Part 59

Happy the man, who to these shades retires, But doubly happy, if the muse inspires! Blest whom the sweets of home-felt quiet please; But far more blest, who study joins with ease.--POPE.

The turn of this passage manifestly proves that our poet had in view that incomparable encomium of Virgil's second Georgic on philosophy and a country life.--WAKEFIELD.

In addition to the imitation of the second Georgic, and the translation of lines in Horace and Lucan, Pope adopted hints, as Warton has remarked, from Philips's Cider:

He to his labour hies Gladsome, intent on somewhat that may ease Unhealthy mortals, and with curious search Examines all the properties of herbs, Fossils and minerals, &c. or else his thoughts Are exercised with speculations deep, Of good, and just, and meet, and th' wholesome rules Of temperance, and ought that may improve The moral life; &c.]

An tacitum silvas inter reptare salubres, Curantem quidquid dignum sapiente bonoque est?--WAKEFIELD.

Pope remembered Creech's translation of the passage:

Or dost thou gravely walk the healthy wood, Considering what befits the wise and good.]

----servare modum, finemque tenere, Naturamque sequi. Lucan.--WARBURTON.]

Ye sacred muses! with whose beauty fired, My soul is ravished, and my brain inspired.--WAKEFIELD.

Addison in his Letter from Italy has the expression "fired with a thousand raptures."]

O, qui me gelidis in vallibus Hæmi Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra! Virg.--WARBURTON.]

Methinks around your hold scenes I rove, And hear your music echoing through the grove: With transport visit each inspiring shade, By god-like poets venerable made.--WARBURTON.]

or what Unrivalled authors by their presence made For ever venerable.--STEEVENS.]

Pope told Spence that Cowley was killed by a fever brought on by lying out all night in the fields. He had got drunk, in company with his friend Dean Sprat, at the house of a neighbour, and they lost their way in the attempt to walk home. Sprat had long before related that Cowley caught his last illness in the "meadows," but says it was caused "by staying too long amongst his labourers in the heat of the summer." The drunkenness, and the lying out all night, appear to have been the embellishments of scandal.]

This, Thames, ah! this, is now thy second loss For which in tears thy weeping current flows.]

quæ, Tiberine, videbis Funera, cum tumulum præterlabere recentem.

The "pomp" was not a poetical exaggeration. Evelyn, who attended the funeral, says that Cowley's body was "conveyed to Westminster Abbey in a hearse with six horses, near a hundred coaches of noblemen, and persons of quality following."]

What sighs, what murmurs, filled the vocal shore! His tuneful swans were heard to sing no more.--POPE.]

Pope says that "each muse" hung up her lyre because Cowley was thought to excel in many departments of verse. "He was beloved," said Dr. Felton, "by every muse he courted, and has rivalled the ancients in every kind of poetry but tragedy." Dr. Sprat entitled his poem on him an "Ode to the English Ovid, Anacreon, Pindar, and Virgil."]

What bard, what angel, tunes the warbling strings?

It is surprising that Pope did not feel the bathos of the expression, "'Tis yours, my lord," introduced into the midst of the high-flown adulation.]

And paint those honours thou art sure to wear.--STEEVENS.]

The order was founded by Edward III., the builder of Windsor Castle, which further connected it with Pope's subject. Denham had celebrated the institution of the garter in Cooper's Hill, and Lord Lansdowne, in his Progress of Beauty, "sung the honours" in a few despicable verses, which certainly added no "lustre to the silver star."]

My humble muse in unambitious strains Paints the green forests and the flow'ry plains; Where I obscurely pass my careless days, Pleased in the silent shade with empty praise, Enough for me that to the list'ning swains First in these fields I sung the sylvan strains.--POPE.]

She proved in her conduct to be the reverse of "heavenly." "Granville," says Johnson, "wrote verses to her before he was three-and-twenty, and may be forgiven if he regarded the face more than the mind. Poets are sometimes in too much haste to praise."]

Not to recount those several kings, to whom It gave a cradle, and to whom a tomb. Denham.--BOWLES.]

----Great Edward, and thy greater son, The lilies which his father wore, he won.

Edward III. claimed the crown of France by descent, and quartered the French fleur-de-lis on his shield before the victories of the Black Prince had made the assumption something more than an empty boast.]