The Works of Alexander Pope Part 68

Where Peace descending bids her olive spring, And scatters blessings from her dove-like wing. 430 Ev'n I more sweetly pa.s.s 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 n.o.bleman 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 G.o.ddess of the woods, Nymphs of the vales, and Naads 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 G.o.ds, is, in my opinion, extremely puerile, especially in a description of real scenery. Pan, Pomona, and the rest, mere representative subst.i.tutions, give no offence.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 15: The making the hills n.o.bler than Olympus with all its G.o.ds, because the G.o.ds 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 ma.n.u.script, 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.