FOOTNOTES:
[1] Johnson was mistaken. Pope states in a note that the addition commenced at ver. 291.
When actions, unadorned, are faint and weak,
Cities and countries must be taught to speak;
Gods may descend in factions from the skies,
And rivers from their oozy beds arise.
[3] "Denham," says Johnson, "seems to have been, at least among us, the author of a species of composition that may be denominated local poetry, of which the fundamental subject is some particular landscape, to be poetically described, with the addition of such embellishments as may be supplied by historical retrospection or incidental meditation."
[4] Critics differ. "Nothing," says Warton, "can be colder and more prosaic than the manner in which Denham has spoken of the distant prospect of London and St. Paul's."
[5] Singer's Spence, p. 153.
[6] Autobiography of Mrs. Delany, vol. i. p. 20, 82.
[7] Lives of the Poets, ed. Cunningham, vol. ii. p. 307.
[8] Mémoires, Col. Michaud, 3rd Series, tom. viii. p. 731; Bolingbroke's Works, vol. ii. p. 315, Philadelphia, 1841.
[9] Bolingbroke's Works, vol. ii. p. 315, 317, 320. "The sole question," says Bolingbroke, "is, who caused this disunion?—and that will be easily decided by every impartial man, who informs himself carefully of the public anecdotes of that time. If the private anecdotes were to be laid open as well as those, and I think it almost time they should, the whole monstrous scene would appear, and shock the eye of every honest man." The prediction has been fulfilled, and the vaunting prophet consigned to infamy through the evidence he invoked.
[10] Bolingbroke's Works, vol. i. p. 123.
[11] Bolingbroke's Works, vol. i. p. 124.
[12] Gibber's Apology, 4th ed. vol. ii. p. 11.
[13] Warburton's Pope, ed. 1760, vol. iv. p. 172; Spence, p. 148.
[14] Hurd's Addison, vol. i. p. 299.
[15] Pope related, perhaps truly, that Addison objected to the phrase "Britons arise!" in the Prologue to Cato, and said, "it would be called stirring the people to rebellion." Warburton holds this incident to be a proof that Addison "was exceedingly afraid of party imputations throughout the carriage of the whole affair," as if, because he did not wish to be considered an instigator to rebellion, it followed that he shrunk from seeming an advocate for whig principles.
[16] Pope to Caryll, April 30, 1713.
[17] Scott's Life of Swift, p. 139.
[18] Pope to Caryll, May 1, 1714.
[19] Essay on the Genius of Pope, 5th ed. vol. i. p. 29.
[20] Spectator, No. 523.
[21] Pope to Caryll, Nov. 29, 1712.
[22] Spectator, No. 523, Oct. 30, 1712.
[23] Wordsworth's Works, ed. 1836, vol. iii. p. 316.
[24] Epilogue to the Satires; Dialog. 2, ver. 182.
[25] Essay on Criticism, ver. 418.
[26] Pope to Lord Lansdowne, Jan. 10, 1712 [13].
[27] Imitations of Horace, bk. ii. ep. 1, ver. 75.
[28] Oldham's Elegies.
[29] Imitations of Horace, bk. ii. ep. 1, ver. 213.
[30] A Version of the Psalms: Preface.
[31] Evelyn's Diary, vol. ii. p. 27; Pepys's Diary, 4th ed., vol. iii. p. 219.
[32] Account of the Life of Cowley, prefixed to his works, ed. 1688
[33] Wordsworth's Works, vol. iii. p. 333.
[34] Prior's Preface to Solomon.
[35] Lives of the Poets, vol. i. p. 77.
[36] Dryden maintains, in his Dedication to the Æneis, that the triplet, conjoined with the Alexandrine, is "the magna charta of heroic poetry." "Besides," he says, "the majesty which it gives, it confines the sense within the barriers of three lines, which would languish if it were lengthened into four." Johnson, while granting that the variety arising from triplets was desirable, wished that there should "be some stated mode of admitting them," in order to prevent their coming upon the reader by surprise, and to keep up the constancy of metrical laws. Such a rule would introduce a new species of monotony, and do away with the benefit which principally recommended triplets to Dryden. Ideas which were not enough for four lines, and over-much for two, would not recur at stages fixed beforehand. Swift thought triplets and Alexandrines "a corruption," and boasted that he had "banished them" by a triplet in his City Shower. "I absolutely," he adds, "did prevail with Mr. Pope, and Gay, and Dr. Young, and one or two more to reject them. Mr. Pope never used them till he translated Homer, which was too long a work to be so very exact in; and I think in one or two of his last poems he has, out of laziness, done the same thing, though very seldom." Swift was mistaken in his assertion that Pope never used triplets till he translated the Iliad. They occur in the Essay on Criticism, the Temple of Fame, and other pieces, and not only did these works appear before the Homer, but they appeared after the triplet in the City Shower, which Swift flattered himself had banished all triplets from poetry. Nor had he any need to persuade Young and Gay to reject them if they had been exploded by his triplet of 1710, for it was two or three years later before either Young or Gray printed their first rhymes. They contained, however, triplets in spite of his City Shower, which had none of the effect he imagined. It merely proved, what no one doubted, that a metre proper to serious subjects was ludicrous in a burlesque. Swift's dislike to triplets and Alexandrines was a prejudice, and he did not pretend to offer any reason for his decree.