[Footnote 16:
Tho saw I all the hill y-grave
With famous folkes names fele.
That had been in muchel wele
And her fames wide y-blow;
But well unneth might I know
Any letters for to rede
Their names by, for, out of drede,
They weren almost off-thawen so,
That of the letters one or two
Were molte away of every name,
So unfamous was woxe their fame;
But men said what may ever last.--POPE.]
[Footnote 17:
Tho gan I in myne harte cast,
That they were molte away for heate,
And not away with stormes beate.--POPE.]
[Footnote 18: Does not this use of the heat of the sun appear to be a
puerile and far-fetched conceit? What connection is there betwixt the
two sorts of excesses here mentioned? My purpose in animadverting so
frequently as I have done on this species of false thoughts is to guard
the reader, especially of the younger sort, from being betrayed by the
authority of so correct a writer as Pope into such specious and false
refinements of style.--WARTON.
Not only is the comparison defective, but the fundamental idea is
unfounded, for though excess of admiration may produce a temporary
reaction, the opinion of the world oscillates back to the middle line,
and no instance can be quoted of an author who has finally lost his due
reputation because he had once been overpraised. Chaucer makes a
different use of the image. In his poem the north side of the icy
mountain bears the names of the ancients which were safe from injury.
The sunny side bears the names of the moderns, and he perhaps intended
to intimate his opinion that the reason why their fame was less durable
than that of the Greeks and Romans was that they were a more luxurious
race, and did not in the same degree "scorn delights, and live laborious
days" for the sake of producing immortal works.]
[Footnote 19:
For on that other side I sey
Of that hill which northward ley,
How it was written full of names
Of folke, that had afore great fames,
Of olde time, and yet they were
As fresh as men had written hem there
The self day, right or that houre
That I upon hem gan to poure:
But well I wiste what it made;
It was conserved with the shade
(All the writing that I sye)
Of the castle that stoode on high,
And stood eke in so cold a place,
That heate might it not deface.--POPE.]
[Footnote 20: Though a strict verisimilitude be not required in the
descriptions of this visionary and allegorical kind of poetry, which
admits of every wild object that fancy may present in a dream, and where
it is sufficient if the moral meaning atone for the improbability, yet
men are naturally so desirous of truth that a reader is generally
pleased, in such a case, with some excuse or allusion that seems to
reconcile the description to probability and nature. The simile here is
of that sort, and renders it not wholly unlikely that a rock of ice
should remain for ever by mentioning something like it in our northern
regions agreeing with the accounts of our modern travellers.--POPE.]
[Footnote 21: "Mountains _propping_ the sky" was one of those vicious
common-places of poetry which falsify natural appearances.]
[Footnote 22: A real lover of painting will not be contented with a
single view and examination of this beautiful winter-piece; but will
return to it again and again with fresh delight. The images are
distinct, and the epithets lively and appropriate, especially the words
"pale," "unfelt," "impassive," "incumbent," "gathered."--WARTON.]
[Footnote 23: This excellent line was perhaps suggested by a fine
couplet in Addison's translation of an extract from Silius Italicus:
Stiff with eternal ice, and hid in snow,
That fell a thousand centuries ago.]
[Footnote 24: Dryden's Hind and Panther: