The Works of Alexander Pope Part 74

[Footnote 132: Dryden's translation of the tenth Satire of Juvenal, ver.

236:

Whom Afric was not able to contain Whose length runs level with th' Atlantic main.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 133: Dr. Chetwood's verses to Roscommon:

Make warlike James's peaceful virtues known.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 134: Charles I. was buried in St. George's Chapel, Windsor.

The precise spot was a matter of doubt till an accidental aperture was made in 1813 into the vault of Henry VIII., when a lead coffin was discovered bearing the inscription "King Charles, 1648." It was opened in the presence of the Regent; and the corpse was in a sufficient state of preservation to enable the spectators to recognise the likeness of the countenance to Vand.y.k.e's portraits of the king, and to ascertain that the head had been severed from the body.]

[Footnote 135: Originally thus in the MS.

Oh fact accurst! oh sacrilegious brood, Sworn to rebellion, principled in blood!

Since that dire morn what tears has Albion shed, G.o.ds! what new wounds, &c.--WARBURTON.]

[Footnote 136: To say that the plague in London, and its consumption by fire, were judgments inflicted by heaven for the murder of Charles I., is a very extraordinary stretch of tory principles indeed.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 137: This couplet is directed at the Revolution, considered by Pope, in common with all jacobites, to be a like public calamity with the plague and the fire of London.--CROKER.

Pope had in his mind, when he wrote the couplet, Creech's Hor., Ode x.x.xv. lib. 1.

I blush at the dishonest show, I die to see the wounds and scars, Those glories of our civil wars.]

[Footnote 138: Thus in the MS.

Till Anna rose, and bade the Furies cease; _Let there be peace_--she said, and all was _peace_.--WARBURTON.

It may be presumed that Pope varied the couplet from perceiving the impropriety of a parody on the fiat of the Creator.]

[Footnote 139: Dryden's Annus Mirabilis:

Old Father Thames raised up his rev'rend head.

And again, at the conclusion of his Threnodia Augustalis:

While, starting from his oozy bed, Th' a.s.serted ocean rears his rev'rend head.--WAKEFIELD.

The G.o.ds of rivers are invariably represented as old men.]

[Footnote 140: Spenser of Father Thames:

his beard all gray Dewed with silver drops that trickled down alway.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 141: Between verse 330 and 331, originally stood these lines;

From sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e exulting shouts he heard, O'er all his banks a lambent light appeared, With sparkling flames heav'n's glowing concave shone, Fict.i.tious stars, and glories not her own.

He saw, and gently rose above the stream His shining horns diffused a golden gleam: With pearl and gold his tow'ry front was drest, The tributes of the distant East and West.--POPE.]

[Footnote 142: Horns were a cla.s.sical attribute of rivers,--not I think, according to the common view, as a mark of dignity, but as a symbolical expression of the fact that the princ.i.p.al streams, like the ocean itself, are formed from a confluence of tributaries.--CROKER.

Pope's personification of the Thames is the echo of Addison's translation of a pa.s.sage in Claudian, describing the deity of the Erida.n.u.s:

His head above the floods he gently reared, And as he rose his golden horns appeared, That on the forehead shone divinely bright And o'er the banks diffused a yellow light: Beneath his arm an urn supported lies With stars embellished, and fict.i.tious skies.]

[Footnote 143: Augusta was the name which the Romans at one period gave to London. The representation of the G.o.d attended by

All little rivers, which owe va.s.salage To him, as to their lord, and tribute pay,

and the accompanying enumeration of the subsidiary streams, is closely imitated from the Faery Queen. Pope professes to describe the river-G.o.ds who stood round the throne of Father Thames, but he has confounded the river-G.o.ds with the rivers, and some of his epithets,--"winding Isis,"

"blue transparent Vandalis," "gulphy Lee,"--are not applicable to persons.]

[Footnote 144: The river-G.o.ds were said to be the children of Ocea.n.u.s and Tethys, but in the earlier mythology, Ocea.n.u.s was himself a _river_ (not a sea), surrounding the earth, and the lesser rivers were his progeny.]

[Footnote 145: The Tamesis. It was a common but erroneous notion, that the appellation was formed from appending the name Isis to Thame.]

[Footnote 146: Warton observes that Pope has here copied and equalled the description of rivers in Spenser, Drayton, and Milton. The description is beautiful, but in some points it is deficient. "Winding Isis" and "fruitful Thame" are ill designated. No peculiar and visible image is added to the character of the streams, either interesting from beauty, or incidental circ.u.mstances. Most rivers wind and may be called fruitful, as well as the Isis and Thame. The latter part of the description is much more masterly, as every river has its distinctive mark, and that mark is picturesque. It may be said, however, that all the epithets, in a description of this sort, cannot be equally significant, but surely something more striking should have been given as circ.u.mstantially characteristic of such rivers as the Isis and Thames, than that they were "winding" and "fruitful," or of the Kennet that it was renowned for "silver eels."--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 147: Drayton:

The crystal Trent for fords and fish renowned.--BOWLES.

The Kennet is not linked by Pope to any poetical a.s.sociation when he simply says that it is "renowned for silver eels," but Spenser brings a delightful picture before the eye when he speaks of the

still Darent in whose waters clean Ten thousand fishes play, and deck his pleasant stream.]

[Footnote 148: Addison:

Where silver lakes with verdant shadows crowned.]

[Footnote 149: Several of Pope's epithets are borrowed, although he has not always coupled them with the same streams to which they are applied in his originals. For "Kennet swift" Milton has "Severn swift," and for "chalky Wey" Spenser has "chalky Kennet."]

[Footnote 150: The Wandle.--CROKER.]

[Footnote 151: Milton has "gulphy Dun" and "sedgy Lee," and Pope combined the characteristics. The remainder of the couplet is from Addison's translation of a pa.s.sage in Claudian:

Her dropping locks the silver Tessin rears, The blue transparent Adda next appears.]

[Footnote 152: Milton's Vacation Exercise:

Or sullen Mole, that runneth underneath.--WAKEFIELD.

The Mole at particular spots, called the swallows, sinks through crevices in the chalk, and during dry seasons, when there is not sufficient water to till both the subterranean and the upper channel, the bed of the river is laid bare in parts of its course. The stream sometimes entirely disappears from Burford-bridge to the neighbourhood of Thorncroft-bridge, a distance of nearly three miles.]

[Footnote 153: Drayton:

And the old Lee brags of the Danish blood.--BOWLES.

Pope's epithet "silent" was suggested by "the still Darent" of Spenser, and the same poet had said of the Eden that it was