There is still a
considerable infusion of the puerile classicism of the Pastorals, which
contrasts awkwardly with Denham's strength, and a silly episode about
the nymph Lodona changed into the river Loddon by Diana, to save her
from the pursuit of Pan. But the style is animated, and the
descriptions, though seldom original, show Pope's frequent felicity of
language. Wordsworth, indeed, was pleased to say that Pope had here
introduced almost the only "new images of internal nature" to be found
between Milton and Thomson. Probably the good Wordsworth was wishing to
do a little bit of excessive candour. Pope will not introduce his
scenery without a turn suited to the taste of the town:--
Here waving groves a chequer'd scene display,
And part admit and part exclude the day;
As some coy nymph her lover's fond address,
Nor quite indulges nor can quite repress.
He has some well turned lines upon the sports of the forest, though they
are clearly not the lines of a sportsman. They betray something of the
sensitive lad's shrinking from the rough squires whose only literature
consisted of Durfey's songs, and who would have heartily laughed at his
sympathy for a dying pheasant. I may observe in passing that Pope always
showed the true poet's tenderness for the lower animals, and disgust at
bloodshed. He loved his dog, and said that he would have inscribed over
his grave, "O rare Bounce," but for the appearance of ridiculing "rare
Ben Jonson.
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