The Works of Alexander Pope Part 37

Stiff with eternal ice, and hid in snow, That fell a thousand centuries ago.]

[Footnote 24: Dryden's Hind and Panther:

Eternal house not built with mortal hands.]

[Footnote 25: The temple is described to be square, the four fronts with open gates facing the different quarters of the world, as an intimation that all nations of the earth may alike be received into it. The western front is of Grecian architecture: the Doric order was peculiarly sacred to heroes and worthies. Those whose statues are after mentioned, were the first names of old Greece in arms and arts.--POPE.

The exterior of the Doric temples abounded in sculptured figures, which may be the reason that Pope supposes the order to have been "peculiarly sacred to heroes and worthies," but it may be doubted whether he had any good grounds for his a.s.sertion.]

[Footnote 26: The expression literally interpreted would signify that the gates were placed on the top of columns. Pope could not have had such a preposterous notion in his mind, and the meaning must be that the lofty gates were hung upon columns. He copied a couplet in Dryden's aeneis, vi. 744, where the translation misrepresents the original:

Wide is the fronting gate, and raised on high With adamantine columns, threats the sky.]

[Footnote 27: Addison's Vision of the Table of Fame, in the Tatler: "In the midst there stood a palace of a very glorious structure; it had four great folding doors that faced the four several quarters of the world."

Charles Dryden's translation of the seventh Satire of Juvenal, ver. 245:

Behold how raised on high A banquet house salutes the southern sky.]

[Footnote 28: Dryden, Juvenal, Sat. iii. 142:

No Thracian born, But in that town which arms and arts adorn.]

[Footnote 29: In the early editions:

The fourfold walls in breathing statues grace.

Addison in his Letter from Italy had called the Roman statues "breathing rocks."]

[Footnote 30: Addison's Letter from Italy:

Or teach their animated rocks to live.

And emperors in Parian marble frown.]

[Footnote 31: Milton, Par. Lost, i. 714:

Doric pillars overlaid With golden architrave, nor did there want Cornice or frieze, with bossy sculptures graven.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 32: Dryden, Ovid's Met. book xii.:

An ample goblet stood of antique mould And rough with figures of the rising gold.

Dryden, aen. viii. 830:

And Roman triumphs rising on the gold.

Addison's Letter from Italy:

And pillars rough with sculpture pierce the skies.]

[Footnote 33: This legendary hero was an Athenian knight-errant who, in imitation of Hercules, went about doing battle with the scourges of mankind, both human and animal.]

[Footnote 34: Minerva presented Perseus with her shield when he undertook to kill the Gorgon, Medusa.]

[Footnote 35: This figure of Hercules is drawn with an eye to the position of the famous statue of Farnese.--POPE.

It were to be wished that our author, whose knowledge and taste of the fine arts were unquestionable, had taken more pains in describing so famous a statue as that of the Farnesian Hercules; for he has omitted the characteristical excellencies of this famous piece of Grecian workmanship; namely, the uncommon breadth of the shoulders, the knottiness and s.p.a.ciousness of the chest, the firmness and protuberance of the muscles in each limb, particularly the legs, and the majestic vastness of the whole figure, undoubtedly designed by the artist to give a full idea of strength, as the Venus de Medicis of beauty. To mention the Hesperian apples, which the artist flung backwards, and almost concealed as an inconsiderable object, and which therefore scarcely appear in the statue, was below the notice of Pope.--WARTON.

Addison's Vision: "At the upper end sat Hercules, leaning an arm upon his club."]

[Footnote 36: The pause at the word "strikes" renders the verse finely descriptive of the circ.u.mstance. Milton, in Par. Lost, xi. 491, has attempted this beauty with success:

And over them triumphant Death his dart Shook, but delayed to strike.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 37: Milton, Par. Lost, i. 710:

a fabric huge Rose like an exhalation.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 38: "Trees," says Dennis, "starting from their roots, a mountain rolling into a wall, and a town rising like an exhalation are things that are not to be shown in sculpture." This objection, that "motion is represented as exhibited by sculpture," is said by Johnson, "to be the most reasonable of Dennis' remarks," but Dennis neutralised his own criticism when he added, that "sculpture can indeed show posture and position, and from posture and position we may conclude that the objects are in motion."]

[Footnote 39: Wakefield quotes from Milton (Par. Lost, ii. 4), the expression, "barbaric pearl and gold," and from Addison's translation of the second book of Ovid's Met. the line in which it is said that the palace of the sun

With burnished gold and flaming jewels blazed.

[Footnote 40: Cyrus was the beginning of the Persian, as Ninus was of the a.s.syrian monarchy.--POPE.]

[Footnote 41: The Magi and Chaldaeans (the chief of whom was Zoroaster) employed their studies upon magic and astrology, which was, in a manner, almost all the learning of the ancient Asian people. We have scarce any account of a moral philosopher, except Confucius, the great law-giver of the Chinese, who lived about two thousand years ago.--POPE.

There are several mistakes in Pope's note. Zoroaster was not a magician who "waved the circling wand" of the necromancer. "The Magians," says Plato, "teach the magic of Zoroaster, but this is the worship of the G.o.ds." His creed was theological, and had no connexion with sorcery.

Some of his nominal followers subsequently professed to be fortune-tellers. Astrology was not a general characteristic of the diverse nations who const.i.tuted the "ancient Asian people," and their learning was by no means limited to it. The Hindoos, for instance, were the precursors of Aristotle in logic, and the earliest metaphysicians whose doctrines have come down to us. "The Indian philosophy," says M.

Cousin, "is so vast that all the philosophical systems are represented there, and we may literally affirm that it is an abridgment of the entire history of philosophy." Nor was Confucius the only oriental "law-giver who taught the useful science to be good." The Hindoo body of laws, which bears the name of Menu, was compiled centuries before Confucius was born, and it is eminently a moral and religious, as well as a political code.]

[Footnote 42: It was often erroneously stated that the Brahmins dwelt always in groves. By the laws of Menu the life of a Brahmin was divided into four portions, and it was during the third portion only that he was commanded to become an anchorite in the woods, to sleep on the bare ground, to feed on roots and fruit, to go clad in bark or the skin of the black antelope, and to expose himself to the drenching rain and scorching sun. The caste have ceased to conform to the primitive discipline, and the old asceticism is now confined to individual devotees. The functions which Pope ascribes to the Brahmins formed no part of their practices. They did not pretend to "stop the moon," and summon spirits to "midnight banquets." Pope copied Oldham's version of Virgil's eighth Eclogue:

Charms in her wonted course can stop the moon.]

[Footnote 43: Addison's translation of a pa.s.sage in Claudian:

Thin airy shapes, that o'er the furrows rise, A dreadful scene! and skim before his eyes.]

[Footnote 44: Dryden's Palamon and Arcite:

And sigils framed in planetary hours.

Dryden's Virgil, aen. vii. 25:

That watched the moon and planetary hour.]

[Footnote 45: Confucius flourished about two thousand three hundred years ago, just before Pythagoras. He taught justice, obedience to parents, humility, and universal benevolence: and he practised these virtues when he was a first minister, and when he was reduced to poverty and exile.--WARTON.]