In vain lost Eloïfa weeps and prays, Her heart still dictates, and her hand obeys. Relentless walls! whose darksome round contains Repentant fighs, and voluntary pains: 15 Ye rugged rocks, which holy knees have worn ; Soon as thy letters trembling I unclose, 25 30 Oh VARIATIONS. VER. 25.] "Heav'n claims me all in vain, while he" - was the former reading. NOTES. VER. 24. Forgot myself to stone.] This is an expression of Milton; as is also, caverns shagged with horrid thorn, and the epithets, pale-ey'd, twilight, low thoughted care, and others, are first ufed in the smaller poems of Milton, which Pope seems to have been just reading. Some of these circumstances, in the scenery view of the monastery, have perhaps a little impropriety when introduced into a place so lately founded as was the Paraclete; but are fo well imagined, and fo highly painted, that they demand excufe. IMITATIONS. VER. 24.] "Forgot myself to marble." WARTON MILTON. Oh name for ever fad! for ever dear! Still breath'd in fighs, still usher'd with a tear. I tremble too, where'er my own I find, Line after line my gushing eyes o'erflow, 35 Led through a fad variety of woe : Now warm in love, now with'ring in my bloom, There stern Religion quench'd th' unwilling flame, To read and weep is all they now can do. Then NOTES. VER. 40. Love and Fame.] Fame for ambition. VER. 41. Yet write,] This is taken from the Latin letters that passed betwixt Eloisa and Abelard, and which had been a few years before published in London by Rawlinson, and which our poet has copied and translated in many other passages: Per ipsum Christum obsecramus, quatenus ancillulas ipfius & tuas, crebris literis de his, in quibus adhuc fluctuas, naufragiis certificare digneris, ut nos faltem quæ tibi foli remanfimus, doloris vel gaudii participes habeas. Epift. Heloissæ, p. 46. From the same also, the use of letters, ver. 51, is taken and amplified; and it is a little remarkable that this use of letters is in the fourth book of Diodorus Siculus. 1 50 Then share thy pain, allow that fad relief; The virgin's wish without her feårs impart, 55 Thou know'st how guiltless first I met thy flame, When Love approach'd me under friendship's name; My fancy form'd thee of angelic kind, Some emanation of th' all-beauteous Mind. 61 Those smiling eyes, attemp'ring ev'ry ray, Shone fweetly lambent with celestial day. Guiltlefs NOTES. VER. 59. Thou know'st, &c.] This is the most exquisite description of the first commencement of paffion, that our language, or perhaps any other, affords. VER. 63. Those smiling eyes, Abelard was reputed the most handsome, as well as the most learned man of his time, according to the kind of learning then in vogue. An old chronicle, quoted by Andrew du Chefne, informs us, that scholars flocked to his lectures from all quarters of the Latin world; and his cotemporary, St. Bernard, relates, that he numbered many principal ecclefiaftics and cardinals at the court of Rome. - Abelard himself boasts, that when he retired into the country, he was followed by fuch immenfe crouds of scholars, that they could get neither lodgings nor provifions sufficient for them: "Ut nec locus hofpitiis, nec terra fufficeret alimentis." (Abelardi Opera, p. 19.) He met Guiltless I gaz'd, heav'n listen'd while you fung; 65 And truths divine came mended from that tongue. From NOTES. with the fate of many learned men, to be embroiled in controversy and accufed of herefy; for St. Bernard, whose influence and au thority was very great, got his opinion of the Trinity condemned, at a council held at Sens 1140. But the talents of Abelard were not confined to theology, jurisprudence, philosophy, and the thorny paths of scholasticism; he gave proofs of a lively genius by many poetical performances, infomuch that he was reputed to be the author of the famous Romance of the Rose; which, however, was indisputably written by John of Meun, a little city on the banks of the Loire, about four leagues from Orleans; which gave occafion to Marot to exclaim, De Jean de Meun s'enfile le cours de Loire. It was he who continued and finished the Romance of the Rofe, which William de Loris had left imperfect forty years before. If chronology did not absolutely contradict the notion of Abelard's being the author of this very celebrated piece, yet are there internal arguments sufficient to confute it. The mistake seems to have flowed from his having given Eloisa the name of Rofe, in one of the many fonnets he addressed to her. In this romance there are many fevere and fatirical strokes on the character of Eloisa, which the pen of Abelard never would have given. In one passage she is introduced speaking with indecency and obfcenity; in another, all the vices and bad qualities of women are reprefented as affembled together in her alone : Qui les mœurs féminins savoit, In a very old Epistle-dedicatory, addressed to Philip the Fourth of France, by this fame John of Meun, and prefixed to a French tranflation of Boetius, a very popular book at that time, it appears, that he also translated the Epistles of Abelard to Heloisa, which were in high vogue at the court. He mentions also, that he had tranflated Vagetius on the Art Military, and a book called the Wonders of Ireland. These works shew us the taste of the age. His words are: "T'envoye ores Boece de Confolation, que j'ai translaté en François, jaçoit que bien entendes le Latin." From lips like those what precept fail'd to move ? How oft, when press'd to marriage, have I faid, NOTES. 70 Love, It is to be regretted that we have no exact picture of the perfon and beauty of Eloisa. Abelard himself says that she was "Facie non infima." Her extraordinary learning many circumstances concur to confirm; particularly one, which is, that the Nuns of the Paraclete are wont to have the office of Whitsunday read to them in Greek, to perpetuate the memory of her understanding that language. The curious may not be displeased to be informed, that the Paraclete was built in the parish of Quincey, upon the little river of Arduzon, near Nogent, upon the Seine. A lady, learned as was Eloisa in that age, who indisputably understood the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew tongues, was a kind of prodigy. Her lite. rature, says Abelard, " in toto regno nominatissimam fecerat;" and, we may be sure, more thoroughly attached him to her. Buffy Rabutin speaks in high terms of commendation of the purity of Eloisa's Latinity; a judgment worthy a French Count! There is a force, but not an elegance, in her style, which is blemished, as might be expected, by many phrases unknown to the pure ages of the Roman language, and by many Hebraisms, borrowed from the tranflation of the Bible. WARTON. VER. 66. And truths divine, &c.] He was her Preceptor in WARBURTON. Philofophy and Divinity. VER. 73. How oft,] These extraordinary fentiments are plainly from the Letters: Nihil unquam, Deus scit, in te, nifi te requifivi; VER. 74. IMITATIONS. te "And own no laws but those which love ordains." DRYDEN, Cinyras and Myrrha |