[1] The scene of this Pastoral by the river side, suitable to the heat of the season: the time noon.—Pope.
[2] Dr. Samuel Garth, author of the Dispensary, was one of the first friends of the author, whose acquaintance with him began at fourteen or fifteen. Their friendship continued from the year 1703 to 1718, which was that of his death.—Pope.
He was a man of the sweetest disposition, amiable manners, and universal benevolence. All parties, at a time when party violence was at a great height, joined in praising and loving him. One of the most exquisite pieces of wit ever written by Addison, is a defence of Garth against the Examiner, 1710. It is unfortunate that this second Pastoral, the worst of the four, should be inscribed to the best judge of all Pope's four friends to whom they were addressed.—Warton.
[3] This was one of the passages submitted to Walsh. "Objection," remarks Pope, "against the parenthesis, he seeks no better name. Quære. Would it be anything better to say,
Or,
Quære, which of all these is the best, or are none of them good." Walsh preferred the parenthesis in the text. "It is Spenser's way," he said, "and I think better than the others."
[4] Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar:
Pope's second Pastoral is an ostensible imitation of Spenser's first eclogue, which is devoted to a lover's complaint, but though Pope has echoed some of the sentiments of Spenser, and appropriated an occasional line, his style has little resemblance to that of his model.
[5] "An inaccurate word," says Warton, "instead of Thames;" and rendered confusing by the fact that there is a real river Thame, which is a tributary of the Thames. Milton has used the same licence, and speaks of the "royal towered Thame" in his lines on the English rivers.
[6] Originally thus in the MS.:
[7] Dryden's Theodore and Honoria:
[8] Ver. 1, 2, 3, 4, were thus printed in the first edition:
[9] Dryden's Virg. Ecl. viii. 3:
Milton, Comus, 494:
Garth, in his Dispensary, canto iv., says that, when Prior sings,
[10] Milton, Comus:
In the tears of Amaryllis for Amyntas, Congreve says of the tigers and wolves, that
[11] Virg. Ecl. vii. 60:
In the original manuscript the couplet was slightly different:
Pope. "Objection, that the Naïads weeping in bowers is not so proper, being water nymphs, and that the word consented is doubted by some to whom I have shown these verses. Alteration:
Quære. Which of these do you like best?" Walsh. "The first. Upon second thoughts I think the second is best." Pope ended by adopting the first line of the second version, and the second line of the first.
[12] This is taken from Virg. Ecl. viii. 12.—Wakefield.
Dryden's translation, ver. 17:
Ivy, with the Romans, was the emblem of literary success, and the laurel crown was worn by a victorious general at a triumph. As Pollio, to whom Virgil addressed his eighth eclogue, was both a conqueror and a poet, the double garland allotted to him was appropriate, but there was no fitness in the application of the passage to Garth.
[13] A harsh line, and a false and affected thought.—Bowles.
[14] Virg. Ecl. x. 8.
Ogilby's translation of the verse in Virgil:
[15] A line out of Spenser's Epithalamion.—Pope.
[16] A line unworthy our author, containing a false and trivial thought; as is also the 22nd line.—Warton.
[17] Pope says his merit in these Pastorals is his copying from the ancients. Can anything like this, and other conceits, be found in the natural and unaffected language of Virgil? No such thing. But what do we find in Dryden's imitation of Virgil, Ecl. ii. 13:
This is Virgil's:
And Pope had the imitation in his eye, not the original.—Bowles.
[18] So Virgil says of Sirius, or the dog-star, Geor. ii. 353:
"Gassendi has well remarked," says Arnauld in his Logic, "that nothing could be less probable than the notion that the dog-star is the cause of the extraordinary heat which prevails in what are called the dog days, because as Sirius is on the other side of the equator, the effects of the star should be greatest at the places where it is most perpendicular, whereas the dog days here are the winter season there. Whence the inhabitants of those countries have much more reason to believe that the dog-star brings cold than we have to believe that it causes heat."
[19] The Shepherd's Calendar of Spenser:
[20] Virg. Ecl. x. 9, out of Theocritus:
Ogilby's translation:
[21] Addison's Campaign:
Pope wrote at random. The Cam does not divide vales, but runs, or rather creeps, through one of the flattest districts in England.
Virgil again (Ecl. ii. 25), from the Cyclops of Theocritus:
In his first version, which is closer to Virgil than the second, Pope had in his mind Dryden's translation, Ecl. ii. 33:
[23] Milton, Penseroso, ver. 172:
[24] This is an obvious imitation of those trite lines in Ovid, Met. i. 522:
Dryden's translation:
It is remarkable that the imitation in the text of some of the most hacknied lines in classical literature, should be one of four passages quoted by Ruffhead, to prove that all the images in Pope's Pastorals had not been borrowed from preceding poets.
[25] The only faulty rhymes, care and shear, perhaps in these poems, where the versification is in general so exact and correct.—Warton.
[26] The scene is laid upon the banks of the Thames, and "mountain" is a term inapplicable to any of the neighbouring hills. Pope was too intent upon copying Virgil to pay much regard to the characteristics of the English landscape.
[27] It is not easy to conceive a more harsh and clashing line than this. There is the same imagery in Theocritus (Idyll viii. 55), but it is made more striking by the circumstances and picturesque accompaniments, as well as by the extraordinary effect of the lines adapted to the subject.—Bowles.
[28] The name taken by Spenser in his Eclogues, where his mistress is celebrated under that of Rosalinda.—Pope.
[29] Virg. Ecl. ii. 36:
Pope's couplet originally ran thus:
"Objection," he says to Walsh, "that the first line is too much transposed from the natural order of the words, and that the rhyme is inharmonious." He subjoined the couplet in the text, and asked, "Which of these is best?" to which Walsh replies, "The second."
[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.
[31] Virg. Ecl. i. 5:
[32] Imitated from Virg. Ecl. vii. 24:
Dryden's translation:
[33] This thought is formed on one in Theocritus iii. 12, and our poet had before him Dryden's translation of that Idyllium:
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:
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]. Quære. 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."
[34] Virg. Ecl. ix. 33:
[35] Milton's Lycidas, ver. 34:
Dryden's Virgil, Ecl. vi. 42:
Pan was the god 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."
[36] Spenser's Elegy on the death of Sir P. Sidney:
[37] Spenser's Astrophel:
[38] From the Shepherd's Calendar of Spenser:
[39] Virg. Ecl. ii. 60:
Ecl. x. 18:
Dryden's translation of the first line is
The second line he expanded into a couplet:
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.
[40] This is formed from Virg. Ecl. ii. 10:
[41] He had in his mind Virg. Ecl. iii. 93:
[42] I think these two lines would not have passed without animadversion in any of our great schools.—Warton.
Another couplet followed in the manuscript:
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.
[43] Virg. Ecl. vii. 45:
[44] This thought occurs in several authors. Persius, Sat. ii. 39,
Butler finely ridicules this trite fancy of the poets:
[45] The six lines from ver. 71 to ver. 76 stood thus in the original manuscript:
The two last couplets were copied from Dryden's Virg. Ecl. vii. 77:
And ver. 81:
In Pope's next version, the four lines "While you, &c.," ran as follows:
Or,
Or,
Walsh preferred the second form of the passage to the original draught; and of the variations in the second form he preferred the lines beginning "Where'er you walk," and "Where'er you tread."
[46] He had in view Virg. Ecl. x. 43:
So the verses were originally written. But the author, young as he was, soon found the absurdity which Spenser himself overlooked, of introducing wolves into England.—Pope.
There was no absurdity upon the principle of Pope, that the scene of pastorals was to be laid in the golden age, which could not be supposed to be subsequent to the reign of Edward I. when wolves still existed in this island. They lingered in Scotland in the reign of Charles II., and in Ireland in the reign of Queen Anne.
[48] Virg. Ecl. iii. 73:
[49] In place of this couplet and the next, the original MS. had these lines:
[50] This verse is debased by the word dance. But he followed Dryden in Ecl. iii. 69:
[51] Lucan vi. 473:
"The line And headlong streams," says Ruffhead, "surely presents a new image and a bold one too." Bold indeed! Pope has carried the idea into extravagance when he makes the stream not only "listening," but "hang listening in its headlong fall." An idea of this sort will only bear just touching; the mind then does not perceive its violence; if it be brought before the eyes too minutely, it becomes almost ridiculous.—Bowles.
[52] In the MS.:
[53] Virg. Ecl. ii. 68:
He had Dryden's translation of the passage in Virgil before him:
[54] The phrase "where his journey ends" is mean and prosaic, nor by any means adequately conveys the sentiment required, which is this,—The sun grows milder by degrees, and is at length extinguished in the ocean, but my flames know neither abatement nor intermission.—Wakefield.
[55] Variation:
[56] This is certainly the poorest of Pope's pastorals, and it has many false thoughts and conceits. But the ingenuous and candid critic will always bear in mind the early age at which they were written, and the false taste of Cowley at that time prevalent.—Bowles.