The Works of Alexander Pope Part 75

----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 h.o.a.ry willows waving with the wind.]

[Footnote 155: The river G.o.d 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 pa.s.sage quoted by Wakefield and a couplet in the Court Prospect of Hopkins:

Unrolling waves steal softly to the sh.o.r.e, 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 s.p.a.cious 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 ma.n.u.script:

O'er all the Forests shall appear no trace.

[Footnote 162: And certainly sufficient ferocity is displayed even in these amus.e.m.e.nts. 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 pa.s.sage 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 n.o.ble in imagery.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 168: Originally thus:

Now shall our fleets the b.l.o.o.d.y cross display To the rich regions of the rising day, Or those green isles, where headlong t.i.tan steeps His hissing axle in th' Atlantic deeps: Tempt icy seas, &c.--POPE.

The original lines were rejected, probably as too nearly resembling a pa.s.sage 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 ma.n.u.script. It is plain he meant that the trees were converted into s.h.i.+ps, 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 cla.s.sical 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 pa.s.sage 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.