So when bold Homer makes the Gods engage, 45 And heav'nly breasts with human paffions rage; 'Gainst Pallas, Mars; Latona, Hermes arms; And all Olympus rings with loud alarms : Jove's thunder roars, heav'n trembles all around, 49 Blue Neptune storms, the bellowing deeps refound: Earth shakes her nodding tow'rs, the ground gives way, And the pale ghosts start at the flash of day! NOTES, VER 45. So when bold Homer] Homer, II. xx. Triumphant POPE. The ridicule is moft artfully heightened by introducing one of the most fublime paffages in Homer; « Αμφι δ' εσαλπιγξεν μεγας έρανος, &λυμπος τε Εδδεισεν δ' υπένερθεν αναξ ενέρων Αιδωνευς, Δείσας δ' εκ θρόνες αλτο και ιαχε, μη οι επειτα Σμερδαλέ, ευρωενία, τα τε συγεύσι θεοί περ. Well might Longinus exclaim, "Do you fee, O my friend, how the earth bursts asunder to its centre, Tartarus itself is laid open and naked, all things mortal and immortal combat together, and share the danger of this tremendous conflict? In none of his many imitations has Virgil fhewn his inferiority to Homer fo much as in this paffage ; "Non fecus ac fi qua penitus vi terra dehiscens Pallida, Dîs invifa; fuperque immane barathrum Æneid. viii. v. 243. For not to mention that what is part of the Action in Homer, is only a fimile in Virgil, how tame is fuperque immane barathrum (even though a magnificent image) to Δείσας δ' εκ θρονες αλτο και ιαχε How or where has terror ever been so strongly painted as by this circumstance of Pluto himself, fuddenly leaping from his throne and inrieking aloud? WARTON. Triumphant Umbriel on a fconce's height Clap'd his glad wings, and fate to view the fight: Prop'd on their bodkin fpears, the Sprites furvey 55 The growing combat, or affift the fray. While through the prefs enrag'd Thaleftris flies, And scatters death around from both her eyes, A Beau and Witling perish'd in the throng, One dy'd in metaphor, and one in fong. "O cruel Nymph! a living death I bear," Cry'd Dapperwit, and funk befide his chair. A mournful glance Sir Fopling upwards cast, "Those eyes are made fo killing❞—was his last. 60 Thus VARIATIONS. VER. 53. Triumphant Umbriel] Thefe four lines added, for the reafon before mentioned. РОРЕ. Added with great dexterity, beauty, and propriety! WARTON. NOTES. VER. 55. Prop'd on their] Like the heroes in Homer, when they are spectators of a combat. WARTON. VER. 64. "Thofe eyes] It was the common cant of all the wits and poets of this time to depreciate and laugh at Italian operas. See what Addison has faid of them, Spectator 18. They would have been of a different opinion, if they could have read what Dr. Burney has faid on this fubject in his Hiftory of Mufic. WARTON. IMITATIONS. VER. 53. Triumphant Umbriel] Minerva in like manner, during the battle of Ulyffes with the Suitors in the Odyff, perches on a beam of the roof to behold it. POPE. VER. 64, "Thofe eyes are made fo killing"] The words of a song in the Opera of Camilla. PORE. Thus on Mæander's flow'ry margin lies Now Jove fufpends his golden fcales in air, 65 70 75 She with one finger and a thumb fubdu’d: 80 Just where the breath of life his noftrils drew, The NOTES. VER. 71. Now Jove, &c.] Vid. Homer, Il. viii. and Virg. En. xii. POPE. VER. 74. At length the wits] This parody from Homer and Virgil is admirable. WARTON. But when Dr. Warton adds, that "Milton improved on this fine fiction," by making the Almighty weigh Satan in such scales, and that he alluded to the fign Libra, one might suppose that Dr. Warton, whose poetical tafte is in general fo juft, had for a moment put on Warburton's critical spectacles ! IMITATIONS. VER. 65. Thus on Meander's flow'ry margin lies] "Sic ubi fata vocant, udis abjectus in herbis, Ad vada Mæandri concinit albus olor." The Gnomes direct, to ev'ry atom just, . Now meet thy fate, incens'd Belinda cry'd, VARIATIONS. 85 90 Then VER. 83. The Gnomes direct,] These two lines added, for the above reafon. NOTES. POPE. VER. 84. titillating duft.] Boileau and Garth have alfo each of them enlivened their pieces with a mock-fight. But Boileau has laid the fcene of his action in a neighbouring bookfeller's shop; where the combatants encounter each other by chance. This conduct is a little inartificial; but has given the fatirist an opportunity of indulging his ruling paffion, the expofing bad poets, with which France, at that time, abounded. Swift's Battle of the Books, at the end of the Tale of a Tub, is evidently taken from this battle of Boileau (Cant. v.), which is excellent in its kind. The fight of the Phyficians in the Difpenfary, is one of its moft fhining parts. There is a valt deal of propriety in the weapons Garth has given to his warriors. They are armed, much in character, with cauftics, emetics, and cathartics; with buck. thorn, and fteel-pills; with fyringes, bed-pans, and urinals. The execution is exactly proportioned to the deadlinefs of fuch irresistible weapons; and the wounds inflicted, are suitable to the nature of each different instrument said to inflict them. WARTON. IMITATIONS. VER. 89. (The fame, his ancient personage to deck,] In imitation of the progrefs of Agamemnon's fceptre in Homer, Il. ii. 95 100 Then in a bodkin grac'd her mother's hairs, NOTES. 110 With VFR. 10. fierce Othello] Rhymer, with a taftelefs infenfibility, laughed at the incident of losing the handkerchief, as trifling. Neither he, nor the Spectator, feem to have known, that this incident, fo beautifully natural, is in the Italian novel, which Shakespeare copied. WARTON. VER. 109. obtain'd with guilt.] We are now arrived at the grand catastrophe of the poem; the invaluable Lock which is fo eagerly fought, is irrecoverably loft! And here our Poet has made a judicious ufe of that celebrated fiction of Ariofto; that all things loft on earth, are treasured in the moon. How fuch a fiction can properly have place in an epic poem, it becomes the defenders of this agreeably extravagant writer to juftify; but in a comic poem, it appears with grace and confiftency. The whole paffage in Ariofto is full of wit and fatire; for wit and fatire were, perhaps, among the chief and characteristical excellencies of this incomparable Italian. |