And like the _desert's lily_ bloom to fade!
Elegy iv.
Gray was so fond of this pleasing imagery, that he repeats it in his Ode
to the Installation; and Mason echoes it in his Ode to Memory.
Milton thus paints the evening sun:
If chance the radiant SUN with FAREWELL SWEET
Extends his evening beam, the fields revive,
The birds their notes renew, &c.
_Par. Lost_, B. ii. v. 492.
Can there be a doubt that he borrowed this beautiful _farewell_ from an
obscure poet, quoted by Poole, in his "English Parnassus," 1657? The
date of Milton's great work, I find since, admits the conjecture: the
first edition being that of 1669. The homely lines in Poole are these,
To Thetis' watery bowers the _sun_ doth hie,
BIDDING FAREWELL unto the gloomy sky.
Young, in his "Love of Fame," very adroitly improves on a witty conceit
of Butler. It is curious to observe that while Butler had made a remote
allusion of a _window_ to a _pillory_, a conceit is grafted on this
conceit, with even more exquisite wit.
Each WINDOW like the PILLORY appears,
With HEADS thrust through: NAILED BY THE EARS!
_Hudibras_, Part ii. c. 3, v. 301.
An opera, like a PILLORY, may be said
To NAIL OUR EARS down, and EXPOSE OUR HEAD.
YOUNG'S _Satires_.
In the Duenna we find this thought differently illustrated; by no means
imitative, though the satire is congenial. Don Jerome alluding to the
_serenaders_ says, "These amorous orgies that steal the senses in the
_hearing_; as they say Egyptian embalmers serve mummies, _extracting the
brain through the ears_." The wit is original, but the subject is the
same in the three passages; the whole turning on the allusion to the
_head_ and to the _ears_.
When Pope composed the following lines on Fame,
How vain that second life in others' breath,
The ESTATE which wits INHERIT after death;
Ease, health, and life, for this they must resign,
(Unsure the _tenure_, but how vast the _fine!_)
_Temple of Fame_.
he seems to have had present in his mind a single idea of Butler, by
which he has very richly amplified the entire imagery. Butler says,
Honour's a LEASE for LIVES TO COME,
And cannot be extended from
The LEGAL TENANT.
_Hudibras_, Part i. c. 3, v. 1043.
The same thought may be found in Sir George Mackenzie's "Essay on
preferring Solitude to public Employment," first published in 1665:
Hudibras preceded it by two years. The thought is strongly expressed by
the eloquent Mackenzie: "_Fame is a revenue payable only to our ghosts_;
and to deny ourselves all present satisfaction, or to expose ourselves
to so much hazard for this, were as great madness as to starve
ourselves, or fight desperately for food, to be laid on our tombs after
our death."
Dryden, in his "Absalom and Achitophel," says of the Earl of
Shaftesbury,
David for him his tuneful harp had strung,
_And Heaven had wanted one immortal song_.
This verse was ringing in the ear of Pope, when with equal modesty and
felicity he adopted it in addressing his friend Dr. Arbuthnot.
Friend of my life; which did not you prolong,
_The world had wanted many an idle song!_
Howell has prefixed to his Letters a tedious poem, written in the taste
of the times, and he there says of _letters_, that they are
The heralds and sweet harbingers that move
From _East to West, on embassies of love_;
They can the _tropic cut_, and _cross the line_.
It is probable that Pope had noted this thought, for the following lines
seem a beautiful heightening of the idea:
Heaven first taught _letters_, for some wretch's aid,
Some banish'd _lover_, or some captive maid.