The Works of Alexander Pope Part 47

[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 cla.s.sical 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 c.o.c.k and Fox:

See, my dear!

How lavish nature has adorned the year.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 23: In the ma.n.u.script this verse ran

There the pale primrose and the vi'let glow,

which was evidently borrowed from a line in Dryden's c.o.c.k 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 blus.h.i.+ng 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 "blus.h.i.+ng" 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 vest.i.t pallente corymbos. Virg.--POPE.]

[Footnote 28: Variation:

And cl.u.s.ters lurk beneath the curling vines.--POPE.

Dryden's Virgil, Eclogues:

The grapes in cl.u.s.ters 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...o...b..m?--POPE.

Creech's translation of Eclogue iii.:

And showed the various seasons of the year.

Pope also drew upon Dryden's version of the pa.s.sage:

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 ma.n.u.script 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.]