[Footnote 13: Milton, Par. Lost, iv. 248:
Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balms.
This fancy was borrowed from the ancients. According to Ovid (Met. x.
500), Myrrha, changed into a tree, weeps myrrh, and the sisters of
Phaeton (Met. ii. 364), transformed into poplars, shed tears which harden
in the sun, and turn into amber.]
[Footnote 14: This fabulous mixture of stale images, Olympus and the
Gods, is, in my opinion, extremely puerile, especially in a description
of real scenery. Pan, Pomona, and the rest, mere representative
substitutions, give no offence.--WAKEFIELD.]
[Footnote 15: The making the hills nobler than Olympus with all its
gods, because the gods appeared "in their blessings" on the humbler
mountains of Windsor, is a thought only to be excused in a very young
writer.--BOWLES.]
[Footnote 16: The word "crowned" is exceptionable; it makes Pan crowned
with flocks.--WARTON.
Pope, in his manuscript, has underscored "Pan with flocks," and
"crowned," and set a mark against the line, as if he had detected, and
intended to remove, the defect.]
[Footnote 17: Dryden's Translations from Ovid:
A dismal desert, and a silent waste.
Pope weakened the line in varying it. "Dreary desert" and "gloomy waste"
are synonymous, but "silent" adds a distinct idea to "dismal."]
[Footnote 18: The Forest Laws.--POPE.
The killing a deer, boar, or hare, was punished with the loss of the
delinquent's eyes.--WARTON.
Thierry believes that the forest laws had a more serious object than to
secure for the king a monopoly of sport. The chief intention was to keep
the newly conquered Saxons from going armed under the pretext that they
were in pursuit of game. Hence the penalty was of a nature to
incapacitate the offender for military service.]
[Footnote 19: This is in imitation of Waller:
Prove all a desert! and none there make stay
But savage beasts, or men as wild as they.--WAKEFIELD.