryden's AEneis, vii. 1041:

Yet his untimely fate th' Angitian woods

In sighs remurmured to the Fucine floods.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 34: This is barbarous: he should have written

"swoln."--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 35: Ovid, Met. xi. 47:

lacrimis quoque flumina dicunt

Increvisse suis.

Oldham's translation of Moschus:

The rivers too, as if they would deplore

Her death, with grief swell higher than before.

Fenton in his pastoral on the Marquis of Blandford's death:

And, swoln with tears, to floods the riv'lets ride.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 36: Let grief or love have the power to animate the winds, the

trees, the floods, provided the figure be dispatched in a single

expression, but when this figure is deliberately spread out with great

accuracy through many lines, the reader, instead of relishing it, is

struck with its ridiculous appearance.--LORD KAMES.

All this is very poor, and unworthy Pope. First the breeze whispers the

death of Daphne to the trees; then the trees inform the flood of it;

then the flood o'erflows with tears; and then they all deplore together.

The whole pastoral would have been much more classical, correct, and

pure, if these lines had been omitted. Let us, however, still remember

the youth of Pope, and the example of prior poets.--BOWLES.

Moschus in his third Idyll calls upon the nightingales to tell the river

Arethusa that Bion is dead. Oldham in his imitation of Moschus

exaggerated his original and commanded the nightingales to tell the news

"to _all_ the British floods,"--to see that it was "conveyed to Isis,

Cam, Thames, Humber, and utmost Tweed," and these in turn were to be

ordered "to waft the bitter tidings on." Pope went further than Oldham,

and describes one class of inanimate objects as conveying the

intelligence to another class of inanimate objects till the whole

uttered lamentations in chorus. Each succeeding copyist endeavoured to

eclipse his predecessor by going beyond him in absurdity. Most of the

ideas adopted by Pope in his Winter had been employed by scores of

elegiac bards. "The numerous pastorals upon the death of princes or

friends," says Dr. Trapp, "are cast in the same mould; read one, you

read all. Birds, sheep, woods, mountains, rivers, are full of

complaints. Everything in short is wondrous miserable."]

[Footnote 37: Virg. Ecl. v. 56:

miratur limen Olympi,

Sub pedibusque videt nubes et sidera Daphnis.--POPE.

Dryden thus renders the passage in Virgil:

Daphnis, the guest of heav'n, with wond'ring eyes

Views in the milky way the starry skies.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 38: In Spenser's November, and in Milton's Lycidas, there is

the same beautiful change of circumstances.--WARTON.

It was one of the stereotyped common-places of elegiac poems, and was

ridiculed in No. 30 of the Guardian. The writer might almost be thought

to have had this passage of Pope in his mind, if his satire did not

equally apply to a hundred authors besides. A shepherd announces to his

fellow-swain that Damon is dead. "This," says the Guardian, "immediately

causes the other to make complaints, and call upon the lofty pines and

silver streams to join in the lamentation. While he goes on, his friend

interrupts him, and tells him that Damon lives, and shows him a track of

light in the skies to conform to it. Upon this scheme most of the noble

families in Great Britain have been comforted; nor can I meet with any

right honourable shepherd that doth not die and live again, after the

manner of the aforesaid Damon."]

[Footnote 39: The four opening lines of the speech of Lycidas were as

follows in the MS.:

Thy songs, dear Thyrsis, more delight my mind

Than the soft whisper of the breathing wind,

Or whisp'ring groves, when some expiring breeze

Pants on the leaves, and trembles in the trees.

The first couplet of the original reading, and the phrase "trembles in

the trees," in the second couplet, were from Dryden's Virg. Ecl. v. 128:

Not the soft whispers of the southern wind,

That play through trembling trees, delight me more.]

[Footnote 40: Milton, Il Penseroso:

When the gust hath blown his fill

Ending on the rustling leaves.]

[Footnote 41: Virg. Ecl. i. 7:

illius aram

Saepe tener, nostris ab ovilibus, imbuet agnus.--POPE.

He partly follows Dryden's translation of his original:

The tender firstlings of my woolly breed

Shall on his holy altar often bleed.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 42: Originally thus in the MS.

While vapours rise, and driving snows descend.

Thy honour, name, and praise shall never end.--WARBURTON.]

[Footnote 43: Virg. Ecl. v. 76:

Dum juga montis aper, fluvios dum piscis amabit,

Dumque thymo pascentur apes, dum rore cicadae,

Semper honos, nomenque tuum, laudesque manebunt.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 44: Virg. Ecl. x. 75:

solet esse gravis cantantibus umbra;

Juniperi gravis umbra.--POPE.

Dryden's version of the passage is,

From juniper unwholesome dews distil.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 45: Virg. Ecl. x. 69:

Omnia vincit amor; et nos cedamus amori.

Vid. etiam Sannazarii Ecl. et Spenser's Calendar.--WARBURTON.

Dryden's verse is:

Love conquers all, and we must yield to love.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 46: There is a passage resembling this in Walsh's third

eclogue:

Adieu, ye flocks, no more shall I pursue;

Adieu, ye groves; a long, a long adieu.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 47: These four last lines allude to the several subjects of

the four Pastorals, and to the several scenes of them particularized

before in each--POPE.

They should have been added by the poet in his own person, instead of

being put into the mouth of a shepherd who is not presumed to have any

knowledge of the previous pieces. The specific character which Pope

ascribes to each of his Pastorals is not borne out by the poems

themselves. There is as much about "flocks" in the first Pastoral as in

the second; and there is as much about "rural lays and loves" in the

second Pastoral as in the first. The third Pastoral contains no mention

of a "sylvan crew," but a couple of shepherds are absorbed by the same

"rural lays and loves" which occupied their predecessors.]

MESSIAH,

A SACRED ECLOGUE:

IN IMITATION OF

VIRGIL'S POLLIO.

ADVERTISEMENT.

In reading several passages of the Prophet Isaiah, which foretell the

coming of Christ and the felicities attending it, I could not but

observe a remarkable parity between many of the thoughts, and those in

the Pollio of Virgil. This will not seem surprising, when we reflect,

that the Eclogue was taken from a Sibylline prophecy on the same

subject. One may judge that Virgil did not copy it line by line, but

selected such ideas as best agreed with the nature of pastoral poetry,

and disposed them in that manner which served most to beautify his

piece. I have endeavoured the same in this imitation of him, though

without admitting anything of my own; since it was written with this

particular view, that the reader, by comparing the several thoughts,

might see how far the images and descriptions of the prophet are

superior to those of the poet. But as I fear I have prejudiced them by

my management, I shall subjoin the passages of Isaiah, and those of

Virgil, under the same disadvantage of a literal translation.[1]

This is certainly the most animated and sublime of all our author's

compositions, and it is manifestly owing to the great original which he

copied. Perhaps the dignity, the energy, and the simplicity of the

original, are in a few passages weakened and diminished by florid

epithets, and useless circumlocutions.--WARTON.

All things considered, the Messiah is as fine and masterly a piece of

composition as the English language, in the same style of verse, can

boast. I have ventured to point out a passage or two, for they are rare,

where the sublimity has been weakened by epithets; and I have done this,

because it is a fault, particularly with young writers, so common. In

the most truly sublime images of Scripture, the addition of a single

word would often destroy their effect. It is therefore right to keep as

nearly as possible to the very words. No one understood better than

Milton where to be general, and where particular; where to adopt the

very expression of Scripture, and where it was allowed to

paraphrase.--BOWLES.

The fourth eclogue of Virgil is devoted to celebrating the coming birth,

while Pollio is Consul, of a boy whose infancy will usher in the golden

age, and whose manhood will witness its fullness. Wars are to cease; the

beasts of prey are to change their natures; the untilled earth is to

bring forth fruits spontaneously; and peace, ease, and plenty are to

reign supreme. The names of the parents of this expected child are not

recorded, and the commentators are greatly divided upon the question.

The most reasonable conjecture is that the intention was to do homage to

the ruling genius at Rome, Augustus, or Caesar Octavianus, as he was then

called, whose wife Scribonia was pregnant at the time. Unhappily for the

prognostications of the poet the infant "proved a daughter, and the

infamous Julia."[2] Virgil grounds his glowing anticipations upon

certain Cumaean or Sibylline verses; for, as Jortin well remarks, he

would have deprived his announcement of all authority if he himself had

set up for a prophet. He could only hope to accredit his promised

marvels by appealing to an oracle that was popularly believed to be

inspired. "The Sibylline books," says Prideaux, "were a main engine of

state. When they were ordered to be consulted the keepers of them always

brought forth such an answer as served their purpose, and in many

difficulties the governors helped themselves this way."[3] Virgil was

equally diplomatic. He probably had no faith in the wonders he

announced. His object was to pay court to Augustus, and to assist in

establishing his patron's power.

The resemblance which portions of the Pollio bear to passages in Isaiah

is generally admitted. "This," says Pope, "will not seem surprising when

we reflect that the Eclogue was taken from a Sibylline prophecy on the

same subject." He does not attempt to explain how the Sibyl came by her

knowledge, unless he means us to infer that she was divinely

illuminated. This theory has been supported by learned men, and would be

warranted if the eight books of Sibylline oracles, still extant in Greek

verse, were anterior to the Christian era; for since they often go

beyond the Old Testament predictions in historic precision, the insight

into futurity could not have been gathered exclusively from the

Scripture prophets. But the existing oracles, says Jortin, "are without

any one exception, mere impostures. They abound with phrases, words,

facts, and passages taken from the Septuagint and the New Testament, and

are a remarkable specimen of astonishing impudence, and miserable

poetry."[4] Still there remains the circumstance of the parallelism

between parts of Isaiah and the Eclogue which Virgil based upon the

Sibylline verses. It is easy to account for the coincidence. The

original Sibylline books were accidentally burnt B. C. 83. A few years

later the senate employed agents to glean together from Italy, Greece,

Sicily and Africa a body of prophecies to replace the oracles which had

perished. The collection was from private as well as public sources, and

a vast number of the same or similar predictions were in the hands of

individuals at Rome. The Jews were located everywhere; they abounded in

Rome itself; they were animated by the expectation that the reign of the

Messiah was approaching; their prophetic records were incomparable for

poetic beauty, sublimity, and variety; the language of the Septuagint

was well understood by lettered pagans, and was even the language of the

new Sibylline oracles, which were embodied in Greek verse. When all

these things are considered, it would be strange if the persons employed

to pick up prophecies had not come across notions, which had either been

derived from personal intercourse with Jews, or from their sacred books.

Although the entire world had been sunk in stupid apathy, and not a

single heathen had been attracted by curiosity to turn his attention to

Hebrew literature and beliefs, it was yet inevitable that a crude

conception should get abroad of the leading idea which fermented in the

mind of the ubiquitous Jew, and nothing was more likely than that it

should be put into Sibylline verse when Roman agents were searching far

and wide for oracles, and inviting contributions from every quarter.

Pope's Messiah first appeared in the Spectator for May 14, 1712, No.

378, where it is prefaced by these words: "I will make no apology for

entertaining the reader with the following poem, which is written by a

great genius, a friend of mine, in the country, who is not ashamed to

employ his wit in the praise of his Maker." After it was published,

Steele wrote on June 1, 1712, to Pope, and said, "I have turned to every

verse and chapter, and think you have preserved the sublime heavenly

spirit throughout the whole, especially at 'Hark a glad voice,' and 'The

lamb with wolves shall graze.' Your poem is better than the Pollio."

Upon this Johnson remarks, "That the Messiah excels the Pollio is no

great praise, if it be considered from what original the improvements

are derived." Bowles and Warton thought that Pope had kept up his verse

to the level of Isaiah, and had only here and there weakened the

sublimity by epithets. Wordsworth was of another opinion. When he

contended that the language of poetry should be a selection from the

real language of men "in a state of vivid sensation," and repudiated the

ornate conventional phraseology which passed for poetic diction, he

pointed to the paraphrases on parts of the Bible in illustration of what

he condemned, and to the passages as they exist in our authorised

version for a specimen of what he approved. "Pope's Messiah throughout"

was in his apprehension an adulteration of the original.[5] His

criticism appears well founded. The pure and natural language of the

prophet is sometimes exchanged for sickly, affected expressions.

"Righteousness" becomes "dewy nectar," "sheep" the "fleecy care," and

the call upon Jerusalem to "Arise and shine" is turned into an

invocation to "exalt her tow'ry head." Apart from these mawkish phrases,

the imitation is framed from first to last upon the mistaken principle

that the original would be embellished by amplifications, by a profusion

of epithets, and by a gaudier diction. The "fir-tree and box-tree" of

Isaiah are called by Pope "the _spiry_ fir, and _shapely_ box." Where

the sacred text announces that "instead of the thorn shall come up the

fir-tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle-tree," Pope

tells us that

"To _leafless_ shrubs the _flow'ring_ palms succeed,

And _od'rous_ myrtle to the _noisome_ weed."

In his translation of the prediction, that in the kingdom of Christ,

"the sucking-child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned

child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den," Pope makes the

cockatrice a "_crested_ basilisk," and the asp a "_speckled_ snake;"

they have both scales of a "_green_ lustre," and a "_forky_ tongue," and

with this last the "_smiling_ infant shall _innocently_ play." "The

leopard," says Isaiah, "shall lie down with the kid, and the young

lion, and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them"; but

Pope could not leave this exquisite picture undecorated, and with him

"boys in _flow'ry_ bands the tiger lead." How grievously is the force

and pathos of the passage impaired by the substitution of "boys" for the

"little child"; how completely is the bewitching nature turned into

masquerade by the engrafted notion that the beasts are led by "_flow'ry_

bands." The alteration is an example of the justice of De Quincey's

observation that "the Arcadia of Pope's age was the spurious Arcadia of

the opera theatre."[6] The prophet refers anew to the time when

creatures of prey shall cease to be carnivorous, and relates that "the

lion shall eat straw like the bullock, and dust shall be the serpent's

meat." Pope converts the second clause into the statement that "harmless

serpents lick the pilgrim's feet," which alters the meaning, and

introduces a conception more noticeable for its grotesqueness than for

the enchanting vision it should conjure up of universal peace.[7] Pope

says he was induced to subjoin in his notes the passages he had

versified by "the fear that he had prejudiced Isaiah and Virgil by his

management." The reputation of Isaiah and Virgil was safe, and no one

can doubt that his real reason for inviting the comparison was the

belief that he had improved upon them. He imagined that he had enriched

the text of the prophet, and did not suspect that the majesty and truth

of the original were vitiated by his embroidery. Bowles has drawn

attention to the finest parts of the poem, and it may be allowed that

the piece in general is powerful of its kind. The fault is in the kind

itself, which belongs to a lower style than the living strains of

Isaiah, and borders too closely upon the meretricious to suit the lofty

theme. The Messiah is a prophetic vision of a golden age, and on this

account was classed by Pope among his Pastorals.[8]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Pope printed in his notes only those passages of Isaiah

which had some resemblance to the ideas of Virgil. To the other portions

of the prophet which he put into verse he merely gave references.]

[Footnote 2: Jortin's Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. i, p.

323.]

[Footnote 3: Prideaux's Connection, ed. Wheeler, vol. ii, p. 518.]

[Footnote 4: Jortin's Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. p.

318.]

[Footnote 5: Wordsworth's Works, ed. 1836, vol. ii. p. 343.]

[Footnote 6: De Quincey's Works, vol. xv. p. 115.]

[Footnote 7: Such is the difference of taste that Wakefield says of

Pope's variation, "This is indeed a glorious improvement on the sublime

original. The diction has the true doric simplicity in perfection, and

poetic genius never gave birth to a more delicate and pleasing image."]

[Footnote 8: Singer's Spence, p. 236.]

MESSIAH,

A SACRED ECLOGUE:

IN IMITATION OF

VIRGIL'S POLLIO.

Ye Nymphs of Solyma![1] begin the song:

To heav'nly themes sublimer strains[2] belong.

The mossy fountains, and the sylvan shades,

The dreams of Pindus[3] and th' Aonian maids,

Delight no more[4]--O Thou my voice inspire

Who touched Isaiah's hallowed lips with fire![5]

Rapt[6] into future times, the bard begun:[7]

A virgin shall conceive, a virgin bear a son![8]

From Jesse's[9] root behold a branch arise,

Whose sacred flow'r with fragrance fills the skies: 10

Th' ethereal Spirit o'er its leaves shall move,

And on its top descends the mystic dove.[10]

Ye heav'ns! from high the dewy nectar pour,[11]

And in soft silence shed the kindly show'r![12]

The sick[13] and weak the healing plant shall aid, 15

From storms a shelter, and from heat a shade.

All crimes shall cease, and ancient fraud[14] shall fail;

Returning Justice[15] lift aloft her scale;

Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend,

And white-robed Innocence from heaven descend. 20

Swift fly the years,[16] and rise th' expected morn!

Oh spring to light, auspicious babe, be born![17]

See Nature hastes her earliest wreaths to bring,[18]

With all the incense of the breathing spring:[19]

See lofty Lebanon[20] his head advance; 25

See nodding forests on the mountains dance:[21]

See spicy clouds from lowly Saron rise,

And Carmel's flow'ry top perfumes the skies!

Hark! a glad voice the lonely desert cheers;

Prepare the way![22] a God, a God appears: 30

A God, a God![23] the vocal hills reply,

The rocks proclaim th' approaching deity.

Lo, earth receives him from the bending skies!

Sink down, ye mountains, and, ye valleys, rise;

With heads declined, ye cedars, homage pay;[24] 35

Be smooth, ye rocks;[25] ye rapid floods, give way!

The Saviour comes! by ancient bards foretold!

Hear him, ye deaf, and all ye blind, behold![26]

He from thick films shall purge the visual ray,[27]

And on the sightless eye-ball pour the day: 40

'Tis he th' obstructed paths of sound shall clear,[28]

And bid new music charm th' unfolding ear:

The dumb shall sing, the lame his crutch forego,

And leap exulting like the bounding roe.[29]

No sigh, no murmur the wide world shall hear,[30] 45

From ev'ry face he wipes off ev'ry tear,[31]

In adamantine[32] chains shall Death be bound,

And hell's grim tyrant feel th' eternal wound.

As the good shepherd tends his fleecy care,

Seeks freshest pasture and the purest air, 50

Explores the lost, the wand'ring sheep directs,

By day o'ersees them, and by night protects,

The tender lambs he[33] raises in his arms,[34]

Feeds from his hand, and in his bosom warms;[35]

Thus shall mankind his guardian care engage, 55

The promised Father[36] of the future age.

No more shall nation[37] against nation rise,

Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes,

Nor fields with gleaming steel be covered o'er,[38]

The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more;[39] 60

But useless lances into scythes shall bend,

And the broad faulchion in a plow-share end.

Then palaces shall rise; the joyful son[40]

Shall finish what his short-lived sire begun;[41]

Their vines a shadow to their race shall yield,[42] 65

And the same hand that sowed, shall reap the field.

The swain in barren deserts[43] with surprise

Sees lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise;[44]

And starts, amidst the thirsty wilds, to hear

New fells of water murm'ring in his ear.[45] 70

On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes,

The green reed trembles, and the bulrush nods.

Waste sandy valleys,[46] once perplexed with thorn,

The spiry fir and shapely box adorn;

To leafless shrubs the flow'ring palms succeed, 75

And od'rous myrtle to the noisome weed.

The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead,[47]

And boys in flow'ry bands the tiger lead;[48]

The steer and lion at one crib shall meet,[49]

And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet.[50] 80

The smiling infant in his hand shall take

The crested basilisk and speckled snake,

Pleased, the green lustre of the scales survey,

And with their forky tongue shall innocently play.[51]

Rise, crowned with light, imperial Salem,[52] rise![53] 85

Exalt thy tow'ry head,[54] and lift thy eyes![55]

See, a long race[56] thy spacious courts adorn;

See future sons, and daughters yet unborn,

In crowding ranks on ev'ry side arise,

Demanding life, impatient for the skies! 90

See barb'rous nations[57] at thy gates attend,

Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend;

See thy bright altars thronged with prostrate kings,

And heaped with products of Sabaean[58] springs![59]

For thee Idume's spicy forests blow, 95

And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow.

See heav'n its sparkling portals wide display,

And break upon thee in a flood of day.[60]

No more the rising sun[61] shall gild the morn,

Nor ev'ning Cynthia[62] fill her silver horn; 100

But lost, dissolved in thy superior rays,

One tide of glory,[63] one unclouded blaze

O'erflow thy courts: the Light himself shall shine

Revealed, and God's eternal day be thine![64]

The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,[65] 105

Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away;

But fixed his word, his saving power remains:

Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own MESSIAH reigns!

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Solyma is the latter part of the Greek name for Jerusalem,

[Greek: Hierosolyma].]

[Footnote 2: Dryden's Virg. Ecl. iv. 1.

Sicilian muse, begin a loftier strain--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 3: The poets of antiquity were thought to receive inspired

dreams by sleeping on the poetic mountains.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 4: The pause and words are evidently from Dryden, a greater

harmonist, if I may say so, than Pope:

The lovely shrubs and trees that shade the plain,

Delight not all.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 5: Alluding to Isaiah vi. 6, 7. "Then flew one of the

Seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken

with the tongs from off the altar; and he laid it upon my mouth, and

said, Lo! this hath touched thy lips." Milton had already made the same

allusion to Isaiah, at the close of his Hymn on the Nativity:

And join thy voice unto the angel quire,

From out his sacred altar touched with hallowed fire.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 6: Rapt, that is, carried forwards from the present scene of

things into a distant period, from the Latin _rapio_.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 7: The poet wrongly uses "begun," instead of the past,

began.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 8: Virg. Ecl. iv. 6:

Jam redit et Virge, redeunt Saturnia regna;

Jam nova progenies coelo demittitur alto.--

Te duce, si qua manent sceleris vestigia nostri,

Irrita perpetua solvent formidine terras.--

Pacatumque reget patriis virtutibus orbem.

"_Now the Virgin returns, now the kingdom of Saturn returns, now a new

progeny is sent down from high heaven. By means of thee, whatever

reliques of our crimes remain, shall be wiped away, and free the world

from perpetual fears. He shall govern the earth in peace, with the

virtues of his father._"

Isaiah vii. 14. "_Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son._" Ch.

ix. ver. 6, 7. "_Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given,--the

Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government, and of his peace,

there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom,

to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice, for ever

and ever._"--POPE.

By "the virgin" Virgil meant Astraea, or Justice, who is said by the

poets to have been driven from earth by the wickedness of

mankind.--PROFESSOR MARTYN.]

[Footnote 9: Isaiah xi. i.--POPE. "_And there shall come forth a rod out

of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots._"]

[Footnote 10: Pope lowers the comparison when he follows it out into

details, and likens the endowments of the Messiah to leaves, and his

head to the top of a tree on which the dove descends.]

[Footnote 11: Isaiah xlv. 8.--POPE. "_Drop down, ye heavens, from above,

and let the skies pour down righteousness._"]

[Footnote 12: Dryden's Don Sebastian:

But shed from nature like a kindly show'r.--STEEVENS.]

[Footnote 13: Isaiah xxv. 4,--POPE. "_For thou hast been a strength to

the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the

storm, a shadow from the heat._"]

[Footnote 14: Warburton says that Pope referred to the fraud of the

serpent, but the allusion is more general, and the poet had probably in

his mind the "priscae vestigia fraudis," which Wakefield quotes from

Virg. Ecl. iv. 31, and which Dryden renders

Yet of old fraud some footsteps shall remain.]

[Footnote 15: Isaiah ix. 7.--POPE.

For Justice was fabled by the poets to quit the earth at the conclusion

of the golden age.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 16: This animated apostrophe is grounded on that of Virg. Ecl.

iv. 46:

Talia saecla ... currite ...--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 17: This seems a palpable imitation of Callimachus, Hymn. Del.

214, but where our poet fell upon it I cannot discover.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 18: Virg. Ecl. iv. 18:

At tibi prima, puer, nullo munuscula cultu,

Errantes hederas passim cum baccare tellus,

Mixtaque ridenti colocasia fundet acantho.--

Ipsa tibi blandos fundent cunabula flores.

"_For thee, O child, shall the earth, without being tilled, produce her

early offerings; winding ivy, mixed with Baccar, and Colocasia with

smiling Acanthus. Thy cradle shall pour forth pleasing flowers about

thee._"

Isaiah xxxv. 1. "_The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad

for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose._" Chap.

lx. 13. "_The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir-tree, the

pine-tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of my

sanctuary._"--POPE.]

[Footnote 19: This couplet has too much prettiness, and too modern an

air.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 20: Isaiah xxxv. 2.--POPE. "_It shall blossom abundantly, and

rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given

unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon; they shall see the glory

of the Lord, and the excellency of our God._"]

[Footnote 21: An improper and burlesque image.--WARTON.

The line is too particular; it brings the image too close, and by

exhibiting the action stronger than poetical propriety and sublimity

required, destroys the intended effect. In images of this sort, the

greatest care should be taken just to present the idea, but not to

detail it,--otherwise it becomes, in the language of Shakespeare, like

"ambition that o'er-leaps itself."--BOWLES.

Pope copied Dryden's translation of Virgil, Ecl. vi. 44, quoted by

Wakefield;

And silver fauns and savage beasts advanced,

And nodding forests to the numbers danced,]

[Footnote 22: Virg. Ecl. iv. 46:

Aggredere, o magnos, aderit jam tempus, honores,

Cara deum soboles, magnum Jovis incrementum.

Ecl. v. 62:

Ipsi laetitia voces ad sidera jactan

Intonsi montes, ipsae jam carmina rupes,

Ipsa sonant arbusta, Deus, deus ille, Menalca!

"_Oh come and receive the mighty honours: the time draws nigh, O beloved

offspring of the gods, O great increase of Jove! The uncultivated

mountains send shouts of joy to the stars, the very rocks sing in verse,

the very shrubs cry out, A god, a god!_"

Isaiah xl. 3, 4. "_The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness,

Prepare ye the way of the Lord! make straight in the desert a high way

for our God! Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill

shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough

places plain._" Chap. xliv. 23. "_Break forth into singing, ye

mountains! O forest, and every tree therein! for the Lord hath redeemed

Israel._"--POPE.

The passage from Virgil, in which the shrubs are supposed to cry out "a

god, a god," is not from the same Eclogue with the rest of Pope's

extracts, and has no reference to the anticipated appearance of a ruler

who should regenerate the world. The occasion of the shout is the

presumed deification of one Daphnis who is dead.]

[Footnote 23: The repetition is in the true spirit of poetry, "Deus,

deus ipse." The whole passage indeed is finely worked up from "lofty

Lebanon" to the magnificent and powerful appeal, "Hark! a glad

voice."--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 24: This line is faulty, for the same reason as given in the

remark on "nodding forests." The action is brought too near, and for

that reason the image no longer appears grand.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 25: He seems to have had in his eye Cromwell's translation of

Ovid, Amor, ii. 16:

Then, as you pass, let mountains homage pay

And bow their tow'ring heads to smooth your way.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 26: Isaiah xlii. 18.--POPE. "_Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye

blind, that ye may see._"]

[Footnote 27: The sense and language show, that by "visual ray," the

poet meant the sight, or, as Milton calls it, indeed, something less

boldly, "the visual nerve." And no critic would quarrel with the figure

which calls the instrument of vision by the name of the cause. But

though the term be just, nay noble, and even sublime, yet the expression

of "thick films" is faulty, and he fell into it by a common neglect of

the following rule of good writing, that when a figurative word is used,

whatsoever is predicated of it ought not only to agree in terms to the

thing to which the figure is applied, but likewise to that from which

the figure is taken. "Thick films" agree only with the thing to which it

is applied, namely, to the sight or eye; and not to that from which it

is taken, namely, a ray of light coming to the eye. He should have said

"thick clouds," which would have agreed with both. But these

inaccuracies are not to be found in his later poems.--WARBURTON.

Concanen had previously made the same objection in his Supplement to the

Profound, and Pope has written in the margin, "Milton," who uses "visual

ray," Par. Lost, iii. 620, "visual nerve" xi. 415, and "visual beam,"

Samson Agonistes, ver. 163; but none of these passages support Pope's

misapplication of the phrase "thick films" to rays of light.]

[Footnote 28: Isaiah xxxv. 5.--POPE. "_The ears of the deaf shall be

unstopped._"]

[Footnote 29: Isaiah xxxv. 6.--POPE. "_Then shall the lame man leap as

an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing._"]

[Footnote 30: I wonder Dr. Warton had not here pointed out the force and

the beauty of this most comprehensive and striking line.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 31: The verse, as first published, stood

He wipes the tears for ever from our eyes,

which was from Milton's Lycidas, ver. 181:

And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.

Steele having objected that Pope's line "in exalted and poetical spirit"

was below the original, Isaiah xxv. 8,--"_The Lord God will wipe away

tears from off all faces_,"--the poet altered his text without, perhaps,

either injuring or improving it.]

[Footnote 32: Isaiah xxv. 8.--POPE. "_He will swallow up death in

victory._"

The meaning of the original has been missed by Pope. The promise was not

that men should cease to die, which would be the ease if Death was

"bound in adamantine chains," but that death should lose its terrors

through "the life and immortality brought to light by the gospel," and

be welcomed as the passport to a blissful eternity.]

[Footnote 33: "He" is redundant.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 34: Isaiah xl. 11.--POPE. "_He shall feed his flock like a

shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his

bosom._"]

[Footnote 35: He was betrayed into a little impropriety here, by not

being aware that the "bosom," in classic use, commonly means the

capacious flow of the eastern garments.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 36: Isaiah ix. 6.--POPE. "_His name shall be called Wonderful,

Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of

Peace._"]

[Footnote 37: Isaiah ii. 4.--POPE. "_They shall beat their swords into

ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift

up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more._"]

[Footnote 38: The words "covered o'er" form an insipid termination of

this verse.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 39: Mr. Steevens aptly quotes Virg. AEn. vi. 165:

AEre ciere viros.

With breathing brass to kindle fierce alarms. Dryden.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 40: Isaiah lxv. 21, 22.--POPE. "_And they shall build houses,

and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of

them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant,

and another eat._"]

[Footnote 41: A line almost wholly borrowed from Dryden's Britannica

Rediviva:

And finish what thy god-like sire begins--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 42: St. John iv. 37. "_One soweth, and another

reapeth_."--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 43: Isaiah xxxv. 1.--POPE. "_The wilderness and the solitary

place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom

as the rose._"]

[Footnote 44: Virg. Ecl. iv. 28:

Molli paulatim flavescet campus arista,

Incultisque rubens pendebit sentibus uva,

Et durae quercus sudabunt roscida mella.

"_The fields shall grow yellow with ripened ears, and the red grape

shall hang upon the wild brambles, and the hard oak shall distil honey

like dew._"

Isaiah xxxv. 7. "_The parched ground shall become a pool, and the

thirsty land springs of water: In the habitation where dragons lay,

shall be grass with reeds and rushes._" Chap. lv. ver. 13. "_Instead of

the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the briar shall

come up the myrtle-tree._"--POPE.]

[Footnote 45: Pope has been happy in introducing this

circumstance.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 46: Isaiah xli. 19, and chap. lv. 13.--POPE. "_I will set in

the desert the fir-tree, and the pine, and the box-tree together._"]

[Footnote 47: Virg. Ecl. iv. 21:

Ipsae lacte domum referent distenta capelae

Ubera, nec magnos metuent armeuta leones.--

Occidet et serpens, et fallax herba veneni

Occidet.

"_The goats shall bear to the fold their udders distended with milk: nor

shall the herds be afraid of the greatest lions. The serpent shall die,

and the herb that conceals poison shall die._"

Isaiah xi. 6, 7, 8. "_The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the

leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf, and the young lion,

and the fatling together: and a little child shall lead them. And the

lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on

the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the den

of the cockatrice._"--POPE.]

[Footnote 48: The similarity of the rhymes in this couplet to those of

the preceding is a blemish to this passage.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 49: Isaiah lxv. 25.--POPE. "_The lion shall eat straw like the

bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat._"]

[Footnote 50: Pope's line may have been suggested by Ovid's description

of the transformation of Cadmus and his wife into snakes. Of Cadmus it

is said, Met. iv. 595, that

ille suae lambebat conjugis ora;

and of husband and wife, when the change in both was complete, that

Nunc quoque nec fugiunt hominem, nec vulnere laedunt.]

[Footnote 51: Originally,

And with their forky tongue and pointless sting shall play.

Wakefield conjectures that Pope altered the line from having learnt the

erroneousness of the vulgar belief that the sting of the serpent is in

its tail. The expression he substituted in the text is borrowed from

Dryden's Palamon and Arcite, quoted by Wakefield:

And troops of lions innocently play.]

[Footnote 52: Salem is used for Jerusalem in Psalm lxxvi. 2.]

[Footnote 53: Isaiah lx. 1.--POPE. "_Arise, shine; for thy light is

come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee._"]

[Footnote 54: The thoughts of Isaiah, which compose the latter part of

the poem, are wonderfully elevated, and much above those general

exclamations of Virgil, which make the loftiest parts of his Pollio:

Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo

--toto surget gens aurea mundo!

--incipient magni procedere menses!

Aspice, venture laetentur ut omnia saeclo! &c.

The reader needs only to turn to the passages of Isaiah, here

cited.--POPE.]

[Footnote 55: The open vowel _thy eyes_ is particularly

offensive.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 56: Isaiah lx. 4.--POPE. "_Lift up thine eyes round about, and

see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee: thy sons

shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side._"]

[Footnote 57: Isaiah lx. 3.--POPE. "_And the Gentiles shall come to thy

light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising._"]

[Footnote 58: Dryden in his Aureng-Zebe:

What sweet soe'er Sabaean springs disclose.--STEEVENS.

Saba, in Arabia, was noted for its aromatic products. Thus Milton, Par.

Lost, iv. 161:

Sabaean odours from the spicy shore

Of Araby the blest.]

[Footnote 59: Isaiah lx. 6.--POPE. "_All they from Sheba shall come;

they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall show forth the praises

of the Lord._"]

[Footnote 60: Broome, in Pope's Miscellanies, p. 104:

A stream of glory, and a flood of day.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 61: Isaiah lx. 19, 20.--POPE. "_The sun shall be no more thy

light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto

thee; but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God

thy glory._"]

[Footnote 62: Cynthia is an improper, because a classical word.--WARTON.

Sandys' Ovid:

Now waxing Phoebe filled her wained horns.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 63: Here is a remarkably fine effect of versification. The

poet rises with his subject, and the correspondent periods seem to flow

more copious and majestic with the grandeur and sublimity of the

theme.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 64: This fine expression is borrowed from Dryden's Ode on Mrs.

Killegrew:

Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine,

Since heaven's eternal year is thine.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 65: Isaiah li. 6, and chap. liv. 10.--POPE. "_The heavens

shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a

garment, but my salvation shall be for ever.--For the mountains shall

depart, and the hills shall be removed, but my kindness shall not depart

from thee._"]

WINDSOR FOREST.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE GEORGE, LORD LANDSDOWN.

BY MR. POPE.

Folio, 1713.

Non injussa cano: te nostrae. Vare, myricae,

Te nemus omne canet; nec Phoebo gratior ulla est,

Quam sibi quae Vari praescripsit pagina nomen.--VIRG.

London: Printed for BERNARD LINTOTT, at the Cross-keys,

in Fleet Street.

The work appeared before March 9, 1713, on which day Swift

writes to Stella, "Mr. Pope has published a fine poem,

called Windsor Forest. Read it." In his manuscript Pope

says, "It was first printed in folio in ----. Again in folio

the same year, and in octavo the next." It was included in

the quarto of 1717, in the second edition of Lintot's

Miscellany in 1714, and in the four succeeding editions of

1720, 1722, 1727 and 1732.

This poem was written at two different times. The first part of it,

which relates to the country, in the year 1704, at the same time with

the Pastorals. The latter part was not added till the year 1713, in

which it was published.--POPE.

In 1713 Pope published Windsor Forest; of which part was, as he relates,

written at sixteen, about the same time as his Pastorals; and the latter

part was added afterwards: where the addition begins we are not told.[1]

The lines relating to the Peace confess their own date. It is dedicated

to Lord Lansdowne, who was then in high reputation and influence among

the tories; and it is said, that the conclusion of the poem gave great

pain to Addison, both as a poet and a politician. Reports like this are

often spread with boldness very disproportionate to their evidence. Why

should Addison receive any particular disturbance from the last lines of

Windsor Forest? If contrariety of opinion could poison a politician, he

would not live a day; and, as a poet, he must have felt Pope's force of

genius much more from many other parts of his works. The pain that

Addison might feel, it is not likely that he would confess; and it is

certain that he so well suppressed his discontent, that Pope now thought

himself his favourite.

The design of Windsor Forest is evidently derived from Cooper's Hill,

with some attention to Waller's poem on the Park; but Pope cannot be

denied to excel his masters in variety and elegance, and the art of

interchanging description, narrative, and morality. The objection made

by Dennis is the want of plan, of a regular subordination of parts,

terminating in the principal and original design. There is this want in

most descriptive poems, because as the scenes, which they must exhibit

successively, are all subsisting at the same time, the order in which

they are shown must, by necessity, be arbitrary, and more is not to be

expected from the last part than from the first. The attention,

therefore, which cannot be detained by suspense, must be excited by

diversity, such as this poem offers to its reader. But the desire of

diversity may be too much indulged. The parts of Windsor Forest which

deserve least praise are those which were added to enliven the stillness

of the scene--the appearance of Father Thames, and the transformation

of Lodona. Addison had, in his Campaign, derided the rivers, that "rise

from their oozy beds" to tell stories of heroes;[2] and it is therefore

strange that Pope should adopt a fiction not only unnatural, but lately

censured. The story of Lodona is told with sweetness; but a new

metamorphosis is a ready and puerile expedient. Nothing is easier than

to tell how a flower was once a blooming virgin, or a rock an obdurate

tyrant.--JOHNSON.

Descriptive poetry was by no means the shining talent of Pope. This

assertion may be manifested by the few images introduced in the poem

before us which are not equally applicable to any place whatsoever.

Rural beauty in general, and not the peculiar beauties of the forest of

Windsor, are here described. Nor are the sports of setting, shooting,

and fishing, at all more appropriated. The stag-chase, that immediately

follows, although some of the lines are incomparably good, is not so

full, so animated, and so circumstantial, as that of

Somerville.--WARTON.

Johnson remarks that this poem was written after the model of Denham's

Cooper's Hill, with, perhaps, an eye on Waller's poem of the Park.

Marvel has also written a poem on local scenery[3]--upon the hill and

grove at Billborow, and another on Appleton House (now Nunappleton), in

Yorkshire. Marvel abounds with conceits and false thoughts, but some of

the descriptive touches are picturesque and beautiful. He sometimes

observes little circumstances of rural nature with the eye and feeling

of a true poet:

Then as I careless on the bed

Of gelid strawberries do tread,

And through the hazels thick espy

The _hatching thrustle's shining eye_.

The last circumstance is new, highly poetical, and could only have been

described by one who was a real lover of nature, and a witness of her

beauties in her most solitary retirements. Before this descriptive poem

on Windsor Forest, I do not recollect any other professed composition on

local scenery, except the poems of the authors already mentioned.

Denham's is certainly the best prior to Pope's: his description of

London at a distance is sublime:[4]

Under his proud survey the city lies,

And like a mist beneath a hill does rise,

Whose state and wealth, the bus'ness and the crowd,

Seems at this distance but a _darker cloud_.

Pope, by the expression of "majestic," has justly characterised the flow

of Denham's couplets. It is extraordinary that Pope, who, by this

expression, seems to have appreciated the general cast of harmony in

Cooper's Hill, should have made his own cadences so regular and almost

unvaried. Denham's couplets are often irregular, but the effect of the

pauses in the following lines was obviously the result of a fine ear.

The language truly suits the subject:

But his proud head the airy mountain hides

Among the clouds; his shoulders and his sides

A shady mantle clothes; his curled brows

Frown on the gentle stream, which calmly flows,

Whilst winds and storms his lofty forehead beat!

The occasional introduction of such passages should be managed with

great care, but I appeal to any judge of poetry whether he does not feel

the effect intended to be raised by the pauses of the lines just quoted?

He who has not an eye to observe every external appearance that nature

may exhibit in every change of season, and who cannot with a glance

distinguish every diversity of every hue in her variety of beauties,

must so far be deficient in one of the essential qualities of a poet.

Here Pope, from infirmities and from physical causes, was particularly

deficient. When he left his own laurel circus at Twickenham, he was

lifted into his chariot or his barge; and with weak eyes and tottering

strength, it is physically impossible he could be a descriptive bard.

Where description has been introduced among his poems, as far as his

observation could go, he excelled; more could not be expected. It is for

this reason that his Windsor Forest, and his Pastorals, must ever appear

so defective to a lover of nature. In his Windsor Forest he has

description, incident, and history. The descriptive part is too general,

and unappropriate; the incident, or story part, is such as only would

have been adopted by a young man who had just read Ovid; but the

historical part is very judiciously and skilfully blended, and the

conclusion highly animated and poetical: nor can we be insensible to its

more lofty tone of versification.--BOWLES.

Richardson transcribed the various readings of Windsor Forest into his

copy of the quarto of 1717, and added this note:--"Altered from the

first copy of the author's own hand, written out beautifully, as usual,

for the perusal and criticism of his friends." The manuscript in

Richardson's possession did not contain the entire work, but stopped at

ver. 390. On the title-page of the manuscript was a memorandum by Pope,

which says, "This poem was written just after the Pastorals, as appears

by the last verse of it. That was in the year ----, when the author was

---- years of age. But the last hundred lines, including the celebration

of the Peace, were added in the year ----, soon after the ratification

of the treaty of Utrecht." Pope supplied the omitted dates in the octavo

of 1736, where he ascribes the former part of Windsor Forest to 1704,

and the latter part to 1710. The testimony of Pope carries little

weight, and there is no subsidiary evidence to confirm the improbable

statement that the larger portion of the poem was produced as early as

1704. The date he assigned to the remainder, in a note at ver. 1 of the

edition of 1736, and again in a note on ver. 289, must have been a slip

of the pen, or an error of the press. Warburton altered 1710 to 1713 in

the first note, and left the mistake uncorrected in the second. The

amended date was a fresh blunder, for it appears from the letters of

Pope to Caryll on Nov. 29, and Dec. 5, 1712, that the new conclusion was

then complete. Pope's memory deceived him when he stated that the end of

the poem was written "soon after the ratification of the treaty of

Utrecht." The treaty, as Mr. Croker remarks, was not signed till March

30, 1713, nor ratified till April 28, and Windsor Forest was published

before March 9. The Peace had for some months been an accepted fact, and

Pope did not wait for its formal ratification.

"Lord Lansdowne," said Pope to Spence, "insisted on my publishing my

Windsor Forest, and the motto (_non injussa cano_) shows it."[5] Pope

not only published, but composed Windsor Forest at the instigation of

Lord Lansdowne, if the opening lines of the poem are to be believed.

Trumbull, however, asserts that it was he who suggested the topic to

Pope. "I should have commended his poem on Windsor Forest much more,"

wrote Sir William to Mr. Bridges, May 12, 1713, "if he had not served me

a slippery trick; for you must know I had long since put him upon this

subject, gave several hints, and at last, when he brought it, and read

it, and made some little alterations, &c., not one word of putting in my

name till I found it in print." The apparent discrepancy may be

explained by the supposition that Trumbull proposed the earlier poem on

the Forest, and Lord Lansdowne the subsequent celebration of the Peace.

The poet tacked the new matter on to the old, and may have represented

that he sang at the command of Granville, because the ultimate form

which the work assumed was due to him.

Mrs. Delany, who was the niece of Lord Lansdowne, and lived with him in

her youth, says, in her Autobiography, that he was a man of an open

unsuspecting temper, that he had the greatest politeness and good-humour

imaginable, that he was magnificent in his nature, and wasted his

fortune to gratify his passion for display.[6] His predominant

characteristics were amiability and vanity. His love of distinction

incited him to become a dramatist, poet, and politician. He had

aspirations without ability, and in none of these capacities did he

exhibit any vigour of mind. His poetry was an imitation of Waller, "of

whom," says Johnson, "he copied the faults, and very little more."[7]

His plays reflect the worst qualities of the era of Charles II. In

tragedy he thought that to be dull and stately was to be classical; in

comedy that affected briskness of dialogue was liveliness, and indecent

double meanings wit. He made no figure in politics, and owed his posts

in the Harley administration to his wealth, family, and electioneering

influence. His literature, aided by his hereditary advantages, sufficed

to procure him a factitious fame while he lived, but his reputation was

at an end the moment his works lost the lustre they derived from his

social position.

Lord Lansdowne was at the zenith of his career when he persuaded Pope to

eulogise the Peace. A measure in itself wise had been made subservient

to the personal interests of the unprincipled faction in power. These

intriguers could not carry on the war without the commanding genius of

Marlborough, nor allow a political opponent to perpetuate his ascendancy

by a fresh series of victories. Certain that they would be driven from

office unless they could huddle up a peace, they were guilty of a

treacherous connivance with the enemy, and a flagrant breach of faith

towards their allies. They were compelled to grant terms to France which

were the boast of her minister, Torcy, and which Bolingbroke confessed

were not what policy or our successes required.[8] A man of more

enlightened views might have justly urged that hard conditions,

offensive to the pride of a great nation, were less calculated to ensure

a lengthened peace than lenient demands, which allowed the consolation

of an honourable retreat. No such plea was put forth by Bolingbroke. He

always retained the vulgar idea that France ought to have been "humbled"

and her "power reduced for generations to come." He lamented the

moderation of the treaty, and threw the blame upon the want of union

among the allies, which was itself occasioned by the knowledge that he

and his colleagues had determined to sacrifice all other interests to

their own.[9] There was a risk that a treaty which was thought

inadequate by its authors would rouse universal indignation, and prove

as fatal to their power as the continuance of the war. The Peace became

the political test of the hour, and every artifice of prose and verse

was employed to appease public opinion.

Pope did not stop with applauding the Peace; he denounced the

Revolution. He afterwards professed a lofty superiority to party

prejudices; but there were obvious reasons which might induce him to lay

aside his usual caution at this crisis. The war was directed against

Louis XIV., the champion of Roman Catholicism, and the Pretender. A

general belief prevailed that the Protestant succession could only be

secured by reducing the French king to helplessness, and that a Peace,

on the other hand, which saved him and the Harley administration from

ruin, would be propitious to the cause of tories, papists, and

Jacobites. "They fancied," says Bolingbroke, "that the Peace was the

period at which their millenary year would begin."[10] A young and

sanguine poet may well have shared a conviction in which both sides

concurred,--the ministerialists by their hopes, and the opposition by

their fears. No sooner was the treaty concluded than it became apparent

that the hopes and fears were exaggerated. The ministry was torn to

pieces by intestine divisions; its supporters--a heterogeneous body, who

had been loosely held together by a common enmity--were rapidly throwing

off their allegiance; the good will, which had been founded upon large

and vague expectations, was converted into hostility under total

disappointment; and the failing health of the Queen rendered it probable

that the accession of a whig sovereign would shortly complete the

discomfiture of the faction. After the conclusion of the Peace, says

Bolingbroke, "we saw nothing but increase of mortification, and nearer

approaches to ruin."[11]

Having been too precipitate in casting in his lot with the tories, Pope

hastened to qualify his rashness by conciliating the whigs, and

undertook to furnish the Prologue to Addison's Cato. This play was

brought out April 14, 1713, at the request of the opposition, who

intended it for a remonstrance against the arbitrary projects imputed to

the ministry. The tragedy was hurried upon the stage towards the close

of the dramatic season, lest the salutary lesson should come too late

to save the threatened constitution.[12] Pope told Spence that the

manuscript was submitted to him by Addison, that he thought the action

not sufficiently theatrical, and that he recommended the author to

forego its performance. Shortly afterwards Addison went to him and said,

"that some particular friends, whom he could not disoblige, insisted on

its being acted." He protested that he had no party purpose in the play,

commissioned Pope to convey this assurance to Oxford and Bolingbroke,

sent them the tragedy along with the message, and obtained their

encouragement. When a year and a half had elapsed, and the House of

Hanover had succeeded to the English throne, Addison published in Nov.

1714, a copy of verses to the Princess of Wales, in which he took credit

for the patriotism and daring of his muse in sending forth the play with

the express design of defeating the machinations of the government.[13]

And boldly rising for Britannia's laws,

Engaged great Cato in her country's cause.

Hurd, unwilling to condemn his hero, Addison, and accepting, without

misgiving, the statement reported by Spence, exclaims, "How spotless

must that man be, that, in passing through a court, had only contracted

this slight stain, even in the opinion of so severe a censor and casuist

as Mr. Pope."[14] But unless the conduct of Addison is misrepresented he

must have been corrupt and contemptible. The party of which he was a

prominent member urged the production of his play, at a momentous

crisis, with a political object, and it would have been mean and

treacherous to yield to their entreaties, and then privately assure the

common enemy that nothing political was intended. The baseness would

have been great indeed if, when the power passed over to the whigs, he

triumphantly declared that he had pursued the very course he disavowed

at the time, and thus endeavoured by a false boast to procure new credit

and rewards. Either Addison was unscrupulous, or Pope fabricated the

tale. Addison's version was published to the world: Pope's version was

dropped into the ear of Spence. Addison made his claim when the

circumstances were fresh, and when Pope, Bolingbroke, and Oxford were at

hand to expose him: Pope told his story after the lapse of many years,

when he had quarrelled with Addison, and the subject of his aspersions

was in the grave. Addison has never been convicted of an untruthful

word, or a dishonourable act: Pope's career was a labyrinth of deceit,

and he abounded in audacious malignant inventions. These considerations

are sufficient, but there is more direct evidence. "I have had lately,"

wrote Pope to Caryll, Feb. 1713, "the entertainment of reading Mr.

Addison's tragedy of Cato. It drew tears from me in several parts of the

fourth and fifth acts, where the beauty of virtue appears so charming,

that I believe, if it comes upon the theatre, we shall enjoy that which

Plato thought the greatest pleasure an exalted soul could be capable of,

a view of virtue itself dressed in person, colour, and action. The

emotion which the mind will feel from this character, and the sentiments

of humanity which the distress of such a person as Cato will stir up in

us, must necessarily fill an audience with so glorious a disposition and

sovereign a love of virtue, that I question if any play has ever

conduced so immediately to morals as this." Here is Pope prognosticating

that Cato upon the stage will melt, delight, and animate the audience.

He penned the words at the exact period when, according to his later

assertion, he was admonishing Addison that the play was unsuited to the

theatre, and he is self-convicted by the contradiction. One-half of his

story was false, and renders the other half worthless.[15]

In the account which Pope gave to Caryll of the first night of Cato he

said that "all the foolish industry possible had been used to make it a

party play," and complained that "the prologue writer was clapped into a

stanch whig, sore against his will, at almost every two lines."[16] He

might be anxious to persuade his jacobite correspondent that he had not

been abetting a whig manifesto, and might pretend that he was annoyed at

the construction put upon the Prologue, but his verses were chiefly

devoted to enforcing the political doctrine of the play, and he must

deliberately have laid himself out to catch the applause of its friends.

His management advanced his fortunes. Windsor Forest procured him the

acquaintance and patronage of the tory leaders. Swift recommended the

poem to Stella on March 9, 1713, and in November he was heard by Dr.

Kennet "instructing a young nobleman that the best poet in England was

Mr. Pope, a papist, who had begun a translation of Homer into English

verse, for which he must have them all subscribe, 'for,' says he, 'the

author shall not begin to print till I have a thousand guineas for

him.'"[17] The other magnates of the faction joined with Swift in

befriending him. In those heated times a Roman Catholic who had won over

one party to his interests, by proclaiming his jacobite bias in verse,

would naturally have fallen under the ban of their opponents; but his

standing sponsor for the whig play, and the relations he maintained with

whig authors, kept the whigs from renouncing him. To his art in

attracting notice to his poetry through his politics, and in combining

the suffrages of embittered political antagonists, he owed the

unexampled success of the Homer subscription, which secured his

pecuniary independence. He had served both masters by turns, though in

unequal degrees, and then unreasonably complained to Caryll that some

people called him a whig, and others called him a tory.[18] He

disclaimed being either. He talked of his abhorrence of party violence,

and propounded his principles in dark unmeaning generalities from which

nothing can be gathered, except that he wished to avoid being held

responsible for any opinions whatever. He did not take up the position

that a purely literary undertaking was independent of politics. The

moment the tory cause declined he pleaded his neutrality, and seemed to

imagine that he could claim the support of all parties on the ground

that he adhered to none. The less wary patron who bespoke Windsor Forest

had to suffer for his jacobite zeal. He was arrested on Sept. 21, 1715,

and remained in the Tower till Feb. 8, 1717. Bolingbroke and Oxford were

impeached, and the selfish bargain they had brought about by

dishonourable means, that they might prolong their rule, annihilated

their power for ever.

"A person," says Warton, "of no small rank has informed me, that Mr.

Addison was inexpressibly chagrined at the noble conclusion of Windsor

Forest, both as a politician and as a poet,--as a politician, because it

so highly celebrated that treaty of peace which he deemed so pernicious

to the liberties of Europe; and as a poet, because he was deeply

conscious that his own Campaign, that gazette in rhyme, contained no

strokes of such genuine and sublime poetry."[19] This is one of those

plausible imputations which enemies propagate on the evidence of their

own suspicions, and which therefore require to be substantiated by

unexceptionable testimony. Warton had nothing better to adduce in

support of the credibility of his informant than the irrelevant

circumstance that he was "a person of no small rank." The description of

the witness declares his incompetence. It is not pretended that the

"person of no small rank" was intimate with Addison, or had any

authentic means of ascertaining his sentiments, and they are certainly

misrepresented by the assertion that he could not endure poetical

panegyrics on a Peace he disapproved, for in the Spectator of Oct. 30,

1712, he wrote up Tickell's laudatory verses, and "hoped his poem would

meet with such a reward from its patrons as so noble a performance

deserved."[20] There is not a party word added to extenuate the praise;

a tory might have endorsed the essay. Intolerance and "inexpressible

chagrin" were not at any time characteristics of Addison.

Tickell's Prospect of Peace went through six editions, and to judge by

the sale was more popular than Windsor Forest, which was published four

months later. The greater success of the far inferior poem was doubtless

owing to the eulogium in the Spectator. Pope joined in applauding

Tickell's work. He said that it contained "several most poetical images,

and fine pieces of painting," he specified certain "strokes of mastery,"

and he especially commended the versification.[21] His too liberal

praise may have been influenced by the couplet in which Tickell

exclaimed,

Like the young spreading laurel, Pope! thy name

Shoots up with strength and rises into fame.

Nearly the whole of the poem is in an equally dreary style, and this

dull mediocrity was not attained without numerous imitations of ancient

and modern authors. The insipidity did not exclude extravagance; for

both poetry and patriotism were thought to be displayed by a nonsensical

exaggeration of British beauty, valour, and power.

Windsor Forest is not free from flat passages, inflation of sentiment,

and false and puerile thoughts. Pope mixed up in it the beauties of his

manlier period with the vices of his early style. No writer clung more

tenaciously to the lifeless phantoms of paganism, nor applied the

hereditary common-places in a more servile manner. Liberty is

"Britannia's goddess;" the sun is "Phoebus' fiery car;" the sea is

"Neptune's self;" the harvest is "Ceres' gifts;" the orchard is "Pomona

crowned with fruits;" the ground is "painted by blushing Flora; "and the

flocks on the hills are attended by Pan. This last personage leaves his

innocent pastoral employment to chase, with evil intentions, "a rural

nymph" who calls on "Father Thames" for aid. Father Thames is deaf or

indifferent, and Pan is about to clutch her when at her own request she

is dissolved into a river. Before her transformation she was one of the

"buskined virgins" of Diana, what time the goddess forsook "Cynthus'

top" for Windsor, and was often seen roving there over the "airy

wastes." There was no occasion now to envy "Arcadia the immortal

huntress and her virgin train," since Windsor could boast

As bright a goddess, and as chaste a queen,

and the poet proceeds to complete the comparison between Diana and Queen

Anne,--between the virgin huntress, and a prolific mother, who was ugly,

corpulent, gouty, sluggish, a glutton and a tippler. Pope afterwards

affected a disdain of royalty; he was ready enough to flatter it when he

had his own ends to serve. He could not have devised a less felicitous

compliment. Tickell's poem was specially praised in the Spectator for

its freedom from the follies of "pagan theology." Addison laughed at the

whole tiresome tribe of gods and goddesses, and, with good-humoured

pleasantry, warned the versifiers, who were about to celebrate the

Peace, against introducing "trifling antiquated fables unpardonable in a

poet that was past sixteen." He laid stress upon the circumstance that

in a panegyric, which should be distinguished for truth, "nothing could

be more ridiculous than to have recourse to our Jupiters and Junos,"[22]

and no incongruity of the kind could be more absurd than to couple Diana

and Queen Anne. Windsor Forest was still in manuscript when Addison's

essay appeared. Pope was not at the pains to re-cast his poem, but he

must have recognised the force of the playful satire, and thenceforward

he abjured mythological trash.

The passage on the death of Cowley exemplifies, in a short compass, the

unskilful use to which Pope put the worn-out rags of antiquity:

O early lost! what tears the river shed,

When the sad pomp along his banks was led!

His drooping swans on ev'ry note expire,

And on his willows hung each muse's lyre.

"The appropriate business of poetry," says Wordsworth, "her privilege,

and her duty, is to treat of things not as they are, but as they appear;

not as they exist in themselves, but as they seem to exist to the senses

and passions."[23] Since genuine emotions are often founded upon

fancies, since thoughts are not always the true reflection of outward

realities, poetasters, and even poets, have concluded that they might

represent things neither as they are nor as they appear, might neglect

nature altogether, and be unfaithful alike to the world of intelligence,

and the world of matter. To this spurious class of invention belong the

notions that a river, which had flowed for ages, was the tears of the

river-god lamenting the newly-deceased Cowley, and that all the swans on

the Thames died with grief on the day of his funeral. The mind refuses

to admit such jejune and monstrous fictions among the illusions of

imagination. The compound of mythological and biblical ideas in the

fourth line has converted a pathetic incident in the Psalms into a cold

and miserable conceit. The harp of the Jew was a reality; and when he

wept over his captivity by the rivers of Babylon he hung up his harp in

very truth because his broken spirit would not permit him to sing the

Lord's song in a strange land. There is, on the contrary, only hollow

pedantry in the pretence that non-existent muses hung up non-existent

lyres on the willows of the Thames because Cowley was dead. The passage

goes on in the same empty artificial strain:

Who now shall charm the shades, where Cowley strung

His living harp, and lofty Denham sung?

But hark! the groves rejoice, the forest rings!

Are these revived?--or is it Granville sings?

It is an excellent remark of Bowles that there are some ideas which will

only just bear touching. The earliest poems were sung, and singing

became synonymous with poetical composition, but when a phrase, which is

now a mere figure of speech, is expanded, and the groves are said to

rejoice, and the forests to ring with the singing of Granville, the

predominant effect produced by the metaphor is a sense of its falsity

and grotesqueness. The picture called up is not that of a poet, but of a

half-crazed opera singer. This sickly vein of counterfeit pastoral is

continued, and we are told that the groves of Windsor are filled with

the name of Mira, the subject of Lord Lansdowne's amatory verses, and

that the Cupids tuned the lover's lyre in the shades.

The lines on Lord Lansdowne offend the more from the fulsomeness of the

adulation. Pope said that "flattery turned his stomach,"[24] which meant

that he could not endure his own vices in other people. He had

emphatically satirised the sycophancy which estimated literary works by

the rank of the author:

What woful stuff this madrigal would be

In some starved hackney sonneteer, or me!

But let a lord once own the happy lines,

How the wit brightens! how the style refines!

Before his sacred name flies ev'ry fault,

And each exalted stanza teems with thought.[25]

The "sacred name" of Lansdowne imparted genius to verse which would have

been "woful stuff" in Dennis or Welsted. When Pope, in later years,

called him "Granville the polite" he characterised him correctly; when,

in Windsor Forest, he exalted him to the rank of a transcendent poet, he

said what he could not believe. He outraged candour in prose as well as

in verse. He wrote a sycophantic letter to Lord Lansdowne, boasting his

freedom from the insincerity of his "fellow scribblers" who composed

panegyrics "at random, and persuaded the next vain creature they could

find that it was his own likeness." Pope vowed he had erred in the

opposite direction, and had forborne to praise Lord Lansdowne up to the

height of his deserts out of deference to his modesty. "Whereas others

are offended if they have not more than justice done them, you would be

displeased if you had so much. Therefore I may safely do you as much

injury in my word as you do yourself in your own thoughts. I am so vain

as to think I have shown you a favour in sparing your modesty, and you

cannot but make me some return for prejudicing the truth to gratify

you."[26] Here was triple incense,--the original adulation, the

protestation that it was inadequate, and the pretence that Lord

Lansdowne, a man noted for vanity, was too modest to endure merited

praise. Pope spoke more truth than he intended when he said that he had

"prejudiced truth to gratify him."

"Who now reads Cowley?" asked Pope in 1737.[27] The panegyric in Windsor

Forest was an anachronism, and he might have asked the same question in

1713. Never was an equal reputation more ephemeral. While Cowley lived,

and for a few years afterwards, the most cultivated minds in the kingdom

called him the "great Cowley," the "incomparable Cowley," the "divine

Cowley." When he died, Denham said that Death had

Plucked the fairest, sweetest flow'r

That in the Muses' garden grew.

The herd of readers vied with men of letters in applauding him, as was

shown by the sale of his works, and is implied in the couplet of Oldham:

One likes my verses, and commends each line,

And swears that Cowley's are but dull to mine.[28]

The wonder is not that he lost his pre-eminence, but that he ever

obtained it. His poetry is a puzzle from its contradictory qualities.

Some of his pieces have a gay facility which had not hitherto been

rivalled, and the greater part are harsh, heavy and obscure. He loved to

search for remote analogies, and his profusion of far-fetched similes

are constantly of a kind which debase the subject they are intended to

elevate and adorn. His language is incessantly pitched in a high, heroic

key, and then sinks in the same, or the succeeding sentence, into the

tamest, meanest phrases of colloquial prose. His verse in entire poems,

as well as in single lilies and occasional passages, is remarkable for

its tripping ease, and is more often rugged to such a degree that it is

incredible how it could pass with him for verse at all. The faulty side

in him predominates, and the general impression he leaves is that of

dullness, laboured and negligent by turns. He did not owe the whole of

his popularity to his real abilities, and the bad taste of his age. He

was a conspicuous adherent of the Stuarts, and the cavaliers adopted his

works out of compliment to his politics. The grand funeral procession,

commemorated in Windsor Forest, was a tribute paid to him by a party,

because he united the fame of a forward royalist to the celebrity of an

author. In a generation when authors and royalists were both dissolute,

his writings had at least the merit of being untainted by the prevailing

vice. Pope, describing the infidelity and debauchery of the Restoration

era, exclaims,

Unhappy Dryden! in all Charles's days,

Roscommon only boasts unspotted bays.[29]

He might have remembered Milton if he overlooked Cowley, who was

nevertheless a far greater poet than Roscommon. The one had gleams of

genius, and the other had none. The contemporaries of Cowley had not

been blind to the moral merits of his productions. "I cannot," says Sir

John Denham, "but mention with honour my friend Mr. Cowley, who was the

first who of late offered to redeem poesy from that slavery wherein this

depraved age has prostituted her to all imaginable uncleanness."[30] His

request in his will, that his compositions, printed and manuscript,

should be collected by Dr. Sprat, was accompanied by a clause

"beseeching him not to let any pass (if anything of that kind has

escaped my pen) which may give the least offence in point of religion

and good manners." His life was in keeping with his writings. Evelyn

calls him that "incomparable poet, and virtuous man;" and Pepys heard

Dr. Ward, the bishop of Winchester, and Dr. Bates, the well-known

puritan, "mightily lamenting his death, as the best poet of our nation

and as good a man."[31] The king was pleased to add his testimony,

worthless if it had stood alone, and declared "that Mr. Cowley had not

left a better man behind him in England."[32]

"In Windsor Forest," says Bowles, "there is description, incident, and

history." A few remarks may still be made on it under each of these

heads. Wordsworth assigned to it the distinction, in conjunction with

Lady Winchelsea's Nocturnal Reverie, of containing the only "new images

of external nature" to be found "in the poetry of the period intervening

between Paradise Lost and the Seasons."[33] He limited the praise to "a

passage or two," and does not particularise the passages to which he

alluded. He must chiefly have referred to the lines from ver. 111 to

ver. 146; for the other happy "images of external nature" are borrowed.

Pope had but a faint perception of latent and subtle beauties, and he

usually kept to those general appearances which are obvious to all the

world. His trees cast a shade, his streams murmur, his heath is purple,

his harvests are yellow, and his skies blue. Living in the midst of

English peasants he shows less familiarity with rural character than

with rural scenes. Neither in his verse, nor his letters, is there

anything to indicate that he had mixed, like Thomson, Cowper, and

Wordsworth, with the cottagers around him, or had divined the noble

qualities which are masked by a rustic exterior. His sympathies were

contracted, and strange to say there is not one word in his voluminous

writings on human kind which denotes that he had felt in the smallest

degree the loveliness of children. His main interest was in men and

women, whose names, for good or evil, were before the world, and in

speaking of them he dwelt principally upon their foibles and misdeeds.

The censure of Warton is valid when he complains that Pope's account of

field sports is deficient in characteristic details. He found a

stag-chase in Cooper's Hill, which determined him to extend, while ho

imitated, the plan of his original, and introduce hunting, fishing,

shooting, and netting into Windsor Forest, though he was not a

sportsman. The objection that his stag-chase is not as circumstantial as

that of Somerville, is fairly answered by Johnson's remark, that the

chase was the main subject of Somerville, and is only subsidiary with

Pope. More, nevertheless, was required than a description of the

impatience and galloping of the horses, and of the eagerness of the

riders. Of this single topic one half was a translation from Statius.

The fishing and shooting are superior to the hunt. The particulars are

meagre, but there is mastery in the mode of representing them. The dying

pheasant is painted in language as rich as its plumage, and the doves,

the lapwing, the lark, and the wintry landscape, could not have been

brought more vividly before the mind, or in fewer words. A gentle pathos

intermingles with the whole. The portrait of the angler would have been

perfect, in the single circumstance to which it is confined, if Pope had

not said of him, "he hopes the scaly breed." Wakefield observed that

"hope," used as an active verb, was intolerably affected, and he might

have extended the remark to the use of "scaly breed" for fish.

The "story part" of Windsor Forest is a mosaic of translated scraps from

Ovid's Metamorphoses. The fictions of heathen mythology, which had been

repeated to satiety, which exhibited no invention, and had no charm for

modern imaginations, are worse than an excrescence in the midst of

English prospects, sports, and history. The bad effect does not stop

with the puerilities themselves, but they communicate an air of weakness

and unreality to the general texture of the work.

The well-merited praise which Bowles bestowed upon "the historical part"

of the poem is inapplicable to the ill drawn character of William the

Conqueror. Pope saw in him only a devastator and a tyrant. He had not

caught a glimpse of the robust will, and masculine genius, which

conquered and consolidated a great country. The vigour, daring, and

sagacity which tempered the grosser traits in the mind of William are

suppressed, and the masterly warrior and statesman is reduced to an

inglorious spoiler of peasants, and hunter of deer. The advantages which

accrued to England from the conquest itself were unknown to Pope, who

fancied that its principal result was to destroy agriculture, and

impoverish the people. He was not aware that it introduced a more

advanced civilisation, imparted new energy to a backward stagnant

population, opened up to them a vista of grander views, and repaid

transitory suffering by vast and permanent benefits.

A fourth element in Windsor Forest is not noticed by Bowles. Pope

considered that the "reflections upon life and political institutions"

were the distinguishing excellence of Cooper's Hill. He emulated in this

respect his master's merits, surpassed him in polish of style, and fell

below him in strength of thought. Hunting the hare suggests to Pope this

poor and false conclusion:

Beasts urged by us their fellow beasts pursue,

And learn of man each other to undo.

How much more weighty is the sentiment expressed by Denham, when the

stag endeavours to take refuge in the herd:

The herd, unkindly wise,

Or chases him from thence, or from him flies;

Like a declining statesman, left forlorn

To his friends' pity, and pursuers' scorn,

With shame remembers, while himself was one

Of the same herd, himself the same had done.

The terse satire upon Henry VIII. is a still better specimen of Denham's

moralisings. As he surveys the prospect round Cooper's Hill he is

reminded of the dissolution of the monasteries, by the sight of the

place where once stood a chapel which had shared the fate of its parent

abbey. This rouses his indignation, and he thus proceeds:

Tell me, my Muse, what monstrous dire offence,

What crime could any Christian king incense

To such a rage? Was't luxury or lust?

Was _he_ so temperate, so chaste, so just?

Were these their crimes?--they were his own much more;

But wealth is crime enough to him that's poor,

Who having spent the treasures of his crown,

Condemns their luxury to feed his own.

Thus he the church at once protects and spoils:

But princes' swords are sharper than their styles.

The last couplet is a contrast between the destroying energy of Henry

VIII., and the impotence of his book against Luther.

Windsor Forest has rather more variety in its versification than is

usual with Pope. The poem opens with one of those breaks in the metre

which were incessant in the older rhymsters, and which were gradually

abjured by their successors.

Thy forest, Windsor! and thy green retreats,

At once the monarch's and the muse's seats,

Invite my lays.

This use of the full stop commonly required that the sense should be

carried on without a pause from the preceding line, whereas the theory

spread that the close of the sense should coincide with the close of the

rhymed sound, or in other words that the full stop should be always at

the end of the couplet. To keep the rhyme predominant there was an

increasing tendency to have at least the pause of a comma, even after

the final word of the first line of the couplet. Thus from a license,

which, as Prior says, "was found too dissolute and wild, and came very

often too near prose," the writers of heroics arrived at a system which

"produced too frequent an identity in the sound, and brought every

couplet to the point of an epigram."[34] Denham, according to Johnson,

was the chief reformer who "taught his followers the art of concluding

their sense in couplets,"[35] but he retained much of the primitive

freedom, and Prior says that to Dryden belongs the credit of perfecting

the innovation, and the blame of pushing it to excess. Pope went further

than Dryden. When once the change had commenced there was a constant

movement towards uniformity till the utmost verge was reached, and a

fresh reaction began. Bowles, with his fine ear, was a zealous advocate

for diversified harmony, and tuneful strength. He felt that an

occasional break, managed with skill, adds dignity to the couplet, while

the toning down of the final syllables, by sometimes running one verse

into another, is a grateful antidote to the cloying monotony of emphatic

rhymes. Imperfect rhymes offend from the impression they give of

imperfect art, but perfect rhymes softened by the continuous flow of the

pronunciation, are a relief to the ear. As the rhymed sound should be

diminished at intervals, so, at intervals, it may be advantageously

increased by the introduction of triplets. Dryden often used them with

admirable effect;[36] Pope employed them sparingly, and they were almost

entirely laid aside by his immediate imitators. With them the taste for

numerous verse was extinct.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Johnson was mistaken. Pope states in a note that the

addition commenced at ver. 291.]

[Footnote 2:

When actions, unadorned, are faint and weak,

Cities and countries must be taught to speak;

Gods may descend in factions from the skies,

And rivers from their oozy beds arise.]

[Footnote 3: "Denham," says Johnson, "seems to have been, at least among

us, the author of a species of composition that may be denominated

_local poetry_, of which the fundamental subject is some particular

landscape, to be poetically described, with the addition of such

embellishments as may be supplied by historical retrospection or

incidental meditation."]

[Footnote 4: Critics differ. "Nothing," says Warton, "can be colder and

more prosaic than the manner in which Denham has spoken of the distant

prospect of London and St. Paul's."]

[Footnote 5: Singer's Spence, p. 153.]

[Footnote 6: Autobiography of Mrs. Delany, vol. i. p. 20, 82.]

[Footnote 7: Lives of the Poets, ed. Cunningham, vol. ii. p. 307.]

[Footnote 8: Memoires, Col. Michaud, 3rd Series, tom. viii. p. 731;

Bolingbroke's Works, vol. ii. p. 315, Philadelphia, 1841.]

[Footnote 9: Bolingbroke's Works, vol. ii. p. 315, 317, 320. "The sole

question," says Bolingbroke, "is, who caused this disunion?--and that

will be easily decided by every impartial man, who informs himself

carefully of the public anecdotes of that time. If the private anecdotes

were to be laid open as well as those, and I think it almost time they

should, the whole monstrous scene would appear, and shock the eye of

every honest man." The prediction has been fulfilled, and the vaunting

prophet consigned to infamy through the evidence he invoked.]

[Footnote 10: Bolingbroke's Works, vol. i. p. 123.]

[Footnote 11: Bolingbroke's Works, vol. i. p. 124.]

[Footnote 12: Gibber's Apology, 4th ed. vol. ii. p. 11.]

[Footnote 13: Warburton's Pope, ed. 1760, vol. iv. p. 172; Spence, p.

148.]

[Footnote 14: Hurd's Addison, vol. i. p. 299.]

[Footnote 15: Pope related, perhaps truly, that Addison objected to the

phrase "Britons _arise_!" in the Prologue to Cato, and said, "it would

be called stirring the people to rebellion." Warburton holds this

incident to be a proof that Addison "was exceedingly afraid of party

imputations throughout the carriage of the whole affair," as if, because

he did not wish to be considered an instigator to rebellion, it followed

that he shrunk from seeming an advocate for whig principles.]

[Footnote 16: Pope to Caryll, April 30, 1713.]

[Footnote 17: Scott's Life of Swift, p. 139.]

[Footnote 18: Pope to Caryll, May 1, 1714.]

[Footnote 19: Essay on the Genius of Pope, 5th ed. vol. i. p. 29.]

[Footnote 20: Spectator, No. 523.]

[Footnote 21: Pope to Caryll, Nov. 29, 1712.]

[Footnote 22: Spectator, No. 523, Oct. 30, 1712.]

[Footnote 23: Wordsworth's Works, ed. 1836, vol. iii. p. 316.]

[Footnote 24: Epilogue to the Satires; Dialog. 2, ver. 182.]

[Footnote 25: Essay on Criticism, ver. 418.]

[Footnote 26: Pope to Lord Lansdowne, Jan. 10, 1712 [13].]

[Footnote 27: Imitations of Horace, bk. ii. ep. 1, ver. 75.]

[Footnote 28: Oldham's Elegies.]

[Footnote 29: Imitations of Horace, bk. ii. ep. 1, ver. 213.]

[Footnote 30: A Version of the Psalms: Preface.]

[Footnote 31: Evelyn's Diary, vol. ii. p. 27; Pepys's Diary, 4th ed.,

vol. iii. p. 219.]

[Footnote 32: Account of the Life of Cowley, prefixed to his works, ed.

1688]

[Footnote 33: Wordsworth's Works, vol. iii. p. 333.]

[Footnote 34: Prior's Preface to Solomon.]

[Footnote 35: Lives of the Poets, vol. i. p. 77.]

[Footnote 36: Dryden maintains, in his Dedication to the AEneis, that the

triplet, conjoined with the Alexandrine, is "the _magna charta_ of

heroic poetry." "Besides," he says, "the majesty which it gives, it

confines the sense within the barriers of three lines, which would

languish if it were lengthened into four." Johnson, while granting that

the variety arising from triplets was desirable, wished that there

should "be some stated mode of admitting them," in order to prevent

their coming upon the reader by surprise, and to keep up the constancy

of metrical laws. Such a rule would introduce a new species of monotony,

and do away with the benefit which principally recommended triplets to

Dryden. Ideas which were not enough for four lines, and over-much for

two, would not recur at stages fixed beforehand. Swift thought triplets

and Alexandrines "a corruption," and boasted that he had "banished them"

by a triplet in his City Shower. "I absolutely," he adds, "did prevail

with Mr. Pope, and Gay, and Dr. Young, and one or two more to reject

them. Mr. Pope never used them till he translated Homer, which was too

long a work to be so very exact in; and I think in one or two of his

last poems he has, out of laziness, done the same thing, though very

seldom." Swift was mistaken in his assertion that Pope never used

triplets till he translated the Iliad. They occur in the Essay on

Criticism, the Temple of Fame, and other pieces, and not only did these

works appear before the Homer, but they appeared after the triplet in

the City Shower, which Swift flattered himself had banished all triplets

from poetry. Nor had he any need to persuade Young and Gay to reject

them if they had been exploded by his triplet of 1710, for it was two or

three years later before either Young or Gray printed their first

rhymes. They contained, however, triplets in spite of his City Shower,

which had none of the effect he imagined. It merely proved, what no one

doubted, that a metre proper to serious subjects was ludicrous in a

burlesque. Swift's dislike to triplets and Alexandrines was a prejudice,

and he did not pretend to offer any reason for his decree.]

WINDSOR FOREST.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

GEORGE LORD LANSDOWN.[1]

Thy forest, Windsor! and thy green retreats,

At once the monarch's and the muse's seats,[2]

Invite my lays. Be present, sylvan maids!

Unlock your springs, and open all your shades.[3]

Granville commands; your aid, O muses, bring! 5

What muse for Granville can refuse to sing?[4]

The groves of Eden, vanished now so long,

Live in description,[5] and look green in song:

These, were my breast inspired with equal flame,[6]

Like them in beauty, should be like in fame.[7] 10

Here hills and vales, the woodland and the plain,

Here earth and water, seem to strive again;

Not chaos-like together crushed and bruised,

But, as the world, harmoniously confused:[8]

Where order in variety we see, 15

And where, though all things differ, all agree.[9]

Here waving groves a chequered scene display,

And part admit, and part exclude the day;

As some coy nymph her lover's warm address

Nor quite indulges, nor can quite repress.[10] 20

There, interspersed in lawns and opening glades,

Thin trees arise that shun each other's shades.

Here in full light the russet plains extend:

There wrapt in clouds the blueish hills ascend.

Ev'n the wild heath displays her purple dyes,[11] 25

And 'midst the desert fruitful fields arise,

That crowned with tufted trees[12] and springing corn,

Like verdant isles the sable waste adorn.

Let India boast her plants, nor envy we

The weeping amber, or the balmy tree,[13] 30

While by our oaks the precious loads are borne,

And realms commanded which those trees adorn.

Not proud Olympus yields a nobler sight,

Though gods assembled grace his tow'ring height,[14]

Than what more humble mountains offer here, 35

Where, in their blessings, all those gods appear.[15]

See Pan with flocks, with fruits Pomona crowned,[16]

Here blushing Flora paints th' enamelled ground,

Here Ceres' gifts in waving prospect stand,

And nodding tempt the joyful reaper's hand; 40

Rich Industry sits smiling on the plains,

And peace and plenty tell, a STUART reigns.

Not thus the land appeared in ages past,

A dreary desert and a gloomy waste,[17]

To savage beasts and savage laws a prey,[18] 45

And kings more furious and severe than they;[19]

Who claimed the skies, dispeopled air and floods,

The lonely lords of empty wilds and woods:[20]

Cities laid waste, they stormed the dens and caves,

(For wiser brutes were backward to be slaves.)[21] 50

What could be free, when lawless beasts obeyed,[22]

And ev'n the elements[23] a tyrant swayed?

In vain kind seasons swelled the teeming grain,

Soft show'rs distilled, and suns grew warm in vain;

The swain with tears his frustrate labour yields,[24] 55

And famished dies amidst his ripened fields.[25]

What wonder then, a beast or subject slain[26]

Were equal crimes in a despotic reign?

Both doomed alike, for sportive tyrants bled,

But while the subject starved, the beast was fed. 60

Proud Nimrod first the bloody chace began,

A mighty hunter, and his prey was man:

Our haughty Norman boasts that barb'rous name,

And makes his trembling slaves the royal game.

The fields are ravished from th' industrious swains, 65

From men their cities, and from gods their fanes:[27]

The levelled towns[28] with weeds lie covered o'er;[29]

The hollow winds through naked temples roar;[30]

Round broken columns clasping ivy twined;

O'er heaps of ruin stalked the stately hind;[31] 70

The fox obscene to gaping tombs retires,

And savage howlings[32] fill the sacred choirs.[33]

Awed by his nobles, by his commons curst,

Th' oppressor ruled tyrannic where he durst,[34]

Stretched o'er the poor and church his iron rod, 75

And served alike his vassals and his God.[35]

Whom ev'n the Saxon spared, and bloody Dane,

The wanton victims of his sport remain.

But see, the man, who spacious regions gave

A waste for beasts, himself denied a grave![36] 80

Stretched on the lawn[37] his second hope survey,[38]

At once the chaser, and at once the prey:[39]

Lo Rufus, tugging at the deadly dart,

Bleeds in the forest like a wounded hart.[40]

Succeeding monarchs heard the subject's cries, 85

Nor saw displeased the peaceful cottage rise.[41]

Then gath'ring flocks on unknown[42] mountains fed,

O'er sandy wilds were yellow harvests spread,

The forest wondered at th' unusual grain,[43]

And secret transport touched the conscious swain.[44] 90

Fair Liberty, Britannia's goddess, rears

Her cheerful head, and leads the golden years.[45]

Ye vig'rous swains! while youth ferments your blood,

And purer spirits swell the sprightly flood,[46] 95

Now range the hills, the gameful[47] woods beset,

Wind the shrill horn, or spread the waving net.

When milder autumn summer's heat succeeds,[48]

And in the new-shorn field the partridge feeds,

Before his lord the ready spaniel bounds,

Panting with hope, he tries the furrowed grounds; 100

But when the tainted gales the game betray,

Couched close he lies, and meditates the prey;[49]

Secure they trust th' unfaithful field beset,

Till hov'ring o'er them sweeps the swelling net.

Thus (if small things we may with great compare)[50] 105

When Albion sends her eager sons to war,

Some thoughtless town, with ease and plenty blest,[51]

Near, and more near, the closing lines invest;

Sudden they seize th' amazed, defenceless prize,

And high in air Britannia's standard flies. 110

See! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs,

And mounts exulting on triumphant wings:[52]

Short is his joy; he feels the fiery wound,

Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground.

Ah! what avail his glossy, varying dyes,[53] 115

His purple crest, and scarlet-circled eyes,

The vivid green his shining plumes unfold,

His painted wings,[54] and breast that flames with gold?

Nor yet, when moist Arcturus clouds the sky,

The woods and fields their pleasing toils deny.[55] 120

To plains with well-breathed beagles we repair,

And trace the mazes of the circling hare:

Beasts, urged by us, their fellow-beasts pursue,

And learn of man each other to undo.[56]

With slaught'ring guns th' unwearied fowler roves, 125

When frosts have whitened all the naked groves;[57]

Where doves in flocks the leafless trees o'ershade,[58]

And lonely woodcocks haunt the wat'ry glade.

He lifts the tube, and levels with his eye;[59]

Straight a short thunder breaks the frozen sky: 130

Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath,

The clam'rous lapwings feel the leaden death:

Oft, as the mounting larks their notes prepare,

They fall, and leave their little lives in air.[60]

In genial spring, beneath the quiv'ring shade, 135

Where cooling vapours breathe along the mead,

The patient fisher takes his silent stand,

Intent, his angle trembling in his hand:[61]

With looks unmoved, he hopes[62] the scaly breed,

And eyes the dancing cork, and bending reed. 140

Our plenteous streams a various race supply,

The bright-eyed perch with fins of Tyrian dye,

The silver eel, in shining volumes[63] rolled,

The yellow carp, in scales bedropped with gold,[64]

Swift trouts, diversified with crimson stains, 145

And pikes, the tyrants of the wat'ry plains.[65]

Now Cancer glows with Phoebus' fiery car:[66]

The youth rush eager to the sylvan war,[67]

Swarm o'er the lawns, the forest walks surround,

Rouse the fleet hart, and cheer the opening hound. 150

Th' impatient courser pants in ev'ry vein,

And pawing, seems to beat the distant plain.

Hills, vales, and floods appear already crossed,

And ere he starts, a thousand steps are lost.[68]

See the bold youth strain up the threat'ning[69] steep, 155

Rush through the thickets, down the valleys sweep,

Hang o'er their coursers' heads with eager speed,

And earth rolls back beneath the flying steed.[70]

Let old Arcadia boast her ample plain,

Th' immortal huntress, and her virgin-train; 160

Nor envy, Windsor! since thy shades have seen

As bright a goddess, and as chaste a queen;[71]

Whose care, like hers, protects the sylvan reign,[72]

The earth's fair light, and empress of the main.[73]

Here too, 'tis sung, of old Diana strayed, 165

And Cynthus' top forsook for Windsor shade:

Here was she seen o'er airy wastes to rove,

Seek the clear spring, or haunt the pathless grove;[74]

Here armed with silver bows, in early dawn,

Her buskined virgins traced the dewy lawn. 170

Above the rest a rural nymph was famed,[75]

Thy offspring, Thames! the fair Lodona named;

(Lodona's fate, in long oblivion cast,

The muse shall sing, and what she sings shall last.)

Scarce could the goddess from her nymph be known, 175

But by the crescent and the golden zone.[76]

She scorned the praise of beauty, and the care;

A belt her waist, a fillet binds her hair;[77]

A painted quiver on her shoulder sounds,[78]

And with her dart the flying deer she wounds. 180

It chanced, as eager of the chace, the maid

Beyond the forest's verdant limits strayed,

Pan saw and loved, and burning with desire[79]

Pursued her flight, her flight increased his fire.

Not half so swift the trembling doves can fly, 185

When the fierce eagle cleaves the liquid sky;

Not half so swiftly the fierce eagle moves,

When through the clouds he drives the trembling doves,[80]

As from the god she flew with furious pace,

Or as the god, more furious urged the chace.[81] 190

Now fainting, sinking, pale, the nymph appears;

Now close behind, his sounding steps she hears;

And now his shadow reached her as she run,[82]

His shadow lengthened by the setting sun;

And now his shorter breath, with sultry air, 195

Pants on her neck, and fans her parting hair.[83]

In vain on father Thames she calls for aid,

Nor could Diana help her injured maid.

Faint, breathless, thus she prayed, nor prayed in vain;

"Ah Cynthia! ah--though banished from thy train, 200

Let me, O let me, to the shades repair,

My natives shades--there weep, and murmur there."

She said, and melting as in tears she lay,

In a soft, silver stream dissolved away.

The silver stream her virgin coldness keeps, 205

For ever murmurs, and for ever weeps;

Still bears the name the hapless virgin bore,[84]

And bathes the forest where she ranged before.

In her chaste current oft the goddess laves,

And with celestial tears augments the waves.[85] 210

Oft in her glass the musing shepherd spies[86]

The headlong mountains and the downward skies,[87]

The wat'ry landscape of the pendant woods,

And absent[88] trees that tremble in the floods;

In the clear azure gleam the flocks are seen, 215

And floating forests paint the waves with green,

Through the fair scene roll slow the ling'ring streams,

Then foaming pour along, and rush into the Thames.

Thou too, great father of the British floods!

With joyful pride survey'st our lofty woods; 220

Where tow'ring oaks their growing[89] honours rear,

And future navies on thy shores appear.

Not Neptune's self from all his[90] streams receives

A wealthier tribute than to thine he gives.

No seas so rich, so gay no banks appear,[91] 225

No lake so gentle, and no spring so clear.

Nor Po[92] so swells the fabling poet's lays,[93]

While led along the skies his current strays,[94]

As thine,[95] which visits Windsor's famed abodes,

To grace the mansion of our earthly gods: 230

Nor all his stars above a lustre show,

Like the bright beauties on thy banks below;[96]

Where Jove, subdued by mortal passion still,

Might change Olympus for a nobler hill.

Happy the man whom this bright court approves,[97] 235

His sov'reign favours, and his country loves:[98]

Happy next him, who to these shades retires,

Whom nature charms, and whom the muse inspires:

Whom humbler joys of home-felt quiet please,

Successive study, exercise, and ease. 240

He gathers health from herbs the forest yields,

And of their fragrant physic spoils the fields:

With chemic art exalts the min'ral pow'rs,

And draws the aromatic souls of flow'rs:

Now marks the course of rolling orbs on high; 245

O'er figured worlds now travels with his eye;

Of ancient writ unlocks the learned store,

Consults the dead, and lives past ages o'er:

Or wand'ring thoughtful in the silent wood,

Attends the duties of the wise and good,[99] 250

T' observe a mean, be to himself a friend,

To follow nature, and regard his end;[100]

Or looks on heav'n with more than mortal eyes,

Bids his free soul expatiate in the skies,

Amid her kindred stars familiar roam, 255

Survey the region, and confess her home!

Such was the life great Scipio once admired,

Thus Atticus, and Trumbull thus retired.

Ye sacred Nine! that all my soul possess,

Whose raptures fire me, and whose visions bless,[101] 260

Bear me, oh bear me to sequestered scenes,

The bow'ry mazes, and surrounding greens;[102]

To Thames's banks which fragrant breezes fill,

Or where ye Muses sport on Cooper's Hill.

On Cooper's Hill eternal wreaths shall grow 265

While lasts the mountain,[103] or while Thames shall flow.

I seem through consecrated walks to rove,[104]

I hear soft music die along the grove:

Led by the sound, I roam from shade to shade,

By god-like poets venerable made:[105] 270

Here his first lays[106] majestic[107] Denham sung;

There the last numbers flowed from Cowley's tongue.[108]

O early lost![109] what tears the river shed,[110]

When the sad pomp along his banks was led![111]

His drooping swans on ev'ry note expire,[112] 275

And on his willows hung each muse's lyre.[113]

Since fate relentless stopped their heav'nly voice,

No more the forests ring, or groves rejoice;

Who now shall charm the shades, where Cowley strung

His living[114] harp, and lofty Denham sung? 280

But hark! the groves rejoice, the forest rings!

Are these reviv'd? or is it Granville sings![115]

'Tis yours, my lord, to bless our soft retreats,

And call the muses to their ancient seats;

To paint anew the flow'ry sylvan scenes, 285

To crown the forests with immortal greens,

Make Windsor-hills in lofty numbers rise,

And lift her turrets nearer to the skies;

To sing those honours you deserve to wear,[116]

And add new lustre to her silver star.[117] 290

Here[118] noble Surrey[119] felt the sacred rage,

Surrey, the Granville of a former age:

Matchless his pen, victorious was his lance,

Bold in the lists, and graceful in the dance:

In the same shades the Cupids tuned his lyre 295

To the same notes of love, and soft desire:

Fair Geraldine,[120] bright object of his vow,

Then filled the groves, as heavenly Mira now.[121]

Oh would'st thou sing what heroes Windsor bore,

What kings first breathed upon her winding shore, 300

Or raise old warriors, whose adored remains

In weeping vaults her hallowed earth contains![122]

With Edward's acts adorn the shining page,[123]

Stretch his long triumphs down through ev'ry age,

Draw monarchs chained,[124] and Crecy's glorious field, 305

The lilies[125] blazing on the regal shield:[126]

Then, from her roofs when Verrio's[127] colours fall,

And leave inanimate the naked wall,

Still in thy song should vanquished France appear,

And bleed for ever under Britain's spear.[128] 310

Let softer strains ill-fated Henry[129] mourn,

And palms eternal flourish round his urn.

Here o'er the martyr-king the marble weeps,

And, fast beside him, once-feared Edward[130] sleeps:

Whom not th' extended Albion could contain, 315

From old Belerium[131] to the northern main,[132]

The grave unites; where ev'n the great find rest,

And blended lie th' oppressor and th' oppressed!

Make sacred Charles's tomb for ever known,[133]

(Obscure the place, and uninscribed the stone)[134] 320

Oh fact accurst! what tears has Albion shed,[135]

Heav'ns, what new wounds! and how her old have bled!

She saw her sons with purple death expire,

Her sacred domes involved in rolling fire,[136]

A dreadful series of intestine wars, 325

Inglorious triumphs and dishonest scars.[137]

At length great ANNA said--"Let discord cease!"[138]

She said, the world obeyed, and all was peace!

In that blest moment, from his oozy bed

Old father Thames advanced his rev'rend head;[139] 330

His tresses dropped with dews,[140] and o'er the stream[141]

His shining horns[142] diffused a golden gleam;

Graved on his urn, appeared the moon that guides

His swelling waters, and alternate tides;

The figured streams in waves of silver rolled, 335

And on their banks Augusta[143] rose in gold.

Around his throne the sea-born brothers[144] stood,

Who swell with tributary urns his flood:

First the famed authors of his ancient name,[145]

The winding Isis and the fruitful Thame;[146] 340

The Kennet swift, for silver eels renowned;[147]

The Loddon slow, with verdant alders crowned;[148]

Cole, whose dark streams his flow'ry islands lave;

And chalky Wey,[149] that rolls a milky wave:

The blue, transparent Vandalis[150] appears; 345

The gulphy Lee his sedgy tresses rears;[151]

And sullen Mole, that hides his diving flood;[152]

And silent Darent, stained with Danish blood.[153]

High in the midst, upon his urn reclined,

(His sea-green mantle waving with the wind)[154] 350

The god appeared: he turned his azure eyes

Where Windsor-domes and pompous turrets rise;

Then bowed and spoke;[155] the winds forget to roar,

And the hushed waves glide softly to the shore.[156]

"Hail, sacred Peace! hail, long-expected days, 355

That Thames's glory to the stars shall raise!

Though Tiber's streams immortal Rome behold,

Though foaming Hermus swells with tides of gold,[157]

From heav'n itself though sevenfold Nilus flows,

And harvests on a hundred realms bestows,[158] 360

These now no more shall be the muse's themes,

Lost in my fame, as in the sea their streams.

Let Volga's banks with iron squadrons shine,[159]

And groves of lances glitter on the Rhine;

Let barb'rous Ganges arm a servile train; 365

Be mine the blessings of a peaceful reign.

No more my sons shall dye with British blood

Red Iber's sands, or Ister's foaming flood:[160]

Safe on my shore each unmolested swain

Shall tend the flocks, or reap the bearded grain; 370

The shady empire shall retain no trace[161]

Of war or blood, but in the sylvan chace;

The trumpet sleep while cheerful horns are blown,

And arms employed on birds and beasts alone.[162]

Behold! th' ascending villas on my side, 375

Project long shadows o'er the crystal tide;

Behold! Augusta's glitt'ring spires increase,

And temples rise,[163] the beauteous works of peace.

I see, I see, where two fair cities bend

Their ample bow, a new Whitehall ascend![164] 380

There mighty nations shall inquire their doom,

The world's great oracle in times to come;[165]

There kings shall sue, and suppliant states be seen

Once more to bend before a British Queen.[166]

Thy trees, fair Windsor![167] now shall leave their woods,[168]

And half thy forests rush into thy floods,[169] 386

Bear Britain's thunder, and her cross[170] display,

To the bright regions of the rising day;[171]

Tempt icy seas,[172] where scarce the waters roll,

Where clearer flames glow round the frozen pole; 390

Or under southern skies exalt[173] their sails,

Led by new stars, and borne by spicy gales![174]

For me the balm shall bleed, and amber flow,

The coral redden, and the ruby glow,

The pearly shell its lucid globe infold, 395

And Phoebus warm the ripening ore to gold.[175]

The time shall come, when, free as seas or wind,[176]

Unbounded Thames shall flow for all mankind,[177]

Whole nations enter with each swelling tide,

And seas but join the regions they divide;[178] 400

Earth's distant ends our glory shall behold,

And the new world launch forth to seek the old.

Then ships of uncouth form shall stem the tide,

And feathered people crowd my wealthy side,

And naked youths[179] and painted chiefs admire[180] 405

Our speech, our colour, and our strange attire.

Oh stretch thy reign, fair Peace! from shore to shore,

Till conquest cease, and slav'ry be no more;

Till the freed Indians in their native groves

Reap their own fruits, and woo their sable loves, 410

Peru once more a race of kings behold,

And other Mexicos be roofed with gold.[181]

Exiled by thee from earth to deepest hell,

In brazen bonds,[182] shall barb'rous Discord dwell:

Gigantic Pride, pale Terror, gloomy Care, 415

And mad Ambition shall attend her there:

There purple Vengeance bathed in gore retires,

Her weapons blunted, and extinct her fires:

There hateful Envy her own snakes shall feel,

And Persecution mourn her broken wheel: 420

There Faction roar, Rebellion bite her chain,[183]

And gasping Furies thirst for blood in vain."

Here cease thy flight, nor with unhallowed lays

Touch the fair fame of Albion's golden days:

The thoughts of gods let Granville's verse recite, 425

And bring the scenes of opening fate to light.[184]

My humble muse, in unambitious strains,

Paints the green forests and the flow'ry plains,[185]

Where Peace descending bids her olive spring,

And scatters blessings from her dove-like wing. 430

Ev'n I more sweetly pass my careless days,

Pleased in the silent shade with empty praise;

Enough for me, that to the list'ning swains

First in these fields I sung the sylvan strains.[186]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Notwithstanding the many praises lavished on this

celebrated nobleman as a poet, by Dryden, by Addison, by Bolingbroke, by

our Author, and others, yet candid criticism must oblige us to confess,

that he was but a feeble imitator of the feeblest parts of Waller. After

having been secretary at war, 1710, controller and treasurer to the

household, and of her majesty's privy council, and created a peer, 1711,

he was seized as a suspected person, at the accession of George I., and

confined in the Tower. Whatever may be thought of Lord Lansdowne as a

poet, his character as a man was highly valuable. His conversation was

most pleasing and polite; his affability, and universal benevolence, and

gentleness, captivating; he was a firm friend and a sincere lover of his

country. This is the character I received of him from his near relation,

the late excellent Mrs. Delany.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 2: Thus Hopkins, in his History of Love:

Ye woods and wilds, serene and blest retreats,

At once the lovers' and the Muses' seats

To you I fly.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 3: Originally thus:

Chaste goddess of the woods,

Nymphs of the vales, and Naiads of the flood,

Lead me through arching bow'rs, and glimin'ring glades,

Unlock your springs.--POPE.

Dryden's Virgil, Geor. ii. 245:

Once more unlock for thee the sacred spring.

AEn. x. 241:

Now, sacred sisters, open all your spring.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 4: Neget quis carmina Gallo? Virg.--WARBURTON.]

[Footnote 5: Evidently suggested by Waller:

Of the first Paradise there's nothing found,

Yet the description lasts.--HOLT WHITE.

Addison's Letter from Italy:

Sometimes misguided by the tuneful throng,

I look for streams immortalised in song,

That lost in silence and oblivion lie;

Dumb are their fountains, and their channels dry;

Yet run for ever by the muse's skill,

And in the smooth description murmur still.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 6: There is an inaccuracy in making the flame equal to a

grove. It might have been Milton's flame.--WARTON.

Addison's Letter from Italy:

O, could the muse my ravished breast inspire

With warmth like yours, and raise an equal fire.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 7: This is borrowed from the lines, quoted by Bowles, in which

Denham alludes to the founder of Windsor Castle being as doubtful as was

the birth-place of Homer:

Like him in birth, thou should'st be like in fame,

As thine his fate, if mine had been his flame.]

[Footnote 8: From Waller:

As in old chaos heav'n with earth confused,

And stars with rocks together crushed and bruised.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 9: Evidently from Cooper's Hill:

Here Nature, whether more intent to please

Us, or herself, with strange varieties,

Wisely she knew the harmony of things,

As well as that of sounds, from discord springs.

Such was the discord which did first disperse

Form, order, beauty through the universe.--WARTON.

[Footnote 10: There is a levity in this comparison which appears to me

unseasonable, and but ill according with the serene dignity of the

subject.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 11: Originally thus:

Why should I sing our better suns or air,

Whose vital draughts prevent the leech's care,

While through fresh fields th' enlivening odours breathe,

Or spread with vernal blooms the purple heath?--POPE.

The first couplet of the lines in Pope's note, was from Dryden's epistle

to his kinsman:

He scapes the best, who, nature to repair,

Draws physic from the fields, in draughts of vital air.]

[Footnote 12: Milton's Allegro, ver. 78:

Bosomed high in tufted trees.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 13: Milton, Par. Lost, iv. 248:

Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balms.

This fancy was borrowed from the ancients. According to Ovid (Met. x.

500), Myrrha, changed into a tree, weeps myrrh, and the sisters of

Phaeton (Met. ii. 364), transformed into poplars, shed tears which harden

in the sun, and turn into amber.]

[Footnote 14: This fabulous mixture of stale images, Olympus and the

Gods, is, in my opinion, extremely puerile, especially in a description

of real scenery. Pan, Pomona, and the rest, mere representative

substitutions, give no offence.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 15: The making the hills nobler than Olympus with all its

gods, because the gods appeared "in their blessings" on the humbler

mountains of Windsor, is a thought only to be excused in a very young

writer.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 16: The word "crowned" is exceptionable; it makes Pan crowned

with flocks.--WARTON.

Pope, in his manuscript, has underscored "Pan with flocks," and

"crowned," and set a mark against the line, as if he had detected, and

intended to remove, the defect.]

[Footnote 17: Dryden's Translations from Ovid:

A dismal desert, and a silent waste.

Pope weakened the line in varying it. "Dreary desert" and "gloomy waste"

are synonymous, but "silent" adds a distinct idea to "dismal."]

[Footnote 18: The Forest Laws.--POPE.

The killing a deer, boar, or hare, was punished with the loss of the

delinquent's eyes.--WARTON.

Thierry believes that the forest laws had a more serious object than to

secure for the king a monopoly of sport. The chief intention was to keep

the newly conquered Saxons from going armed under the pretext that they

were in pursuit of game. Hence the penalty was of a nature to

incapacitate the offender for military service.]

[Footnote 19: This is in imitation of Waller:

Prove all a desert! and none there make stay

But savage beasts, or men as wild as they.--WAKEFIELD.

Sir William Temple says of the forests on the continent that they

give a shade

To savage beasts who on the weaker prey,

Or human savages more wild than they.

Wakefield remarks that there is an inaccuracy in Pope's couplet, since

the "savage laws" to which the pronoun "they" in part refers, were the

mode in which the severity of the king displayed itself.]

[Footnote 20: The representation is erroneous. The "air, floods, and

wilds" were not "dispeopled." The forest laws occasioned an increase in

the quantity of game, which was preserved more carefully when it became

the property of the privileged few, and was no longer liable to be

exterminated by the many. Pope is not consistent with himself, for he

afterwards complains that "while the subject starved the _beast_ was

_fed_."]

[Footnote 21: Originally thus in the MS.:

From towns laid waste, to dens and caves they ran

(For who first stooped to be a slave was man).--WARBURTON.

The conceit is childish, because dens and caves are the residence of

these brutes at all times, and therefore their retreat to these places

constitutes no argument of their aversion to slavery. And the following

couplet is by no means worthy of the poet.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 22: According to this doctrine no nation can lie free in which

lawless beasts are subjugated by man.]

[Footnote 23: Pope puts "the elements" for the creatures which inhabited

them.]

[Footnote 24: In the first edition it was,

The swain with tears to beasts his labour yields,

which defined the poet's idea more clearly. He changed the expression to

avoid the recurrence of the same word when he introduced "beast" into

the next couplet.]

[Footnote 25: Addison's Letter from Italy:

The poor inhabitant beholds in vain

The reddening orange, and the swelling grain:

Joyless he sees the growing oils and wines,

And in the myrtle's fragrant shade repines:

Starves, in the midst of nature's bounty curst,

And in the loaden vineyard dies for thirst.--HOLT WHITE.

This passage, which describes the misery entailed upon the Italian

peasants by an oppressive government, plainly suggested the lines of

Pope. The death from thirst, which Addison adds to the death from

starvation, is too great an exaggeration. Water could always be had.]

[Footnote 26:

No wonder savages or subjects slain--

But subjects starved, while savages were fed.

It was originally thus, but the word "savages" is not properly applied

to beasts, but to men; which occasioned the alteration.--POPE.]

[Footnote 27: Translated from

Templa adimit divis, fora civibus, arva colonis,

an old monkish writer, I forget who.--POPE.]

[Footnote 28: Alluding to the destruction made in the New Forest, and

the tyrannies exercised there by William I.--POPE.

I have the authority of three or four of our best antiquarians to say,

that the common tradition of villages and parishes, within the compass

of thirty miles, being destroyed, in the New Forest, is absolutely

groundless, no traces or vestiges of such being to be discovered, nor

any other parish named in Doomsday Book, but what now remains.--WARTON.

The argument from Doomsday Book is of no weight if, as Lingard asserts,

the New Forest was formed before the registration took place. William

was an eager sportsman. "He loved the beasts of chase," says the Saxon

chronicle, "as if he had been their father," and the source of his love

was the pleasure he took in killing them. His hunting grounds, however,

were ample without the New Forest, and Thierry thinks that his motive in

forming it may have been political. The wooded district, denuded of a

hostile population, and stretching to the sea, would have afforded

shelter to the Normans in the event of a reverse, and enabled them to

disembark in safety.]

[Footnote 29: Addison's Campaign:

O'er prostrate towns and palaces they pass,

Now covered o'er with weeds, and hid in grass.]

[Footnote 30: Donne, in his second Satire,

When winds in our ruined abbeys roar.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 31: It is a blemish in this fine passage that a couplet in the

past tense should be interposed for the sake of the rhyme, in the midst

of a description in the present tense.]

[Footnote 32: Originally:

And wolves with howling fill, &c.

The author thought this an error, wolves not being common in England at

the time of the Conqueror.--POPE.]

[Footnote 33: "The temples," "broken columns," and "choirs," of the

poet, suppose a much statelier architecture than belonged to the rude

village churches of the Saxons. With the same exaggeration the hamlets

which stood on the site of the New Forest are converted by Pope into

"cities," and "towns."]

[Footnote 34: William did not confine his oppression to the weak and

succumb to the strong. The statement that he was "awed by his nobles" is

opposed to the contemporary testimony of the Saxon chronicle. "No man,"

says the writer, "durst do anything against his will; he had earls in

his bonds who had done against his will, and at last he did not spare

his own brother, Odo; him he set in prison." "His rich men moaned," says

the chronicler again, "and the poor men murmured, but he was so hard

that he recked not the hatred of them all."]

[Footnote 35: The language is too strong. "When his power or interest

was concerned," says Lingard, "William listened to no suggestions but

those of ambition or avarice, but on other occasions he displayed a

strong sense of religion, and a profound respect for its institutions."

While resisting ecclesiastical usurpation, and depriving individuals who

were disaffected or incompetent, of their preferment, he upheld the

church and its dignitaries, and left both in a more exalted position

than he found them.]

[Footnote 36: It is incorrect to say that William was denied a grave. As

his body was about to be lowered into the vault in the church of St.

Stephen, which he had founded at Caen, a person named Fitz-Arthur

forbade the burial, on the plea that the land had been taken by violence

from his father, but the prelates having paid him sixty shillings on the

spot, and promised him further compensation, the ceremony was allowed to

proceed.]

[Footnote 37: "An open space between woods," is Johnson's definition of

"lawn," which is the meaning here, and at ver. 21 and 149. The term has

since been appropriated to the dressed green-sward in gardens.]

[Footnote 38: Richard, second son of William the Conqueror.--POPE.

Richard is said by some to have been killed by a stag in the New Forest,

by others to have been crushed against a tree by his horse.]

[Footnote 39: This verse is taken from one of Denham's in his

translation of the Second AEneis:

At once the taker, and at once the prey.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 40: The oak under which Rufus was shot, was standing till

within these few years.--BOWLES.

A stone pillar now marks the spot.--CROKER.]

[Footnote 41: In the New Forest, where the cottages had been swept away

by William. "Succeeding monarchs" did not, as Pope implies, suffer

encroachments on the forest out of pity for their subjects. The

concession was extorted. Some of the provisions of Magna Charta were

directed against the increase of the royal forests and against the "evil

customs" maintained with respect to them.]

[Footnote 42: Mountains hitherto unknown to the flocks, who were now for

the first time permitted to feed there.]

[Footnote 43:

Miraturque novas frondes et non sua poma. Virg.--WARBURTON.

Virgil is treating of grafts, and says that the parent stock, when the

slips grow, wonders at leaves and fruit not its own. Here the

imagination keeps pace with the description, but stops short before the

notion that the trees in the forest wondered to behold the crops of

corn.]

[Footnote 44: He doubtless had in his eye, Vir. AEn. i. 506:

Latonae tacitum pertentant gaudia pectus.--WAKEFIELD.

Dryden's translation:

And feeds with secret joy her silent breast.

In Virgil the silent exultation is felt by a mother, who, in an assembly

of nymphs, marks the superior beauty of her goddess daughter. There was

not the same reason why the swain should keep secret the transport he

felt at the sight of wheat fields.]

[Footnote 45: Originally:

O may no more a foreign master's rage,

With wrongs yet legal, curse a future age!

Still spread, fair liberty! thy heav'nly wings,

Breathe plenty on the fields, and fragrance on the springs.--POPE.

The last couplet was suggested by Addison's Letter to Lord Halifax:

O Liberty, thou goddess heav'nly bright,

Profuse of bliss, and pregnant with delight!

Eternal pleasures in thy presence reign,

And smiling plenty leads thy wanton train.]

[Footnote 46: Addison's Campaign:

Their courage dwells not in a troubled flood

Of mounting spirits, and fermenting blood.

[Footnote 47: "Thickest woods" till Warburton's edition. The epithet

"gameful," to express that the woods were full of game, seems to be

peculiar to Pope.]

[Footnote 48: Originally:

When yellow autumn summer's heat succeeds,

And into wine the purple harvest bleeds,

The partridge feeding in the new-shorn fields,

Both morning sports and evening pleasures yields.--POPE.

Richardson transcribes from the margin of Pope's MS. "Qu. if allowable

to describe the season by a circumstance not proper to our climate, the

vintage?" And the line which speaks of the making of wine was no doubt

altered to obviate this objection.]

[Footnote 49: Dryden's Sigismonda and Guiscardo:

Watchful to betray

With inward rage he meditates his prey.--HOLT WHITE.]

[Footnote 50: From Virgil, Geo. iv. 176:

si parra licet componere magnis.

If little things with great we may compare. Dryden.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 51: It stood thus in the first editions:

Pleased in the general's sight, the host lie down

Sudden before some unsuspecting town;

The young, the old, one instant make our prize,

And o'er their captive heads Britannia's standard flies.--WARBURTON.

Pope, as Wakefield observes, has joined together in the simile in the

text the inconsistent notions of a town surprised, and a town taken by

the regular approaches of a siege. "The passage," adds Wakefield, "as it

originally stood was free from this heterogeneous intermixture, and by a

little polish might have been made superior to the present reading."]

[Footnote 52: Richardson gives a more descriptive line from the

manuscript:

Exults in air and plies his whistling wings.

The poet doubtless substituted the later version, because the expression

"whirring pheasant" conveyed the same idea as "whistling wings."]

[Footnote 53: This fine apostrophe was probably suggested by that of

Virgil on the ox dying of the plague:

Now what avails his well-deserving toil. Dryden.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 54: Steevens quotes Pictaeque volucres. Virg. Painted birds.

Dryden.--BOWLES.

Pope probably took the phrase from Paradise Lost, where the birds are

described as spreading "their painted wings." In transferring the

expression he overlooked the fact that the wings are not the part of the

pheasant to which the epithet "painted" is especially applicable.]

[Footnote 55: Originally thus:

When hoary-winter clothes the years in white,

The woods and fields to pleasing toils invite.--POPE.]

[Footnote 56: The reflection is misplaced; for dogs by nature chase

hares, and man avails himself of their instinctive propensities.]

[Footnote 57: Originally:

O'er rustling leaves around the naked groves.--WARBURTON.

This is a better line.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 58: Wakefield understood Pope to mean that the trees shaded

the doves, and he objected that leafless trees could not properly be

said to overshadow. Steevens pointed out that it was the doves, on the

contrary, which overshadowed the trees, by alighting on them in flocks.

The ambiguity was caused by Pope's bad and inveterate habit of putting

the accusative case before the verb.]

[Footnote 59:

The fowler lifts his levelled tube on high.--POPE.

He owed the line in the text to Dryden's Virgil, Geor. ii. 774.

And bends his bow, and levels with his eyes.

"Tube" is an affected term for a gun, but the word is adopted by Cowper

and Campbell. Thomson, in his lines on partridge-shooting, was not

afraid to call the gun by its own name, and yet is more poetical than

Cowper, Campbell, or Pope:

the gun

Glanced just and sudden from the fowler's eye,

O'ertakes their sounding pinions.

The last expression is nobly descriptive.]

[Footnote 60:

Praecipites alta vitam sub nube relinquunt. Virg.--WARBURTON.

So before Pope, Philips in his Cider:

----they leave their little lives above the clouds.--STEEVENS.

[Footnote 61: It is singular, that in a poem on a forest, the majestic

oak, the deer, and many other interesting and characteristic

circumstances, should be all thrown in the distant ground, whilst

objects much less appropriate, the fisher, the fowler, &c. are brought

forward.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 62: The active use of the word hope, though authorised by

Dryden, appears to my taste intolerably harsh and affected.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 63: "Volume," except in its application to books, now carries

with it an idea of magnitude. In Pope's day it was still used in its

strictly etymological sense. When Milton, in his personification of Sin

(Par. Lost, ii. 651), says that she

ended foul in many a scaly fold

Voluminous and vast,

"voluminous" is the synonym for "many a scaly fold," and not for the

conjoint epithet "vast."]

[Footnote 64: Wakefield points out that Pope borrowed the language from

Lauderdale's translation of the fourth Georgic, where he says of the

bees that they are "bedropped with gold," or from Milton's description

of the fish, which

sporting with quick glance

Show to the sun their waved coats dropt with gold.]

[Footnote 65: "The wat'ry plain" from the _campi liquentes_ of Virgil,

is an expression of Dryden's in his translation of Ovid, Met. i., and

elsewhere. Drayton in his Polyolbion has the tyrant pike.--WAKEFIELD.

"The luce, or pike," says Walton, "is the tyrant of the fresh waters."]

[Footnote 66: Originally thus:

But when bright Phoebus from the twins invites

Our active genius to more free delights,

With springing day we range the lawns around.--POPE.]

[Footnote 67: "Sylvan _war_," is an expression borrowed from writers who

described the chase of ferocious beasts,--the lion, tiger, and boar. The

language is inapplicable to the pursuit of such timid creatures as the

hare, deer, and fox.]

[Footnote 68: Translated from Statius.

Stare adeo miserum est, pereunt vestigia mille

Ante fugam, absentemque ferit gravis ungula campum.

These lines Mr. Dryden, in his preface to his translation of Fresnoy's

Art of Painting, calls wonderfully fine, and says "they would cost him

an hour, if he had the leisure, to translate them, there is so much of

beauty in the original," which was the reason, I suppose, why Mr. Pope

tried his strength with them.--WARBURTON.]

[Footnote 69: "Threatening" is an inappropriate epithet for the sloping

hills up which the hunters rode in the neighbourhood of Windsor.]

[Footnote 70: Instead of this couplet, Pope had written in his early

manuscript,

They stretch, they sweat, they glow, they shout around;

Heav'n trembles, roar the mountains, thunders all the ground.

He was betrayed into this bombast, which his better taste rejected, by

the attempt to carry on the hyperbolical strain of Statius.]

[Footnote 71: Queen Anne.--WARBURTON.

Congreve's Prologue to the Queen:

For never was in Rome nor Athens seen

So fair a circle, and so bright a queen.]

[Footnote 72: This use of the word "reign" for the territory ruled over,

instead of for the sway of the ruler, was always uncommon, and is now

obsolete. Queen Anne is mentioned in connection with the chase and the

"immortal huntress," because her favourite diversion before she grew

unwieldy and inactive, was to follow the hounds in her chaise.]

[Footnote 73: Better in the manuscript:

And rules the boundless empire of the main.

By the alteration Pope increased the compliment to Anne by making her

the light of the earth as well as mistress of the forest and the sea.

Wakefield thinks that this application to the queen of the offices of

Diana as goddess of the woods, the luminary of the night, and the chief

agent in the production of the tides, is happily conceived, but the moon

and the monarch were "the light of the earth "and "empress of the main"

in such different senses, that the line is a trivial play upon words.]

[Footnote 74: In the last edition published in Pope's lifetime, the four

previous lines, with the variation of "sunny heaths" for "airy wastes,"

were printed in a note, and their place in the text was supplied by a

single couplet:

Here, as old bards have sung, Diana strayed,

Bathed in the springs, or sought the cooling shade.

Wakefield suggests that Pope rejected this latter line, as not being

suited to the prevailing character of the English climate, but at ver.

209 he represents the goddess as often "laving" in the Lodona, and to

bathe and luxuriate in shade are surely common enough in England.]

[Footnote 75: Dr. Warton says, "that Johnson seems to have passed too

severe a censure on this episode of Lodona; and that a tale in a

descriptive poem has a good effect." Johnson does not object to a tale

in a descriptive poem. He objects only to the triteness of such a tale

as this.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 76: Dryden's Translations from Ovid:

The nicest eye did no distinction know,

But that the goddess bore a golden bow.]

[Footnote 77:

Nec positu variare comas; uni fibula vestem,

Vitta coercuerat neglectos alba capillos. Ovid.--WARBURTON.]

[Footnote 78: This thought of the quiver sounding is found both in Homer

and Virgil.--WAKEFIELD.

Pope remembered Dryden's translation of Virgil, AEneis, xi. 968:

Diana's arms upon her shoulder sounds.

And xi. 1140:

A gilded quiver from his shoulder sounds.]

[Footnote 79: Dryden's AEneis, xii. 108:

The lover gazed, and burning with desire,

The more he looked the more he fed the fire.]

[Footnote 80:

Ut fugere accipitrem penna trepidante columbae,

Ut solet accipiter trepidas agitare columbas. Ovid, Met. lib. v.--WARBURTON.

Sandys' translation:

As trembling doves the eager hawks eschew;

As eager hawks the trembling dovers pursue.]

[Footnote 81: In the first edition:

As from the god with fearful speed she flew,

As did the god with equal speed pursue.

[Footnote 82: Wakefield remarks that Pope, yielding to the exigencies of

rhyme, has put "run" for "ran."]

[Footnote 83:

Sol erat a tergo: vidi praecedere longam

Ante pedes umbram; nisi timor illa videbat.

Sed certe sonituque pedum terrebar; et ingens

Crinales vittas afflabat anhelitus oris. Ovid, Met. lib. v.--WARBURTON.

Sandys, whom our bard manifestly consulted, renders thus:

The sun was at our backs; before my feet

I saw his shadow, or my fear did see't.

Howere his sounding steps, and thick-drawn breath

That fanned my hair, affrighted me to death.--WAKEFIELD.

Not only is the story of Lodona copied from the transformation of

Arethusa into a stream, but nearly all the particulars are taken from

different passages in Ovid, of which Warburton has furnished a

sufficient specimen.]

[Footnote 84: The river Loddon.--POPE.]

[Footnote 85: The idea of "augmenting the waves with tears" was very

common among the earliest English poets, but perhaps the most ridiculous

use ever made of this combination, was by Shakespeare:

Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,

And therefore I forbid my tears.--BOWLES.

Dryden's translation of the first book of Ovid's Art of Love:

Her briny tears augment the briny flood.]

[Footnote 86: These six lines were added after the first writing of this

poem.--POPE.

And in truth they are but puerile and redundant.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 87: Eve, looking into the fountain, in Dryden's State of

Innocence, Act ii.:

What's here? another firmament below

Spread wide, and other trees that downward grow.--STEEVENS.]

[Footnote 88: The epithet "absent," employed to denote that the trees

were only a reflection in the water, is more perplexing than

descriptive, particularly as the "absent trees" are distinguished from

the "pendant woods," which must equally have been absent.]

[Footnote 89: In every edition before Warburton's it was "spreading

honours." Pope probably considered that "rear," which denoted an upward

direction, could not be consistently conjoined with "spreading." For

"shores," improperly applied in the next line to a river, all the

editions before 1736 had "banks."]

[Footnote 90: "Her" appears for the first time in the edition of

Warburton in the place of "his," and is now the accepted reading, but it

is manifestly a misprint, since "her" has no antecedent. The couplet is

obscure. Pope could hardly intend to assert that the flow of the tide

poured as much water into the Thames as all the other rivers of the

world discharged into the ocean, and he probably meant that all the

navigable rivers of the globe did not send more commerce to the sea than

came from the sea up the Thames. Even in this case it was a wild,

without being a poetical, exaggeration.]

[Footnote 91: In the first edition:

No seas so rich, so full no streams appear.

The epithets "clear," "gentle," "full," which Pope applies to the

Thames, show that he had in his mind the celebrated passage in Cooper's

Hill:

Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull,

Strong without rage, without o'er-flowing full.]

[Footnote 92: The ancients gave the name of the terrestrial Eridanus or

Po, to a constellation which has somewhat the form of a winding river.

Pope copied Denham:

Heav'n her Eridanus no more shall boast,

Whose fame in thine, like lesser currents lost,

By nobler streams shall visit Jove's abodes,

To shine amongst the stars and bathe the gods.]

[Footnote 93: Very ill expressed, especially the rivers swelling the

lays.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 94: The original readings were beyond all competition

preferable both in strength and beauty:

Not fabled Po more swells the poet's lays

While through the skies his shining current strays.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 95: In saying that the Po did not swell the lays of the poet

in the same degree as the Thames, Pope more especially alluded to the

celebrated description of the latter in Cooper's Hill.]

[Footnote 96: In the earlier editions,

Nor all his stars a brighter lustre show,

Than the fair nymphs that gild thy shore below.

The MS. goes on thus:

Whose pow'rful charms enamoured gods may move

To quit for this the radiant court above;

And force great Jove, if Jove's a lover still,

To change Olympus, &c.]

[Footnote 97: Originally:

Happy the man, who to these shades retires,

But doubly happy, if the muse inspires!

Blest whom the sweets of home-felt quiet please;

But far more blest, who study joins with ease.--POPE.

The turn of this passage manifestly proves that our poet had in view

that incomparable encomium of Virgil's second Georgic on philosophy and

a country life.--WAKEFIELD.

In addition to the imitation of the second Georgic, and the translation

of lines in Horace and Lucan, Pope adopted hints, as Warton has

remarked, from Philips's Cider:

He to his labour hies

Gladsome, intent on somewhat that may ease

Unhealthy mortals, and with curious search

Examines all the properties of herbs,

Fossils and minerals, &c.

or else his thoughts

Are exercised with speculations deep,

Of good, and just, and meet, and th' wholesome rules

Of temperance, and ought that may improve

The moral life; &c.]

[Footnote 98: Lord Lansdowne.--CROKER.]

[Footnote 99: This is taken from Horace's epistle to Tibullus:

An tacitum silvas inter reptare salubres,

Curantem quidquid dignum sapiente bonoque est?--WAKEFIELD.

Pope remembered Creech's translation of the passage:

Or dost thou gravely walk the healthy wood,

Considering what befits the wise and good.]

[Footnote 100:

----servare modum, finemque tenere,

Naturamque sequi. Lucan.--WARBURTON.]

[Footnote 101: Dryden's Virgil, Geor. ii. 673:

Ye sacred muses! with whose beauty fired,

My soul is ravished, and my brain inspired.--WAKEFIELD.

Addison in his Letter from Italy has the expression "fired with a

thousand raptures."]

[Footnote 102:

O, qui me gelidis in vallibus Haemi

Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra! Virg.--WARBURTON.]

[Footnote 103: Cooper's Hill is the elevation, not deserving the name of

mountain, just over Egham and Runnymede.--CROKER.]

[Footnote 104: It stood thus in the MS.

Methinks around your hold scenes I rove,

And hear your music echoing through the grove:

With transport visit each inspiring shade,

By god-like poets venerable made.--WARBURTON.]

[Footnote 105: From Philips's Cider, ii. 6:

or what

Unrivalled authors by their presence made

For ever venerable.--STEEVENS.]

[Footnote 106: By "first lays," Pope means Cooper's Hill, but Denham had

previously written the Sophy, a tragedy, and translated the second book

of the AEneid.]

[Footnote 107: Dryden says of the Cooper's Hill, "it is a poem which for

_majesty_ of style is, and ever will be, the standard of good writing."

From hence, no doubt, Pope took the word "majestic."--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 108: Mr. Cowley died at Chertsey, on the borders of the

Forest, and was from thence conveyed to Westminster.--POPE.

Pope told Spence that Cowley was killed by a fever brought on by lying

out all night in the fields. He had got drunk, in company with his

friend Dean Sprat, at the house of a neighbour, and they lost their way

in the attempt to walk home. Sprat had long before related that Cowley

caught his last illness in the "meadows," but says it was caused "by

staying too long amongst his labourers in the heat of the summer." The

drunkenness, and the lying out all night, appear to have been the

embellishments of scandal.]

[Footnote 109: Cowley died July 28, 1667, in the 49th year of his age.

Pope's "O early lost!" is copied from the "O early ripe!" of Dryden in

his lines to the Memory of Oldham.]

[Footnote 110: Oldham's Imitation of Moschus:

This, Thames, ah! this, is now thy second loss

For which in tears thy weeping current flows.]

[Footnote 111: On the margin of his manuscript Pope wrote the passage of

Virgil which he imitated:

quae, Tiberine, videbis

Funera, cum tumulum praeterlabere recentem.

The "pomp" was not a poetical exaggeration. Evelyn, who attended the

funeral, says that Cowley's body was "conveyed to Westminster Abbey in a

hearse with six horses, near a hundred coaches of noblemen, and persons

of quality following."]

[Footnote 112: Originally:

What sighs, what murmurs, filled the vocal shore!

His tuneful swans were heard to sing no more.--POPE.]

[Footnote 113: We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst

thereof. Psalm cxxxvii. 2.--WAKEFIELD.

Pope says that "_each_ muse" hung up her lyre because Cowley was thought

to excel in many departments of verse. "He was beloved," said Dr.

Felton, "by every muse he courted, and has rivalled the ancients in

every kind of poetry but tragedy." Dr. Sprat entitled his poem on him an

"Ode to the English Ovid, Anacreon, Pindar, and Virgil."]

[Footnote 114: Warton mentions, that "living lyre" is used by Cowley.]

[Footnote 115: This couplet was a triplet in the manuscript with the

following middle line:

What bard, what angel, tunes the warbling strings?

It is surprising that Pope did not feel the bathos of the expression,

"'Tis yours, my lord," introduced into the midst of the high-flown

adulation.]

[Footnote 116: Philips:

And paint those honours thou art sure to wear.--STEEVENS.]

[Footnote 117: Meaning, I apprehend, the star of the knights of the

Garter installed at Windsor.--WAKEFIELD.

The order was founded by Edward III., the builder of Windsor Castle,

which further connected it with Pope's subject. Denham had celebrated

the institution of the garter in Cooper's Hill, and Lord Lansdowne, in

his Progress of Beauty, "sung the honours" in a few despicable verses,

which certainly added no "lustre to the silver star."]

[Footnote 118: All the lines that follow were not added to the poem till

the year 1710 [1712]. What immediately followed this, and made the

conclusion, were these;

My humble muse in unambitious strains

Paints the green forests and the flow'ry plains;

Where I obscurely pass my careless days,

Pleased in the silent shade with empty praise,

Enough for me that to the list'ning swains

First in these fields I sung the sylvan strains.--POPE.]

[Footnote 119: Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, one of the first refiners

of the English poetry; famous in the time of Henry VIII. for his

sonnets, the scene of many of which is laid at Windsor.--POPE.]

[Footnote 120: The Fair Geraldine, the general object of Lord Surrey's

passionate sonnets, was one of the daughters of Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl

of Kildare. In Warton's History of English Poetry, is a poem of the

elegiac kind, in which Surrey laments his imprisonment in Windsor

Castle.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 121: The Mira of Granville was the Countess of Newburgh.

Towards the end of her life Dr. King, of Oxford, wrote a very severe

satire against her, in three hooks, called The Toast.--WARTON.

She proved in her conduct to be the reverse of "heavenly." "Granville,"

says Johnson, "wrote verses to her before he was three-and-twenty, and

may be forgiven if he regarded the face more than the mind. Poets are

sometimes in too much haste to praise."]

[Footnote 122:

Not to recount those several kings, to whom

It gave a cradle, and to whom a tomb. Denham.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 123: Edward III. born here.--POPE.]

[Footnote 124: David Bruce, king of Scotland, taken prisoner at the

battle of Nevil's Cross, 1346, and John, king of France, captured at the

battle of Poitiers, 1356. "Monarchs chained" conveys the idea of a

rigorous imprisonment, and belies the chivalry, which was the pride of

Edward and the Black Prince. David, who was the brother-in-law of Edward

III., was subjected to so little constraint, that he was allowed to

visit Scotland, and confer with his people on the terms of his ransom.

John was received with royal honours in England, and during the whole of

his residence here was surrounded with regal luxury and state.]

[Footnote 125: Denham's Cooper's Hill:

----Great Edward, and thy greater son,

The lilies which his father wore, he won.

Edward III. claimed the crown of France by descent, and quartered the

French fleur-de-lis on his shield before the victories of the Black

Prince had made the assumption something more than an empty boast.]

[Footnote 126: Originally thus in the MS.

When brass decays, when trophies lie o'er-thrown,

And mould'ring into dust drops the proud stone,

From Windsor's roofs, &c.--WARBURTON.]

[Footnote 127: He was a Neapolitan. Without much invention, and with

less taste, his exuberant pencil was ready at pouring out gods,

goddesses, kings, emperors, and triumphs, over those public surfaces on

which the eye never rests long enough to criticise,--I mean ceilings and

staircases. Charles II. consigned over Windsor to his pencil. He

executed most of the ceilings there, one whole side of St. George's

Hall, and the chapel. On the accession of James II., Verrio was again

employed at Windsor in Wolsey's Tomb-house.--HORACE WALPOLE.]

[Footnote 128: Pope had in his head this couplet of Halifax:

The wounded arm would furnish all their rooms,

And bleed for ever scarlet in the looms.--HOLT WHITE.]

[Footnote 129: Henry VI.--POPE.]

[Footnote 130: Edward IV.--POPE.]

[Footnote 131: The Land's End in Cornwall is called by Diodorus Siculus,

_Belerium promentorium_, perhaps from Bellerus, one of the Cornish

giants with which that country and the poems of old British bards were

once filled.--T. WARTON.]

[Footnote 132: Dryden's translation of the tenth Satire of Juvenal, ver.

236:

Whom Afric was not able to contain

Whose length runs level with th' Atlantic main.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 133: Dr. Chetwood's verses to Roscommon:

Make warlike James's peaceful virtues known.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 134: Charles I. was buried in St. George's Chapel, Windsor.

The precise spot was a matter of doubt till an accidental aperture was

made in 1813 into the vault of Henry VIII., when a lead coffin was

discovered bearing the inscription "King Charles, 1648." It was opened

in the presence of the Regent; and the corpse was in a sufficient state

of preservation to enable the spectators to recognise the likeness of

the countenance to Vandyke's portraits of the king, and to ascertain

that the head had been severed from the body.]

[Footnote 135: Originally thus in the MS.

Oh fact accurst! oh sacrilegious brood,

Sworn to rebellion, principled in blood!

Since that dire morn what tears has Albion shed,

Gods! what new wounds, &c.--WARBURTON.]

[Footnote 136: To say that the plague in London, and its consumption by

fire, were judgments inflicted by heaven for the murder of Charles I.,

is a very extraordinary stretch of tory principles indeed.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 137: This couplet is directed at the Revolution, considered by

Pope, in common with all jacobites, to be a like public calamity with

the plague and the fire of London.--CROKER.

Pope had in his mind, when he wrote the couplet, Creech's Hor., Ode

xxxv. lib. 1.

I blush at the dishonest show,

I die to see the wounds and scars,

Those glories of our civil wars.]

[Footnote 138: Thus in the MS.

Till Anna rose, and bade the Furies cease;

_Let there be peace_--she said, and all was _peace_.--WARBURTON.

It may be presumed that Pope varied the couplet from perceiving the

impropriety of a parody on the fiat of the Creator.]

[Footnote 139: Dryden's Annus Mirabilis:

Old Father Thames raised up his rev'rend head.

And again, at the conclusion of his Threnodia Augustalis:

While, starting from his oozy bed,

Th' asserted ocean rears his rev'rend head.--WAKEFIELD.

The gods of rivers are invariably represented as old men.]

[Footnote 140: Spenser of Father Thames:

his beard all gray

Dewed with silver drops that trickled down alway.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 141: Between verse 330 and 331, originally stood these lines;

From shore to shore exulting shouts he heard,

O'er all his banks a lambent light appeared,

With sparkling flames heav'n's glowing concave shone,

Fictitious stars, and glories not her own.

He saw, and gently rose above the stream

His shining horns diffused a golden gleam:

With pearl and gold his tow'ry front was drest,

The tributes of the distant East and West.--POPE.]

[Footnote 142: Horns were a classical attribute of rivers,--not I think,

according to the common view, as a mark of dignity, but as a symbolical

expression of the fact that the principal streams, like the ocean

itself, are formed from a confluence of tributaries.--CROKER.

Pope's personification of the Thames is the echo of Addison's

translation of a passage in Claudian, describing the deity of the

Eridanus:

His head above the floods he gently reared,

And as he rose his golden horns appeared,

That on the forehead shone divinely bright

And o'er the banks diffused a yellow light:

Beneath his arm an urn supported lies

With stars embellished, and fictitious skies.]

[Footnote 143: Augusta was the name which the Romans at one period gave

to London. The representation of the god attended by

All little rivers, which owe vassalage

To him, as to their lord, and tribute pay,

and the accompanying enumeration of the subsidiary streams, is closely

imitated from the Faery Queen. Pope professes to describe the river-gods

who stood round the throne of Father Thames, but he has confounded the

river-gods with the rivers, and some of his epithets,--"winding Isis,"

"blue transparent Vandalis," "gulphy Lee,"--are not applicable to

persons.]

[Footnote 144: The river-gods were said to be the children of Oceanus

and Tethys, but in the earlier mythology, Oceanus was himself a _river_

(not a sea), surrounding the earth, and the lesser rivers were his

progeny.]

[Footnote 145: The Tamesis. It was a common but erroneous notion, that

the appellation was formed from appending the name Isis to Thame.]

[Footnote 146: Warton observes that Pope has here copied and equalled

the description of rivers in Spenser, Drayton, and Milton. The

description is beautiful, but in some points it is deficient. "Winding

Isis" and "fruitful Thame" are ill designated. No peculiar and visible

image is added to the character of the streams, either interesting from

beauty, or incidental circumstances. Most rivers wind and may be called

fruitful, as well as the Isis and Thame. The latter part of the

description is much more masterly, as every river has its distinctive

mark, and that mark is picturesque. It may be said, however, that all

the epithets, in a description of this sort, cannot be equally

significant, but surely something more striking should have been given

as circumstantially characteristic of such rivers as the Isis and

Thames, than that they were "winding" and "fruitful," or of the Kennet

that it was renowned for "silver eels."--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 147: Drayton:

The crystal Trent for fords and fish renowned.--BOWLES.

The Kennet is not linked by Pope to any poetical association when he

simply says that it is "renowned for silver eels," but Spenser brings a

delightful picture before the eye when he speaks of the

still Darent in whose waters clean

Ten thousand fishes play, and deck his pleasant stream.]

[Footnote 148: Addison:

Where silver lakes with verdant shadows crowned.]

[Footnote 149: Several of Pope's epithets are borrowed, although he has

not always coupled them with the same streams to which they are applied

in his originals. For "Kennet swift" Milton has "Severn swift," and for

"chalky Wey" Spenser has "chalky Kennet."]

[Footnote 150: The Wandle.--CROKER.]

[Footnote 151: Milton has "gulphy Dun" and "sedgy Lee," and Pope

combined the characteristics. The remainder of the couplet is from

Addison's translation of a passage in Claudian:

Her dropping locks the silver Tessin rears,

The blue transparent Adda next appears.]

[Footnote 152: Milton's Vacation Exercise:

Or sullen Mole, that runneth underneath.--WAKEFIELD.

The Mole at particular spots, called the swallows, sinks through

crevices in the chalk, and during dry seasons, when there is not

sufficient water to till both the subterranean and the upper channel,

the bed of the river is laid bare in parts of its course. The stream

sometimes entirely disappears from Burford-bridge to the neighbourhood

of Thorncroft-bridge, a distance of nearly three miles.]

[Footnote 153: Drayton:

And the old Lee brags of the Danish blood.--BOWLES.

Pope's epithet "silent" was suggested by "the still Darent" of Spenser,

and the same poet had said of the Eden that it was

----stained with blood of many a band

Of Scots and English.]

[Footnote 154: Addison's translation of an extract from Ovid:

While thus she rested on her arm reclined,

The hoary willows waving with the wind.]

[Footnote 155: The river god bowing respectfully to his human audience,

before he commenced his speech, is a ludicrous idea, into which Pope was

seduced by his courtly desire to represent even the deities as doing

homage to Queen Anne.]

[Footnote 156: So Dryden, AEneis, x. 156:

The winds their breath restrain,

And the hushed waves lie flatted on the main.--WAKEFIELD.

Pope's lines are compiled from the passage quoted by Wakefield and a

couplet in the Court Prospect of Hopkins:

Unrolling waves steal softly to the shore,

They know their sovereign and they fear to roar.]

[Footnote 157: The Hermus is characterised by Virgil as "turbid with

gold." The property was more usually ascribed to its tributary, the

Pactolus, but there was no gold in either.]

[Footnote 158: An undoubted imitation, I think, of Dr. Bathurst's verses

on Selden:

As when old Nilus, who with bounteous flows

Waters a hundred nations as he goes,

Scattering rich harvests, keeps his sacred head

Amidst the clouds still undiscovered.

Homer denominates the Nile, whose sources were unknown, a river that

falls from Jupiter or heaven. And our countryman calls it sevenfold, as

Ovid before him _septemfluus_, and Catullus still earlier

_septemgeminus_, from the seven mouths by which its waters are

discharged into the Mediterranean.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 159: Originally thus in the MS.

Let Venice boast her tow'rs amidst the main,

Where the rough Adrian swells and roars in vain;

Here not a town, but spacious realms shall have

A sure foundation on the rolling wave.--WARBURTON.

This he altered with his usual discernment, on account of the mean

conceit in the equivocal use of the word "foundation."--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 160: This alludes to General Stanhope's campaigns on the Ebro,

and the Duke of Marlborough's on the Danube.--CROKER.

In saying that British blood should no more dye foreign lands, Pope

meant to furnish an argument for the Peace by intimating that the war

was kept up, at the sacrifice of English life, for the benefit of other

nations.]

[Footnote 161: In the manuscript:

O'er all the Forests shall appear no trace.

[Footnote 162: And certainly sufficient ferocity is displayed even in

these amusements. Cowley says,

And all his malice, all his craft is shown

In innocent wars, on beasts and birds alone.

His commentator, Dr. Hurd, remarks in a spirit that endears him to the

reader, "Innocent, he means, in comparison with wars on his own

kind."--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 163: The fifty new churches.--POPE.]

[Footnote 164: This seems imitated from Hopkins' Court Prospect:

As far as fair Augusta's buildings reach,

Bent, like a bow, along a peaceful beach.--WAKEFIELD.

Cowley's Somerset House:

And here, behold, in a long bending row,

How two joint cities make one glorious bow.

Whitehall is just above that circular sweep of the Thames in the midst

of which the cities of London and Westminster unite. Pope wrote in the

belief that the magnificent design of Inigo Jones for the palace at

Whitehall would one day be executed.]

[Footnote 165: Addison's translation of a passage in Claudian on the

imperial palace at Rome:

Thither the kingdoms and the nations come,

In supplicating crowds to learn their doom.

To Delphi less th' inquiring worlds repair.]

[Footnote 166: "Once more," as in the renowned reign of Elizabeth.--HOLT

WHITE.

After holding out a prospect of perpetual peace, Pope conjures up a

future vision of "sueing kings," and "suppliant states," which are the

consequences of war and victory.]

[Footnote 167: This return to the trees of Windsor Forest, his original

subject, is masterly and judicious; and the whole speech of Thames is

highly animated and poetical,--forcible and rich in diction, as it is

copious and noble in imagery.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 168: Originally thus:

Now shall our fleets the bloody cross display

To the rich regions of the rising day,

Or those green isles, where headlong Titan steeps

His hissing axle in th' Atlantic deeps:

Tempt icy seas, &c.--POPE.

The original lines were rejected, probably as too nearly resembling a

passage in Comus:

And the gilded car of day

His glowing axle doth allay

In the steep Atlantic stream.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 169: Pope has written "if obscure?" against this line in the

manuscript. It is plain he meant that the trees were converted into

ships, but the language is extravagant.]

[Footnote 170: The red cross upon the Union Jack.]

[Footnote 171: Waller's verses on Tea:

To the fair region where the sun does rise.]

[Footnote 172: "To tempt the sea" is a classical expression, significant

of hazard and resolution. Dryden's Iliad:

What now remains

But that once more we tempt the wat'ry plains.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 173: "Exalt" is an inefficient and prosaic word.--WAKEFIELD.

The word is certainly not "prosaic," for no one in prose would talk of

exalting a sail, but it is "inefficient," just because it is one of

those deviations from common speech, which sound affected.]

[Footnote 174: The whole passage seems a grand improvement from Philips'

Cider, book ii.:

uncontroll'd

The British navy, through the ocean vast,

Shall wave her double cross t' extremest climes

Terrific, and return with od'rous spoils

Of Araby well fraught, or Indus' wealth,

Pearl and barbaric gold.--WAKEFIELD.

Pope also drew upon Addison's lines to William III.:

Where'er the waves in restless errors roll,

The sea lies open now to either pole:

Now may we safely use the northern gales,

And in the polar circle spread our sails:

Or deep in southern climes, secure from wars,

New lands explore, and sail by other stars;

Fetch uncontrolled each labour of the sun,

And make the product of the world our own.

Towards the close of 1712 Tickell published his poem on the Prospect of

Peace. "The description," Pope wrote to Caryll, "of the several parts of

the world in regard to our trade has interfered with some lines of my

own in Windsor Forest, though written before I saw his. I transcribe

both, and desire your sincere judgment whether I ought not to strike out

mine, either as they seem too like his, or as they are inferior." The

close resemblance arose from their having copied a common original. The

couplet of Pope on the West India islands, which he subsequently

omitted, has no counterpart in Tickell, because it was not derived from

the passage in Addison.]

[Footnote 175: In poetical philosophy the crude material from which

jewels and the precious metals were formed, was supposed to be ripened

into maturity by the sun. Tickell has the same idea:

Here nearer suns prepare the ripening gem,

And here the ore, &c.]

[Footnote 176: This was suggested by a couplet of Denham's on the same

subject in his Cooper's Hill:

Nor are his blessings to his banks confined,

But free and common as the sea or wind.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 177: A wish that London may be made a FREE PORT.--POPE.]

[Footnote 178: This resembles Waller in his panegyric on Cromwell:

While by your valour and your bounteous mind,

Nations, divided by the sea, are joined.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 179: Better in the first edition, "Whose naked youth," and in

the Miscellanies better still, "While naked youth."--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 180: "Admire" was formerly applied to anything which excited

surprise, whether the surprise was coupled with commendation or censure,

or was simply a sentiment of wonder. Thus Milton, using the word in this

last sense, says, Par. Lost, i. 690:

Let none admire

That riches grow in hell; that soil may best

Deserve the precious bane.

"Admire" has the same signification in Windsor Forest. Pope means that

the savages would be astonished at "our speech, our colour, and our

strange attire," and not that they would admire them in our present

laudatory sense of the term, which would be contrary to the fact. "A

fair complexion," says Adam Smith, "is a shocking deformity upon the

coast of Guinea. Thick lips and a flat nose are a beauty."]

[Footnote 181: As Peru was particularly famous for its long succession

of Incas, and Mexico for many magnificent works of massy gold, there is

great propriety in fixing the restoration of the grandeur of each to

that object for which each was once so remarkable.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 182: Rage in Virgil is bound in "brazen bonds," and Envy is

tormented by "the snakes of Ixion." These coincidences are specified by

Wakefield.]

[Footnote 183: Sir J. Beaumont's Bosworth Field:

Beneath her feet pale envy bites her chain,

And snaky discord whets her sting in vain.]

[Footnote 184: Hor., Ode iii. lib. 3:

Quo, Musa, tendis? desine pervicax

Referre sermones Deorum et

Magna modis tenuare parvis.--WARBURTON.

Addison's translation of Horace's Ode:

But hold, my muse, forbear thy tow'ring flight

Nor bring the secrets of the gods to light.

Pope says that he will not presume "to touch on Albion's golden days,"

and "bring the scenes of opening fate to light," oblivious that the

speech which Father Thames has just delivered is entirely made up of

these two topics. As might be inferred from their feebleness, the lines

from ver. 426 formed part of the original Windsor Forest, with the

exception of the couplet beginning "Where Peace descending," which is of

another order of poetry. The second line is exquisite.]

[Footnote 185: He adopted one or two hints, and especially the turn of

the compliment to Lord Lansdowne, from the conclusion of Addison's

Letter to Lord Halifax:

But I've already troubled you too long,

Nor dare attempt a more adventurous song.

My humble verse demands a softer theme,

A painted meadow, or a purling stream:

Unfit for heroes; whom immortal lays

And lines like Virgil's, or like yours, should praise.]

[Footnote 186: It is observable that our author finishes this poem with

the first line of his Pastorals, as Virgil closed his Georgics with the

first line of his Eclogues. The preceding couplet scarcely rises to

mediocrity, and seems modelled from Dryden's version of the passage

imitated:

Whilst I at Naples pass my peaceful days,

Affecting studies of less noisy praise.--WAKEFIELD.

The conclusion is feeble and flat. The whole should have ended with the

speech of Thames.--WARTON.]

END OF VOL. I.

BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.