The Works of Alexander Pope Part 76

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 pa.s.sage 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 h.e.l.l; 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 ma.s.sy 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 G.o.ds 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 pa.s.sage imitated:

Whilst I at Naples pa.s.s 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.