'Tis he th' obstructed paths of sound shall clear, No sigh, no murmur, the wide world shall hear, 45 From ev'ry face he wipes off ev'ry tear. 1 In 1 adamantine chains shall death be bound, 2 And Hell's grim tyrant feel th' eternal wound. 3 The promis'd father of the future age. No more shall nation against nation rise, 50 55 REMARKS. It is remarkable, that this observation bears a close resemblance to what Concanen says of this passage, p. 23. of his Supplement to the Profund. 1728. Ver. 46. This line was thus altered by Steele. Ver. 53. HE, is redundant. 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, it is strange, his commentator, who is a divine, has not observed. 1 Isai. xxv. v. 8. 2 Ch. xl. v. 11. 4 Ch. ii. v. 4. Nor fields with gleaming steel be cover'd o'er, 60 But useless lances into scythes shall bend, And the broad falchion in a ploughshare end. Their vines a shadow to their race shall yield, And the same hand that sow'd, shall reap the field. The swain in barren deserts with surprise 6 See lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise; 7 To leafless shrubs the flow'ring palms succeed, 65 70 75 IMITATIONS. Ver. 67, The swain in barren deserts] Virg. Ecl. iv. ver. 28. "Molli paullatim flavescet campus arista, Incultisque rubens pendebit sentibus uva, "The fields shall grow yellow with ripen'd ears, and the red grape shall hang upon the wild brambles, and the hard oaks shall distil honey like dew." Isaiah, Ch. xxxv. v. 7. "The parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty lands springs of water: In the habitation where dragons lay, shall be grass, and reeds and rushes."-Ch. Iv. v. 13. “Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree." P. Isai. lxv. v. 21, 22. Ch. xxxv. v. 1,7. Ch. xli. v. 19. and Ch. lv. v. 13. 8 The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead, And boys in flow'ry banks the tiger lead; The steer and lion at one crib shall meet, And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet. 9 80 The smiling infant in his hand shall take IMITATIONS. Ver. 77. The lambs with wolves, &c.] Virg. Ecl. iv. ver. 21. 66 Ipsæ lacte domum referent distenta capella Ubera; nec magnos metuent armenta leones— Occidet et serpens, et fallax herba veneni Occidet." "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." Isaiah, Ch. xi. v. 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 a cockatrice." P. Ver. 80. From the words occidet & serpens, it was idly concluded the old serpent, Satan, was meant. 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. "Magnus ab integro sæclorum nascitur ordo! -toto surget gens aurea mundo! -incipient magni procedere menses! Adspice, venturo lætantur ut omnia sæclo!" The reader needs only to turn to the passages of Isaiah, here cited. P. Isai. xi. v. 6, 7, 8. 9 Ch. lvi. v. 25. Ch. lx. v. 1. 2 See, a long race thy spacious courts adorn; 3 4 See thy bright altars throng'd with prostrate kings, And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow. 5 But lost, dissolv'd in thy superior rays, One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze O'erflow thy courts: the Light himself shall shine 5 90 95 100 106 The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay, REMARKS. 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 twenty-fifth chapters of the same book, and also of the fifteenth chapter of Exodus. Ver. 100, Cynthia is an improper because a classical word. 2 Isai. Ix. v. 4. 3. 3 Ch. lx. v. Ch. lx. v. 6. 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 has been praised and magnified beyond its merits. It may justly be said (with all due respect to the great talents of this writer), that in this translation of the Messiah are many hard and unclassical expressions, a great want of harmony, and many unequal and Un-virgilian lines. I was once present at a dispute, on this subject, betwixt a person of great political talents, and a scholar who had spent his life among the Greek and Roman classics. Both were intimate friends of Johnson. The former, after many objections had been made to this translation by the latter, quoted a line which he thought equal to any he ever had read. --juncique tremit variabilis umbra. The Scholar (Pedant if you will) said, there is no such word as variabilis in any classical writer. Surely, said the other, in Virgil; variabile semper femina.--You forget, said the opponent, it is varium et mutabile. In two men of superior talents it was certainly no disgrace to the one not to have written pure Virgilian verses, nor to the other to have misquoted a line of the Æneid. They only who are such idolaters of the Rambler, as to think he could do every thing equally well, can alone be mortified at hearing that the following lines in his Messiah are reprehensible; -Cœlum mihi carminis alta materies- Mittit aromaticas vallis Saronica nubes- -juncique tremit variabilis umbra- Artificis frondent dextræ -fessa colubri Membra viatoris recreabunt frigore linguæ. Boileau despised the writers of modern Latin poetry. Jortin said he was no extraordinary classical scholar, and that he translated Longinus from the Latin. Of all the celebrated French |