5

See lofty Lebanon his head advance;
See nodding forests on the mountains dance:
See spicy clouds from lowly Saron rise,
And Carmel's flow'ry top perfumes the skies!
Hark! a glad voice the lonely desert cheers;
Prepare the way! a God, a God appears :
A God, a God! the vocal hills reply,
The rocks proclaim th' approaching Deity.
Lo, earth receives him from the bending skies!
Sink down, ye mountains, and, ye valleys, rise;
With heads declin'd, ye cedars, homage pay;
Be smooth, ye rocks; ye rapid floods, give way!

NOTES.

25

30

35

manner characterize the different countries which were to be gathered together on this important event; and says only, in undistinguishing terms, See barbarous nations at thy gates attend,

Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend ;
See thy bright altars throng'd with prostrate kings;

And heap'd with products of Sabæan springs *.-Warton.

IMITATIONS.

offerings; winding ivy, mixed with Baccar, and Colocasia with smiling Acanthus. Thy cradle shall pour forth pleasing flowers about thee.”

Isai. ch. xxxv. ver. 1. "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose."-Ch. lx. ver. 13. "The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir-tree, the pine-tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of the sanctuary."-P.

Ver. 29. Hark! a glad voice, &c.] Virg. Ecl. iv. ver. 46.

Aggredere ô magnos, aderit jam tempus, honores,

Cara deûm soboles, magnum Jovis incrementum-

Ipsi lætitia voces ad sidera jactant

Intonsi montes, ipsæ jam carmina rupes,

Ipsa sonant arbusta, Deus, deus ille Menalca!

Ecl. v. ver. 62.

"Oh come and receive the mighty honours: the time draws nigh, O beloved offspring of the Gods, O great increase of Jove! The uncultivated mountains send shouts of joy to the stars, the very rocks sing in verse, the very shrubs cry

out, A God, a God!"

Isai. ch. xl. ver. 3, 4. "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord! make straight in the desert a high way for our God! Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain."-Ch. iv. ver. 23. Break forth into singing, ye mountains! O forest, and every tree therein! for the Lord hath redeemed Ïsrael.”—P.

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5 Isaiah, ch. xxxv. ver. 2.

6 Ch. xl. ver. 34.

* Mess. v. 94.

The Saviour comes! by ancient bards foretold!
Hear him', ye deaf, and all ye blind, behold!
He from thick films shall purge the visual ray,
And on the sightless eye-ball pour the day:
'Tis he th' obstructed paths of sound shall clear,
And bid new music charm th' unfolding ear:
The dumb shall sing, the lame his crutch forego,
And leap exulting like the bounding roe.
No sigh, no murmur the wide world shall hear,
From ev'ry face he wipes off ev'ry tear.
In adamantine chains shall Death be bound,
And Hell's grim tyrant feel th' eternal wound.
As the good shepherd' tends his fleecy care,
Seeks freshest pasture and the purest air,
Explores the lost, the wand'ring sheep directs,
By day o'ersees them, and by night protects,
The tender lambs he raises in his arms,
Feeds from his hand, and in his bosom warms;
Thus shall mankind his guardian care engage,
The promis'd Father' of the future age.
No more shall nation' against nation rise,
Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes,

40.

45.

50

55

Nor fields with gleaming steel be cover'd o'er,
The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more;

60

NOTES.

Ver. 46. From ev'ry face, &c.] This line was thus altered by Steele. Warton. "The Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces."-Isai. Thence Milton in Lycidas,

"And wipe all tears for ever from his eyes."-Bowles.

Ver. 56. The promis'd Father of the future age.] In Isaiah ix. it is the everlasting Father; which the LXX render, The Father of the world to come; agreeably to the style of the New Testament, in which the kingdom of the Messiah is called the age of the world to come; Mr. Pope, therefore, has, with great judgment, adopted the sense of the LXX, which his commentator has not observed.-Warton.

7 Isaiah, ch. xliii. ver. 18.; ch. xxxv. ver. 5, 6.

8 Ch. xxv. ver. 8.

1 Ch. ix. ver. 6.

9 Ch. xl. ver. 11.

2 Ch. ii. ver. 4.

But useless lances into scythes shall bend,
And the broad faulchion in a plow-share end.
Then palaces shall rise; the joyful Son3
Shall finish what his short-liv'd Sire begun;
Their vines a shadow to their race shall yield,

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And the same hand that sow'd, shall reap the field.

The swain in barren deserts' with surprise

Sees lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise;

And starts, amidst the thirsty wilds, to hear

New falls of water murmuring in his ear.
On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes,

70

The green reed trembles, and the bulrush nods.
Waste sandy valleys, once perplex'd with thorn,
The spiry fir and shapely box adorn;

To leafless shrubs the flow'ring palms succeed,
And od❜rous myrtle to the noisome weed.

75

The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead, And boys in flow'ry bands the tiger lead;

NOTES.

Ver. 77.] The words of Isaiah are," The wolf shall dwell with the lamb ;” but Pope, by carrying the image farther, and making the wolf graze with the lamb, has inadvertently given an inconsistency to the passage. This was written before I had seen Mr. Stevens's remark, who, quoting the passage, asks, "whether wolves are graminivorous ?"-Bowles.

It might have occurred to the two critics, that it is the very object of

IMITATIONS.

Ver. 67. The swain in barren deserts] Virg. Ecl. iv. ver. 28.

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Molli paulatim flavescet campus arista,
Incultisque rubens pendebit sentibus uva,

Et duræ quercus sudabunt roscida mella."

"The fields shall grow yellow with ripened ears, and the red grape shall hang upon the wild brambles, and the hard oak shall distil honey like dew."

Isai. ch. xxxv. ver. 7. "The parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: In the habitation where dragons lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.”—Ch. lv. ver. 13. "Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtletree."-P.

Ver. 77. The lambs with wolves, &c.] Virg. Ecl. iv. ver. 21.

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Ipsæ lacte domum referent distenta capellæ
Ubera, nec magnos metuent armenta leones-
Occidet et serpens, et fallax herba veneni
Occidet."-

3 Isaiah, ch. lxv. ver. 21, 22.

5 Ch. xli. ver. 19, and ch. lv. ver. 13.

4 Ch. xxxv. ver. 1. 7.

6 Ch. xi. ver. 6-8.

The steer and lion at one crib shall meet,
And harmless serpents' lick the pilgrim's feet.
The smiling infant in his hand shall take
The crested basilisk and speckled snake,
Pleas'd, the green lustre of the scales survey,
And with their forky tongue shall innocently play.
Rise, crown'd with light, imperial Salem3, rise!
Exalt thy tow'ry head, and lift thy eyes!
See, a long race' thy spacious courts adorn;
See future sons, and daughters yet unborn,

NOTES.

80

85

the poem to show (after the prophet) that the fierce and carnivorous disposition of animals shall be changed, and consequently that the lamb and the wolf may graze together; in like manner as we are told, that "the lion shall eat straw like the ox." Had "wolves been graminivorous," there would surely have been nothing extraordinary in their "grazing with the lamb."

Ver. 87.] See the very animated prophecy of Joad, in the seventh scene of Racine's Athaliah, perhaps the most sublime piece of poetry in the French language, and a chief ornament of that which is one of the best of their tragedies. In speaking of these paraphrases from the sacred Scriptures, I cannot forbear mentioning Dr. Young's nervous and noble paraphrase of the book of Job, and Mr. Pitt's, of the third and twentyfifth chapters of the same book, and also of the fifteenth chapter of Exodus.-Warton.

IMITATIONS.

"The goats shall bear to the fold their udders distended with milk: nor shall the herds be afraid of the greatest lions. The serpent shall die, and the herb that conceals poison shall die."

Isai. ch. xi. ver. 16, &c. "The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together: and a little child shall lead them.-And the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the den of the cockatrice."-P.

Ver. 80.] From the words occidet et serpens, it was idly concluded the old serpent, Satan, was meant.-Warton.

Ver. 85. Rise, crown'd with light, imperial Salem, rise!] The thoughts of Isaiah, which compose the latter part of the poem, are wonderfully elevated, and much above those general exclamations of Virgil, which make the loftiest parts of his Pollio:

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Magnus ab integro sæclorum nascitur ordo

-toto surget gens aurea mundo!

-incipient magni procedere menses!

Aspice, venturo lætentur ut omnia sæclo!" &c.

The reader needs only to turn to the passages of Isaiah, here cited.-P.

7 Isaiah, ch. lxv. ver. 25.

Ch. lx. ver. 1.

9 Ch. lx. ver. 4.

In crouding ranks on ev'ry side arise,
Demanding life, impatient for the skies!
See barb'rous nations' at thy gates attend,
Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend;
See thy bright altars throng'd with prostrate kings,
And heap'd with products of Sabæan2 springs!
For thee Idume's spicy forests blow,

90

95

And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow.

See heav'n its sparkling portals wide display,
And break upon thee in a flood of day.

No more the rising Sun3 shall gild the morn,

Nor ev'ning Cynthia fill her silver horn;

But lost, dissolv'd in thy superior rays,

100

One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze

O'erflow thy courts: the Light himself shall shine
Reveal'd, and God's eternal day be thine!
The seas1 shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,
Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away;
But fix'd his word, his saving pow'r remains:
Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own MESSIAH reigns !

105

THIS is certainly the most animated and sublime of all our Author's compositions, and it is manifestly owing to the great original which he copied. Isaiah abounds in striking and magnificent imagery. See Mr. Mason's paraphrase of the 14th chapter of this exalted prophet. Dr. Johnson, in his youth, gave a translation of this piece, which perhaps has been praised and magnified beyond its merits.—Warton.

Dr. Johnson's Latin translation of this Poem is certainly inaccurate, and it contains many expressions which, as Dr. Warton observes, are not classical. I have another Latin translation before me, with which I was favoured by Mr. Todd, printed at Naples, 1760, and intitled, Messias, Ecloga sacra Anglice, ab Alexandro Popio, Latine reddita a Gulielmo Bermingham, Presbytero."

This translation is in some parts well executed, but in general it is deficient in poetic harmony and effect, and often offends taste and propriety. Bowles.

1 Isaiah, ch. lx. ver. 3. Ch. lx. ver. 19, 20.

2 Ch. lx. ver. 6.

4 Ch. li. ver. 6, and ch. liv. ver. 10.