Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strain! Here, where the mountains, less'ning as they rise, While curling smokes from village tops are seen, Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strain! 1 Dryden's Virg. Ecl. viii. 26, 29: While I my Nisa's perjured faith deplore. Yet shall my dying breath to heav'n complain. 2 This imagery is borrowed from Milton's Comus, ver. 290: Two such I saw, what time the laboured ox 3 Variation: And the fleet shades fly gliding o'er the green.-POPE. These two verses are obviously adum- For see yon sunny hill the shade extends 4 This fancy he derived from Virgil, Eel. x. 53: VOL. I.-POETRY. a tenerisque meos incidere amores Arboribus. The rind of ev'ry plant her name shall know. Dryden.-WAKEFIELD. Garth's Dispensary, Canto vi.: Their wounded bark records some broken And willow garlands hang on ev'ry bough. 5 According to the ancients, the weather was stormy for a few days when Arcturus rose with the sun, which took place in September, and Pope apparently means that rain at this crisis was beneficial to the standing corn. The harvest at the beginning of the last century was not so early as it is now. 6 The scene is in Windsor Forest; so this image is not so exact.-WAR BURTON. U Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful lay! The shepherds cry, "Thy flocks are left a prey "Ah! what avails it me, the flocks to keep, Who lost my heart while I preserved my sheep? Pan came, and asked, what magic caused my smart,' Or what ill eyes' malignant glances dart ? Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strains; 1 This is taken from Virg. Eel. x. 26, 21: Pan deus Arcadiæ venit. ... 2 Virg. Ecl. iii. 103 : Nescio quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos.-POPE Dryden's version of the original: What magic has bewitched the woolly dams, And what ill eyes beheld the tender lambs. -WAKEFIELD. 3 It should be "darted;" the present tense is used for the sake of the rhyme-WARTON. 4 Variation: What cyes but hers, alas! have pow'r on Oh mighty Love! what magic is like thee? 5 Virg. Ecl. viii. 43: Nunc scio quid sit amor. Duris in cotibus illum, etc.-POPE. Stafford's version of the original in Dryden's Miscellanies : I know thee, Love! on nountains thou wast bred. 80 85 50 Pope was not unmindful of Dryden's translation: I know thee, Love! in deserts thou wert bred, And at the dugs of savage tigers fed. He had in view also a passage in the But hewn from hardened entrails of a rock, Nor did our author overlook the From hardened oak, or from a rock's cold womb, At least thou art from some fierce tigress come; Or on rough seas, from their foundation Got by the winds, and in a tempest born. 6 Till the edition of Warburton, this couplet was as follows: I know thee, Love! wild as the raging main, More fell than tigers on the Lybian plait Thou wert from Etna's burning entrails torn, : 1 Were a man to meet with such a nondescript mouster as the following, viz. "Love out of Mount Etna by a Whirlwind," he would suppose himself reading the Racing Calendar. Yet this hybrid creature is one of the many zoological monsters to whom the Pastorals introduce us. - DE QUINCEY. Sentiments like these, as they have no ground in nature, are of little value in any poem, but in pastoral they are particularly liable to censure, because it wants that exaltation above common life, which in tragic or heroic writings often reconciles us to bold flights and daring figures.-JOHNSON. 2 Virg. Ecl. viii. 59 : Præceps aĕrii specula de montis in undas From yon high cliff I plunge into the main. This passage in Pope is a strong WINTER:' THE FOURTH PASTORAL, OR DAPHNE. TO THE MEMORY OF MRS. TEMPEST.' LYCIDAS. THYRSIS, the music of that murm'ring spring This was the poet's favourite Pastoral.-WARBURTON. It is professedly an imitation of Theocritus, whom Pope does not resemble, and whose Idylls he could only have read in a translation. The sources from which he really borrowed his materials will be seen in the notes. This lady was of ancient family in Yorkshire, and particularly admired by the author's friend Mr. Walsh, who having celebrated her in a Pastoral Elegy, desired his friend to do the same, as appears from one of his letters, dated Sept. 9, 1706. "Your last Eclogue being on the same subject with mine on Mrs. Tempest's death, I should take it very kindly in you to give it a little turn, as if it were to the memory of the same lady." Her death having hap pened on the night of the great storm in 1703, gave a propriety to this Eclogue, which in its general turn alludes to it. The scene of the Pastoral lies in a grove, the time at midnight.-POPE. I do not find any lines that allude to the great storm of which the poet speaks.-WARTON. Nor I. On the contrary, all the allusions to the winds are of the gentler kind,"balmy Zephyrs," 66 'whispering breezes" and so forth. Miss Tempest was the daughter of Henry Tempest, of Newton Grange, York, and grand-daughter of Sir John Tempest, Bart. She died unmarried. When Pope's Pastoral first appeared in Tonson's Miscellany, it was entitled "To the memory of a Fair Young Lady."-CROKER. 3 This couplet was constructed from Creech's translation of the first Idyll of Theocritus: And, shepherd, sweeter notes thy pipe do fill Than murm'ring springs that roll from yonder hill.-WAKEFIELD, Nor rivers winding through the vales below,' THYRSIS. Behold the groves that shine with silver frost, 10 Their beauty withered, and their verdure lost!! ·、 1 Suggested by Virg. Ecl. v. 83: nec que Saxosas inter decurrunt flumina valles. For winding streams that through the valley glide. Dryden.-WAKEFIELD. 2 Milton, Par. Lost, v. 195: Fountains, and ye that warble, as ye flow, Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise. 3 Variation: In the warm folds the tender flocks remain, It was originally, Now in warm folds the tender flock remains. Pope. "Objection to the word remains. I do not know whether these following be better or no, and desire your opinion. Now while the groves in Cynthia's beams And folded flocks in their soft fleeces rest; Or, While Cynthia tips with silver all the groves, And scarce the winds the topmast branches moves. or 4 While the bright moon with silver tips the And not a breeze the quiv'ring branches Dryden's Virgil, Ecl. vi. 100: 5 Virg. Ecl. vi. 83: Audiit Eurotas, jussitque ediscere lauros Admitting that a river gently flow- |