[163] The fifty new churches.—Pope.

[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.

[165] Addison's translation of a passage 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.

[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.

[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 noble in imagery.—Bowles.

[168] Originally thus:

Now shall our fleets the bloody cross display
 To the rich regions of the rising day,
 Or those green isles, where headlong Titan steeps
 His hissing axle in th' Atlantic deeps:
 Tempt icy seas, &c.—Pope.

The original lines were rejected, probably as too nearly resembling a passage in Comus:

And the gilded car of day
 His glowing axle doth allay
 In the steep Atlantic stream.—Bowles.

[169] Pope has written "if obscure?" against this line in the manuscript. It is plain he meant that the trees were converted into ships, but the language is extravagant.

[170] The red cross upon the Union Jack.

[171] Waller's verses on Tea:

To the fair region where the sun does rise.

[172] "To tempt the sea" is a classical expression, significant of hazard and resolution. Dryden's Iliad:

What now remains
 But that once more we tempt the wat'ry plains.—Wakefield.

[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.

[174] The whole passage 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.

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 passage in Addison.

[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.

[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.

[177] A wish that London may be made a free Port.—Pope.

[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.

[179] Better in the first edition, "Whose naked youth," and in the Miscellanies better still, "While naked youth."—Wakefield.

[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 hell; 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."

[181] As Peru was particularly famous for its long succession of Incas, and Mexico for many magnificent works of massy 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.

[182] Rage in Virgil is bound in "brazen bonds," and Envy is tormented by "the snakes of Ixion." These coincidences are specified by Wakefield.

[183] Sir J. Beaumont's Bosworth Field:

Beneath her feet pale envy bites her chain,
 And snaky discord whets her sting in vain.

[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 gods 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.

[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.

[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 passage imitated:

Whilst I at Naples pass 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.