Part 51

Concanen had previously made the same objection in his Supplement to the Profound, and Pope has written in the margin, "Milton," who uses "visual ray," Par. Lost, iii. 620, "visual nerve" xi. 415, and "visual beam," Samson Agonistes, ver. 163; but none of these passages support Pope's misapplication of the phrase "thick films" to rays of light.]

He wipes the tears for ever from our eyes,

which was from Milton's Lycidas, ver. 181:

And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.

Steele having objected that Pope's line "in exalted and poetical spirit" was below the original, Isaiah xxv. 8,--"The Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces,"--the poet altered his text without, perhaps, either injuring or improving it.]

The meaning of the original has been missed by Pope. The promise was not that men should cease to die, which would be the ease if Death was "bound in adamantine chains," but that death should lose its terrors through "the life and immortality brought to light by the gospel," and be welcomed as the passport to a blissful eternity.]

Ære ciere viros. With breathing brass to kindle fierce alarms. Dryden.--WAKEFIELD.]

And finish what thy god-like sire begins--WAKEFIELD.]

Molli paulatim flavescet campus arista, Incultisque rubens pendebit sentibus uva, Et duræ quercus sudabunt roscida mella.

"The fields shall grow yellow with ripened ears, and the red grape shall hang upon the wild brambles, and the hard oak shall distil honey like dew."

Isaiah xxxv. 7. "The parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: In the habitation where dragons lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes." Chap. lv. ver. 13. "Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle-tree."--POPE.]

Ipsæ lacte domum referent distenta capelæ Ubera, nec magnos metuent armeuta leones.-- Occidet et serpens, et fallax herba veneni Occidet.

"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 xi. 6, 7, 8. "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."--POPE.]

ille suæ lambebat conjugis ora;

and of husband and wife, when the change in both was complete, that

Nunc quoque nec fugiunt hominem, nec vulnere lædunt.]

And with their forky tongue and pointless sting shall play.

Wakefield conjectures that Pope altered the line from having learnt the erroneousness of the vulgar belief that the sting of the serpent is in its tail. The expression he substituted in the text is borrowed from Dryden's Palamon and Arcite, quoted by Wakefield:

And troops of lions innocently play.]

Magnus ab integro sæclorum nascitur ordo --toto surget gens aurea mundo! --incipient magni procedere menses! Aspice, venture lætentur ut omnia sæclo! &c.

The reader needs only to turn to the passages of Isaiah, here cited.--POPE.]

What sweet soe'er Sabæan springs disclose.--STEEVENS.

Saba, in Arabia, was noted for its aromatic products. Thus Milton, Par. Lost, iv. 161:

Sabæan odours from the spicy shore Of Araby the blest.]

A stream of glory, and a flood of day.--WAKEFIELD.]

Sandys' Ovid:

Now waxing Phoebe filled her wained horns.--WAKEFIELD.]