[Footnote 123: Dryden's version of Ovid, Met. xii.:
Whence all things, though remote, are viewed around
And hither bring their undulating sound.--WAKEFIELD.]
[Footnote 124:
Of werres, of peace, of marriages,
Of rest, of labour, of voyages,
Of abode, of dethe, of life,
Of love and hate, accord and strife,
Of loss, of lore, and of winnings,
Of hele, of sickness, and lessings,
Of divers transmutations
Of estates and eke of regions,
Of trust, of drede, of jealousy,
Of wit, of winning, of folly,
Of good, or bad governement,
Of fire, and of divers accident.--POPE.
The dismissal of Lord Oxford, the death of Queen Anne immediately
afterwards, on August 1, 1714, and the overthrow of Bolingbroke, were
events which had recently happened when Pope published his poem, and
there never was a time when "changes in the state," "the falls of
favourites," and "old mismanagements" were a more universal topic of
conversation.]
[Footnote 125:
But such a grete congregation
Of folke as I saw roame about,
Some within, and some without.
Was never seen, ne shall be eft--
And every wight that I saw there
Rowned everich in others ear
A newe tyding privily,
Or elles he told it openly
Right thus, and said, Knowst not thou
That is betide to night now?
No, quoth he, tell me what
And then he told him this and that, &c.--POPE.]
[Footnote 126:
Thus north and south
Went every tiding fro mouth to mouth,
And that encreasing evermo,
As fire is wont to quicken and go
From a sparkle sprong amiss,
Till all the citee brent up is.--POPE.]
[Footnote 127: Dryden, Ovid, Met. xii.:
Fame sits aloft.
In Ovid the scene is laid in the house of Fame. Pope lays it in the
house of Rumour, and having left Fame enthroned in her own temple, he
now represents her as permanently "sitting aloft" in a totally different
edifice.]
[Footnote 128:
And sometime I saw there at once,
A lesing and a sad sooth saw
That gonnen at adventure draw
Out of a window forth to pace--
And no man be he ever so wrothe,
Shall have one of these two, but bothe, &c.--POPE.]
[Footnote 129: The hint is taken from a passage in another part of the
third book, but here more naturally made the conclusion, with the
addition of a moral to the whole. In Chaucer, he only answers, "he came
to see the place;" and the book ends abruptly, with his being surprized
at the sight of a man of great authority, and awaking in a
fright.--POPE.
This is an imperfect representation. While Chaucer is standing in the
House of Fame, a person goes up to him,
And saide, Friend, what is thy name,
Artow come hither to have fame?
The poet disclaims any such intention, and protests that he has no
desire that his name should be known to a single soul. He is then asked
what he does there, and he replies that he who brought him to the place
promised him that he should learn new and wonderful things, in which, he
says, he has been disappointed, for he was aware before that people
coveted fame, though he was not hitherto acquainted with the dwelling of
the goddess, nor with her appearance and condition. His interrogator
answers that he perceives what it is he desires to know, and conducts
him to the house of Rumour. There he has revealed to him the falsehood
of the world, and especially of pilgrims and pardoners, which was an
important doctrine to be inculcated in those days. When the scene has
been fully disclosed, "a man of great authority" appears, and the poet
starts up from his sleep, by which he seems to intimate that the wise
and serious frown upon those who listen to idle tales. His awaking "half
afraid," is the result of his
Remembring well what I had seen,
And how high and far I had been
In my ghost.
Pope, by reserving the inquiry addressed to him for the end of the poem,
represents himself as being asked in the temple of Rumour whether he has
come there for fame, which, is not more, but much less natural than the
arrangement of Chaucer, who supposes the question to be put in the
temple of Fame itself. Nor would it have been congenial to Chaucer's
modest disposition to make himself the climax of the piece.]
[Footnote 130: Garth, in the preface to his Dispensary: "Reputation of
this sort is very hard to be got, and very easy to be
lost."--WAKEFIELD.]
[Footnote 131: Cowley's Complaint:
Thou who rewardest but with popular breath
And that too after death.--WAKEFIELD.
Pope's moral is inconsistent with the previous tone of his poem. He has
not treated the "second life in others' breath" as "vain," but speaks of
the position of Homer, Aristotle, &c. in the temple of Fame as though it
were a substantial triumph, a real dignity, and a glorious reward. The
purport of his piece is to enforce, and not to depreciate, the value of
literary renown. His whole life attests that this was his genuine
opinion. He was not endowed with the equanimity which neither covets nor
despises reputation, and it was pure affectation when he pretended, in
the concluding paragraph, that he did not "call for the favours of
fame," and that he held posthumous fame, in particular, to be a
worthless possession.]
[Footnote 132: Dryden, in Palamon and Arcite, says of women that they