Part 60

When brass decays, when trophies lie o'er-thrown, And mould'ring into dust drops the proud stone, From Windsor's roofs, &c.--WARBURTON.]

The wounded arm would furnish all their rooms, And bleed for ever scarlet in the looms.--HOLT WHITE.]

Whom Afric was not able to contain Whose length runs level with th' Atlantic main.--WAKEFIELD.]

Make warlike James's peaceful virtues known.--WAKEFIELD.]

Oh fact accurst! oh sacrilegious brood, Sworn to rebellion, principled in blood! Since that dire morn what tears has Albion shed, Gods! what new wounds, &c.--WARBURTON.]

Pope had in his mind, when he wrote the couplet, Creech's Hor., Ode xxxv. lib. 1.

I blush at the dishonest show, I die to see the wounds and scars, Those glories of our civil wars.]

Till Anna rose, and bade the Furies cease; Let there be peace--she said, and all was peace.--WARBURTON.

It may be presumed that Pope varied the couplet from perceiving the impropriety of a parody on the fiat of the Creator.]

Old Father Thames raised up his rev'rend head.

And again, at the conclusion of his Threnodia Augustalis:

While, starting from his oozy bed, Th' asserted ocean rears his rev'rend head.--WAKEFIELD.

The gods of rivers are invariably represented as old men.]

his beard all gray Dewed with silver drops that trickled down alway.--WAKEFIELD.]

From shore to shore exulting shouts he heard, O'er all his banks a lambent light appeared, With sparkling flames heav'n's glowing concave shone, Fictitious stars, and glories not her own. He saw, and gently rose above the stream His shining horns diffused a golden gleam: With pearl and gold his tow'ry front was drest, The tributes of the distant East and West.--POPE.]

Pope's personification of the Thames is the echo of Addison's translation of a passage in Claudian, describing the deity of the Eridanus:

His head above the floods he gently reared, And as he rose his golden horns appeared, That on the forehead shone divinely bright And o'er the banks diffused a yellow light: Beneath his arm an urn supported lies With stars embellished, and fictitious skies.]

All little rivers, which owe vassalage To him, as to their lord, and tribute pay,

and the accompanying enumeration of the subsidiary streams, is closely imitated from the Faery Queen. Pope professes to describe the river-gods who stood round the throne of Father Thames, but he has confounded the river-gods with the rivers, and some of his epithets,--"winding Isis," "blue transparent Vandalis," "gulphy Lee,"--are not applicable to persons.]

The crystal Trent for fords and fish renowned.--BOWLES.

The Kennet is not linked by Pope to any poetical association when he simply says that it is "renowned for silver eels," but Spenser brings a delightful picture before the eye when he speaks of the

still Darent in whose waters clean Ten thousand fishes play, and deck his pleasant stream.]

Where silver lakes with verdant shadows crowned.]

Her dropping locks the silver Tessin rears, The blue transparent Adda next appears.]

Or sullen Mole, that runneth underneath.--WAKEFIELD.

The Mole at particular spots, called the swallows, sinks through crevices in the chalk, and during dry seasons, when there is not sufficient water to till both the subterranean and the upper channel, the bed of the river is laid bare in parts of its course. The stream sometimes entirely disappears from Burford-bridge to the neighbourhood of Thorncroft-bridge, a distance of nearly three miles.]

And the old Lee brags of the Danish blood.--BOWLES.

Pope's epithet "silent" was suggested by "the still Darent" of Spenser, and the same poet had said of the Eden that it was