Nocte volat cœli medio, terræque per umbram
Stridens.

In the day-time she sits watchful on battlements, and on the highest towers, and terrifies great cities, who gaze at her huge and formidable appearance:

Luce sedet custos, aut summi culmine tecti,
Turribus aut altis, et magnas territat urbes.

It did not suit POPE's purpose to represent

FAME as so odious a monster.

He has therefore

dropped these striking circumstances in Virgil,

and softened her features:

20. With her the Temple ev'ry moment grew,
And ampler vistas opened to my view:
Upwards the columns shoot, the roofs ascend,
And arches widen, and long iles extend.*

ANON out of the earth a fabric huge
Rose like an exhalation, with the sound
Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet,
Built like a temple, where pilasters round
Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid
With golden architrave.†

This

* Ver. 262.

+ Par. Lost, b. i. ver. 710.

This circumstance of the temple's enlarging with the growing figure of the goddess, is lively, and well imagined. The reader feels a pleasure in having his eye carried through a length of building, almost to an immensity. Extension is certainly a cause of the sublime. In this view the following passage of Thomson may be considered, where he speaks of a lazar-house in his Castle of Indolence :*

Through the drear caverns stretching many a mile,
The sick uprear'd their heads, and dropp'd their woes awhile.

21. Next these a youthful train their vows express'd,
With feathers crown'd, and gay embroid❜ry dress'd:
Hither (they cry'd) direct your eyes, and see
The men of pleasure, dress, and gallantry:
Ours is the place at banquets, balls, and plays;
Sprightly our nights, polite are all our days:
Of unknown duchesses lewd tales we tell;

Yet, would the world believe us, all were well ↑

Strokes of pleasantry and humour, and satirical reflections on the foibles of common life, are surely too familiar, and unsuited to so grave and majestic a poem as this hitherto has appeared to

be.

* Stanza Ixix. c. 2.

+ Ver. 378.

be. Such incongruities offend propriety; though I know ingenious persons have endeavoured to excuse them, by saying, that they add a variety of imagery to the piece. This practice is even defended by a passage in Horace :

Et sermone opus est modo tristi, sæpe jocoso,
Defendente vicem modo rhetoris atque poetæ,
Interdum urbani, parcentis viribus, atque
Extenuantis eas consulto.-

But this judicious remark is, I apprehend, confined to ethic and preceptive kinds of writing, which stand in need of being enlivened with lighter images, and sportive thoughts; and where strictures on common life may more gracefully be inserted. But in the higher kinds of poesy, they appear as unnatural, and out of place, as one of the burlesque scenes of Heemskirk would do in a solemn landscape of Poussin. When I see such a line as

"And at each blast a lady's honour dies,"

in the TEMPLE of FAME, I lament as much to find it placed there, as to see shops, and sheds,

1

and

and cottages, erected among the ruins of Dioclesian's Baths.

On the revival of literature, the first writers seemed not to have observed any SELECTION in their thoughts and images. Dante, Petrarch, Boccace, Ariosto, make very sudden transitions. from the sublime to the ridiculous. Chaucer, in his Temple of Mars, among many pathetic pictures, has brought in a strange line,

The coke is scalded for all his long ladell.*

No writer has more religiously observed the decorum here recommended than Virgil.

22. This having heard and seen, some pow'r unknown, Strait chang'd the scene, and snatch'd me from the throne; Before my view appear'd a structure fair,

Its site uncertain, if in earth or air.†

The scene here changes from the TEMPLE of FAME to that of Rumour. Such a change is not

VOL. I.

Dd

methinks

* Thus again ;"As Esop's dogs contending for a bone;"- -and many others.

+ Ver. 417.

methinks judicious, as it destroys the unity of the subject, and distracts the view of the reader; not to mention, that the difference between Rumour and Fame is not sufficiently distinct and perceptible. POPE has, however, the merit of compressing the sense of a great number of Chaucer's lines into a small compass. As Chaucer takes every opportunity of satyrizing the follies of his age, he has in this part introduced many circumstances, which it was prudent in POPE to omit, as they would not have been either relished or understood in the present times.

23. While thus I stood intent to see and hear,

One came, methought, and whisper'd in my ear,
What could thus high thy rash ambition raise?
Art thou, fond youth, a candidate for praise?
'Tis true, (said I,) not void of hopes I came,
For who so fond as youthful bards, of Fame ?*

This conclusion is not copied from Chaucer, and is judicious. Chaucer has finished his story inartificially, by saying he was surprised at the sight of a man of great authority, and awoke in a fright. The succeeding lines give a pleasing

moral

* Ver. 496.