The moving mountains hear the pow'rful call, To the cool ocean, where his journey ends:* 1 Lucan vi. 473: de rupe pependit Abscissa fixus torrens; amnisque cucurrit Non qua pronus erat. Streams have run back at murmurs of her tongue. And torrents from the rock suspended hung. Rowe. -STEEVENS. "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. 2 In the MS.: But see the southing sun displays his beams, See Tityrus leads his herd to silver streams. 3 Virg. Ecl. ii. 68: Me tamen urit amor, quis enim modus adsit amori?-POPE 85 90 He had Dryden's translation of the passage in Virgil before him : Cool breezes now the raging heats remove: Ah, cruel heav'n, that made no cure for love.-WAKEFIELD. 4 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.-WAKE FIELD. 5 Variation: Me love inflames, nor will his fires allay.- 6 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. AUTUMN: THE THIRD PASTORAL,' OR HYLAS AND EGON. TO MR. WYCHERLEY.2 BENEATH the shade a spreading beech displays,' This Pastoral consists of two parts, like the eighth of Virgil: the scene, a hill; the time, at sunset.POPE. 2 Mr. Wycherley, a famous author of comedies; of which the most celebrated were the Plain-Dealer and Country-Wife. He was a writer of infinite spirit, satire, and wit. The only objection made to him was, that he had too much. However, he was followed in the same way by Mr. Congreve, though with a little more correctness.-POPE. 3 Formed on Dryden's version of Ecl. i. 1: Beneath the shado which beechen boughs diffuse.-WAKEFIELD. 4 Before the edition of 1736 the couplet ran thus: To whose complaints the list'ning forests bend, While one his mistress mourns, and one his friend. In keeping with this announcement the song of Hylas, which forms the first portion of the Pastoral, was devoted to mourning an absent shepherd, and not, as at present, an absent shepherdess. When Pope made his lines commemorative of love, instead of friendship, he did little more than change the name of the man (Thyrsis) to that of a woman (Delia), and substitute the feminine for the masculine pronoun. The extravagant idea expressed in the first line of the rejected couplet is found in Oldham's translation of Moschus : And trees leaned their attentive branches down. There is nothing of the kind in the Greek text. From Dryden's version of Ecl. i. 5: While stretched at ease you sing your happy loves, And Amaryllis fills the shady groves.- Ye Mantuan nymphs, your sacred succour bring; Thou,' whom the nine, with Plautus' wit inspire, Whose sense instructs us, and whose humour charms, Now setting Phoebus shone serenely bright, And fleecy clouds were streaked with purple light; Taught rocks to weep, and made the mountains groan." To Delia's ear the tender notes convey. And with deep murmurs fills the sounding shores; Warburton's note has more the appearance of an insidious attack upon Pope than of serious commendation; for if, as Warburton assumes, the panegyric in the text has reference to the plays and not to the man, it was a misplaced "encomium” to say that Wycherley "instructed" the world by the "sense," and "swayed" them by the "judgment," which were manifested "in a shame. fully profligate dialogue and action." 3 The reading was "rapture" in all editions till that of 1736. 4 Few writers have less nature in them than Wycherley.—WARTON. 5 10 15 20 5 Till the edition of 1736 the following lines stood in place of the couplet in the text : Attend the muse, though low her numbers be, She sings of friendship, and she sings to thee. Pope had Waller's Thyrsis and Galatea in his memory: Made the wide country echo to your moan, The list'ning trees, and savage mountains groan.-WAKEFIELD. The groans of the trees and mountains are, in Waller's poem, the echo of the mourner's lamentations, but to this Pope has added that the "moan" made "the rocks weep," which has no resemblance to anything in nature. 7 The lines from verse 17 to 30 are very beautiful, tender, and melodious. - BOWLES. It was a time-honoured fancy that the "moan" of the turtle-dove was a lament for the loss of its mate. Turtur, the Latin name for the bird, is a cor Thus, far from Delia, to the winds I mourn, Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs along! Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs away! Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs along! 3 Virg. Ecl. viii. 52: aurea duræ also due to His obligations, are And knotted oaks shall show'rs of honey And through the matted grass the liquid gold shall creep. Bowles, in his translation of Theo- On brambles now let violets be born, Upon hard oaks let blushing peaches grow, The winds to breathe, the waving woods to move, Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs away ! She comes, my Delia comes !-Now cease my lay," Next Egon sung, while Windsor groves admired; To virgins flow'rs, to sun-burnt earth the To mariners fair winds amid the main, Are not so pleasing as thy blest return.- 5 Virg. Ecl. viii. 108 : an, qui amant, ipsį sibi sompia fingunt? -POPE. In the first edition, conformably to Do lovers dream, or is my shepherd kind? From Virg. Ecl. viii. 110: Parcite, ab urbe venit, jam parcite carmina, Daphnis. Stafford's translation in Dryden's Miscellany: Cease, cease, my charms, My Daphnis comes, he comes, he flies into my arms. |