The Works of Alexander Pope Part 52

[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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 dic.u.n.t 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.ds 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 pa.s.sed without animadversion in any of our great schools.--WARTON.

Another couplet followed in the ma.n.u.script:

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: