[Footnote 172: "To tempt the sea" is a classical expression, significant
of hazard and resolution. Dryden's Iliad:
What now remains
But that once more we tempt the wat'ry plains.--WAKEFIELD.]
[Footnote 173: "Exalt" is an inefficient and prosaic word.--WAKEFIELD.
The word is certainly not "prosaic," for no one in prose would talk of
exalting a sail, but it is "inefficient," just because it is one of
those deviations from common speech, which sound affected.]
[Footnote 174: The whole passage seems a grand improvement from Philips'
Cider, book ii.:
uncontroll'd
The British navy, through the ocean vast,
Shall wave her double cross t' extremest climes
Terrific, and return with od'rous spoils
Of Araby well fraught, or Indus' wealth,
Pearl and barbaric gold.--WAKEFIELD.
Pope also drew upon Addison's lines to William III.:
Where'er the waves in restless errors roll,
The sea lies open now to either pole:
Now may we safely use the northern gales,
And in the polar circle spread our sails:
Or deep in southern climes, secure from wars,
New lands explore, and sail by other stars;
Fetch uncontrolled each labour of the sun,
And make the product of the world our own.
Towards the close of 1712 Tickell published his poem on the Prospect of
Peace. "The description," Pope wrote to Caryll, "of the several parts of
the world in regard to our trade has interfered with some lines of my
own in Windsor Forest, though written before I saw his. I transcribe
both, and desire your sincere judgment whether I ought not to strike out
mine, either as they seem too like his, or as they are inferior." The
close resemblance arose from their having copied a common original. The
couplet of Pope on the West India islands, which he subsequently
omitted, has no counterpart in Tickell, because it was not derived from
the passage in Addison.]
[Footnote 175: In poetical philosophy the crude material from which
jewels and the precious metals were formed, was supposed to be ripened
into maturity by the sun. Tickell has the same idea:
Here nearer suns prepare the ripening gem,
And here the ore, &c.]
[Footnote 176: This was suggested by a couplet of Denham's on the same
subject in his Cooper's Hill:
Nor are his blessings to his banks confined,
But free and common as the sea or wind.--WAKEFIELD.]
[Footnote 177: A wish that London may be made a FREE PORT.--POPE.]
[Footnote 178: This resembles Waller in his panegyric on Cromwell:
While by your valour and your bounteous mind,
Nations, divided by the sea, are joined.--WAKEFIELD.]
[Footnote 179: Better in the first edition, "Whose naked youth," and in
the Miscellanies better still, "While naked youth."--WAKEFIELD.]
[Footnote 180: "Admire" was formerly applied to anything which excited
surprise, whether the surprise was coupled with commendation or censure,
or was simply a sentiment of wonder. Thus Milton, using the word in this
last sense, says, Par. Lost, i. 690:
Let none admire
That riches grow in hell; that soil may best
Deserve the precious bane.
"Admire" has the same signification in Windsor Forest. Pope means that
the savages would be astonished at "our speech, our colour, and our
strange attire," and not that they would admire them in our present
laudatory sense of the term, which would be contrary to the fact. "A
fair complexion," says Adam Smith, "is a shocking deformity upon the
coast of Guinea. Thick lips and a flat nose are a beauty."]
[Footnote 181: As Peru was particularly famous for its long succession
of Incas, and Mexico for many magnificent works of massy gold, there is
great propriety in fixing the restoration of the grandeur of each to
that object for which each was once so remarkable.--WARTON.]
[Footnote 182: Rage in Virgil is bound in "brazen bonds," and Envy is
tormented by "the snakes of Ixion." These coincidences are specified by
Wakefield.]
[Footnote 183: Sir J. Beaumont's Bosworth Field:
Beneath her feet pale envy bites her chain,
And snaky discord whets her sting in vain.]
[Footnote 184: Hor., Ode iii. lib. 3:
Quo, Musa, tendis? desine pervicax
Referre sermones Deorum et
Magna modis tenuare parvis.--WARBURTON.
Addison's translation of Horace's Ode:
But hold, my muse, forbear thy tow'ring flight
Nor bring the secrets of the gods to light.
Pope says that he will not presume "to touch on Albion's golden days,"
and "bring the scenes of opening fate to light," oblivious that the
speech which Father Thames has just delivered is entirely made up of
these two topics. As might be inferred from their feebleness, the lines
from ver. 426 formed part of the original Windsor Forest, with the
exception of the couplet beginning "Where Peace descending," which is of
another order of poetry. The second line is exquisite.]
[Footnote 185: He adopted one or two hints, and especially the turn of
the compliment to Lord Lansdowne, from the conclusion of Addison's
Letter to Lord Halifax:
But I've already troubled you too long,
Nor dare attempt a more adventurous song.
My humble verse demands a softer theme,
A painted meadow, or a purling stream:
Unfit for heroes; whom immortal lays
And lines like Virgil's, or like yours, should praise.]
[Footnote 186: It is observable that our author finishes this poem with
the first line of his Pastorals, as Virgil closed his Georgics with the
first line of his Eclogues. The preceding couplet scarcely rises to
mediocrity, and seems modelled from Dryden's version of the passage
imitated:
Whilst I at Naples pass my peaceful days,
Affecting studies of less noisy praise.--WAKEFIELD.
The conclusion is feeble and flat. The whole should have ended with the
speech of Thames.--WARTON.]