WINDSOR-FOREST'. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE GEORGE LORD LANSDOWN2. THY forest, Windsor! and thy green retreats, NOTES. This Poem was written at two different times: the first part of it, which relates to the country, in the year 1704, at the same time with the Pastorals; the latter part was not added till the year 1713, in which it was published.-P. 2 Notwithstanding the many praises lavished on this celebrated nobleman as a poet, by Dryden, by Addison, by Bolingbroke, by our Author, and others, yet candid criticism must oblige us to confess, that he was but a feeble imitator of the feeblest parts of Waller. In his tragedy of Heroic Love, he seems not to have had a true relish for Homer, whom he copied ; and in the British Enchanters, very little fancy is to be found in a subject fruitful of romantic imagery. It was fortunate for him, says Mr. Walpole, in his Anecdotes, that in an age when persecution raged so fiercely against lukewarm authors, that he had an intimacy with the Inquisitor General; how else would such lines as these escape the Bathos ? they are in his Heroic Love : Why thy Gods Enlighten thee to speak their dark decrees. His Progress of Beauty, and his Essay on Unnatural Flights in Poetry, seem to be the best of his pieces; in the latter are many good critical remarks and precepts, and it is accompanied with notes that contain much agreeable instruction. For it may be added, his prose is better than his verse. Witness a Letter to a Young Man on his taking Orders, his observations on Burnet, and his Defence of his relation Sir Richard Grenville, and a Translation of some parts of Demosthenes, and a Letter to his Father on the Revolution, written in October, 1688. After having been Secretary at War, 1710, Controller and Treasurer to the Household, and of her Majesty's Privy Council, and created a Peer 1711, he was seized as a suspected person, at the accession of King George the First, and confined in the Tower, in the very chamber that had before been occupied by Sir Robert Walpole. But whatever may be thought of Lord Lansdown as a VARIATIONS. Ver. 3, &c. Originally thus (and indeed much better): Chaste Goddess of the woods, Nymphs of the vales, and Naïads of the flood, Lead me through arching bow'rs, and glimm'ring glades, VOL. II. U GRANVILLE commands; your aid, O Muses, bring! And where, tho' all things differ, all agree. NOTES. 5 10 15 20 poet, his character as a man was highly valuable. His conversation was most pleasing and polite; his affability, and universal benevolence and gentleness, captivating; he was a firm friend, and a sincere lover of his country.-Warton. Ver. 15.] Evidently from Cooper's Hill: "Such was the discord which did first disperse Form, order, beauty, thro' the universe."-Warton. Ver. 19.] It is a false thought, and gives, as it were, sentiment to the groves.-Warton. Which it is the very object of Poetry to do. Mr. Wakefield's remark on this passage is perhaps more judicious, and is expressed with becoming delicacy. There is a levity in this comparison which appears to me Ver. 7. Allusion to Milton's Paradise Lost.-Warton. Ver. 8. Live in description,] Evidently suggested by Waller : "Of the first Paradise there's nothing found, Yet the description lasts; who knows the fate Of lives that shall this Paradise relate? Of Eden's garden," &c.—Bowles. Ver. 9. inspir'd with equal flame,] That is (as I understand it), if the Poet were inspired with Milton's poetical flame, then these groves, which resemble the groves of Eden, and which, though vanish'd, revive in his song-these groves (of Windsor) should be like in fame, as in beauty. Dr. Warton thinks there is an inconsistency, but I must confess I do not perceive it; at least, I think there is no expression here used but such as is fairly allowable in Poetry.-Bowles. There, interspers'd in lawns, and op'ning glades, 25 Let India boast her plants, nor envy we 30 While by our oaks the precious loads are born, NOTES. 35 unseasonable, and but ill according with the serene dignity of the subject; but as the youthful poet omitted, with great judgment, the luxuriancies of his youthful imagination in future revisals of his works, and has retained this passage, I am very diffident of dissent from him in such cases." Ver. 33. Not proud Olympus, &c.] Sir J. Denham, in his Cooper's Hill, had said, "Than which a nobler weight no mountain bears, The comparison is childish, as the taking it from fabulous history destroys the compliment. Our Poet has shown more judgment; he has made as manly use of as fabulous a circumstance by the artful application of the mythology. "Where, in their blessings, all those Gods appear," &c. Making the nobility of the hills of Windsor-forest to consist in supporting the inhabitants in plenty.-Warburton. This appears an idle play on the word "supporting."-Warton. Ver. 37. The word crown'd is exceptionable; it makes Pan crowned with flocks.-Warton. Ver. 25. Originally thus: VARIATIONS. Why should I sing our better suns or air, Whose vital draughts prevent the leach's care, While through fresh fields th' enliv'ning odours breathe, Or spread with vernal blooms the purple heath ?-P. Here Ceres' gifts in waving prospect stand, 40 45 50 In vain kind seasons swell'd the teeming grain, Soft show'rs distill'd, and suns grew warm in vain ; The swain with tears his frustrate labour yields, 55 And famish'd dies amidst his ripen'd fields. NOTES. 60 Ver. 45. savage laws] The Forest Laws. See the account of them in Blackstone's excellent Lectures; the killing a deer, boar, or hare, was punished with the loss of the delinquent's eyes.-Warton. VARIATIONS. Ver. 49. Originally thus in the MS. From towns laid waste, to dens and caves they ran (For who first stoop'd to be a slave was man). Ver. 57, &c. No wonder savages or subjects slain But subjects starv'd, while savages were fed. It was originally thus, but the word "savages" is not properly applied to beasts, but to men; which occasioned the alteration.-P. The fields are ravish'd from th' industrious swains, NOTES. 65 70 75 Ver. 65. The fields are ravish'd, &c.] Alluding to the destruction made in the New Forest, and the tyrannies exercised there by William I. -P. I have the authority of three or four of our best antiquarians to say, that the common tradition of villages and parishes, within the compass of thirty miles, being destroyed, in the New Forest, is absolutely groundless, no traces or vestiges of such being to be discovered, nor any other parish named in Doomsday Book, but what now remains. Of late years, some minute inquiries have been made on this subject, by accurate and wellinformed judges, who are clearly of this opinion. The President Hainault has given us a more amiable idea of our Norman Conqueror than is here exhibited.-Warton. Ver. 74.] A fine remain of ancient art and ancient customs, a piece of tapestry, said to be the work of Queen Matilda, is annually exhibited in the cathedral church of Bayeux, in Normandy, representing the expedition of William the Conqueror, and containing a most minute picture of every part of that event, from his landing in England to the battle of Hastings. An engraving of it is given in the tenth volume of the Memoirs of the Academy of Belles Lettres.-Warton. VARIATIONS Ver. 72. And wolves with howling fill, &c.] The author thought this an error, wolves not being common in England at the time of the Conqueror.-P. IMITATIONS. Ver. 65. The fields are ravish'd from th' industrious swains, From men their cities, and from Gods their fanes :] Translated from 66 Templa adimit divis, fora civibus, arva colonis," an old monkish writer, I forget who.-P. In Camden's Britannia, first edition, in the account of Somersetshire, it is said of Edgar, "Templa Deo, Templis Monachos, Monachis dedit agros."-Warton. |