See heav'n its sparkling portals wide display, 100 105 IMITATIONS. Ver. 8. A virgin shall conceive-All crimes shall cease, etc.] Virg. E. iv. 6. 'Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna; Jam nova progenies cælo demittitur alto. Te duce, si qua manent sceleris vestigia nostri, Irrita perpetua solvent formidine terrasPacatumque reget patriis virtutibus orbem.' 'Now the virgin returns, now the kingdom of Saturn returns, now a new progeny is sent down from high heaven. By means of thee, whatever reliques of our crimes remain, shall be wiped away, and free the world from perpetual fears. He shall govern the earth in peace, with the virtues of his father.' Isaiah, ch. vii. 14.—'Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son.' Ch. ix. v. 6, 7.-'Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given; the Prince of Peace: of the increase of his government, and of his peace, there shall be no end: Upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order and to establish it, with judgment, and with justice, for ever and ever.' P. Ver. 23. See Nature hastes, etc.] 'At tibi prima, puer, nullo munuscula cultu, 'For thee, O child, shall the earth, without being tilled, produce her early offerings; wind- | ing ivy, mixed with Baccar, and Colocasia with smiling Acanthus. Thy cradle shall pour forth pleasing flowers about thee.' Aggredere o magnos, aderit jam tempus, honores, 'Oh come and receive the mighty honours: the time draws nigh, O beloved offspring of the gods, O great encrease of Jove! The uncultivated mountains send shouts of joy to the stars, the very rocks sing in verse, the very shrubs cry out, A god, a god!' Isaiah, ch. xl. 3, 4.-'The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord! make strait in the desart a high way for our God! Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made strait, and the rough places plain.' Ch. xliv. 23.-'Break forth into singing, ye mountains! O forest, and every tree therein for the Lord hath redeemed Israel.' P. Ver. 67. The swain in barren deserts, etc.] Virg. E. iv. v. 28. 'Molli paulatim flavescet campus arista, Incultisque rubens pendebit sentibus uva, Et duræ quercus sudabunt roscida mella.' "The fields shall grow yellow with ripen'd ears, and the red grape shall hang upon the wild brambles, and the hard oaks shall distill honey like dew.' Isaiah, ch. xxxv. 7.-'The parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: In the habitations where dragons lay, shall be grass, and reeds, and rushes.' Ch. lv. 13. Instead of the thorn shall come up the firtree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle-tree.' P. Ver. 77. The lambs with wolves, etc.] 'Ipsæ lacte domum referent distenta capellæ 'The goats shall bear to the fold their udders distended with milk; nor shall the herds be afraid of the greatest lions. The serpent shall die, and the herb that conceals poison shall die.' Isaiah, ch. xi. 6, etc.-'The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together: and a little child shall lead them.-And the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the den of the cockatrice.' P. Ver. 85. Rise, crown'd with light, imperial Salem, rise!] The thoughts of Isaiah, which compose the latter part of the poem, are wonderfully elevated, and much above those general exclamations of Virgil, which make the loftiest parts of his Pollio. 'Magnus ab integro sæclorum nascitur ordo! The reader needs only to turn to the passages of Isaiah, here cited. P. [Cited at bottom of text.] WINDSOR-FOREST. To the Right Honourable Non injussa cano: Te nostræ, Vare, myricæ, VIRG. [Ecl. VI. 10-12.] [The design of this poem is universally allowed to have been derived from Denham's Cooper's Hill, the first specimen in English literature of what Johnson denominates 'local poetry.' As a descriptive poem, Windsor Forest has the merits both of dignity and of variety; though the sense of the picturesque is a discovery which had dawned neither upon the age nor upon the individual genius of Pope. Perhaps the most ambitious passage, in which the river Thames is introduced and personified, is only a weak imitation of greater models. As proceeding from an inhabitant of the immediate neighbourhood of Windsor Castle, the treatment of the historical associations connected with it is remarkably loose and incomplete. Otway's Windsor Castle, though in execution infinitely inferior to Pope's, is superior to the latter in the unity of its conception, which is that of a threnody on the recent death of Charles II., naturally suggested by the royal abode.] This poem was written at two different times: the first part of it, which relates to the country, in the year 1704, at the same time with the Pastorals: the latter part was not added till the year 1713, in which it was published. P. [The division is at line 289.] 1 [See note to p. 15.] HY forests, Windsor! and thy green retreats, THY At once the Monarch's and the Muse's seats, And where, tho' all things differ, all agree. That crown'd with tufted trees and springing corn, 30 While by our oaks the precious loads are born, A dreary desert, and a gloomy waste, 1 blueish. [The word has the authority of both Shakspere and Dryden.] 2 Not proud Olympus, etc.] Sir J. Denham, in his Cooper's Hill had said, "Than which a nobler weight no mountain bears, 3 [A tautology.] 35 40 45 4 [The Forest Laws. 'Amabat rex,' says the Saxon chronicle quoted by Thierry, 'ferus feras tanquam esset pater earum.'] [The allusion, after a compliment to the Stuarts, to laws which a Stuart attempted in part to revive, is unintentionally infelicitous.] Who claim'd the skies, dispeopled air and floods, 50 In vain kind seasons swell'd the teeming grain, Soft show'rs distill'd, and suns grew warm in vain ; The swain with tears his frustrate labour yields, 55 And famish'd dies amidst his ripen'd fields. Were equal crimes in a despotic_reign? 1 The fields are ravish'd, etc.] Alluding to the destruction made in the New Forest, and the tyrannies exercised there by William I. P. [Warton and Bowles have sufficiently pointed out the exaggerated character of this description.] 2 himself deny'd a grave!] The place of his interment at Caen in Normandy was claimed by a gentleman as his inheritance, the moment his servants were going to put him in his tomb: so that they were obliged to compound with the 60 65 70 75 .80 85 90 owner before they could perform the king's obsequies. Warburton. [The gentleman's name was Asselin ; and the story, with additional details, is told from Ordericus Vitalis by Thierry.] 3 [Richard duke of Bernay, said to have been killed by a stag in the New Forest.] 4 The oak under which Rufus was shot was standing till within a few years. Bowles. (1806.) Fair Liberty, Britannia's Goddess, rears Her cheerful head, and leads the golden years. Ye vig'rous swains! while youth ferments your blood, Now range the hills, the gameful woods beset, See! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs, And mounts exulting on triumphant wings: Short is his joy; he feels the fiery wound, Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground. Ah! what avail his glossy, varying dyes, 115 His purple crest, and scarlet-circled eyes, The vivid green his shining plumes unfold, His painted wings, and breast that flames with gold? The woods and fields their pleasing toils deny. In genial spring, beneath the quivering shade, 1 [The allusion may be to the capture of Gibraltar, easily effected by Rooke with his sailors and marines in the year (1704) in which the earlier part of this poem was written.] 120 125 130 135 2 [i. e. well-exercised, cf. 'breathed stags.' Shaksp. Taming of the Shrew, Intr.] |