[116] Strokes of pleasantry and humour, and satirical reflections on the foibles of common life, are unsuited to so grave and majestic a poem. 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 and cottages erected among the ruins of Diocletian's baths.—Warton.
[117] Pope places the temple of Fame on a precipitous rock of ice, and Dennis charges him with departing from his allegory when he describes the self-indulgent multitude, who are "even fatigued with ease," as having toiled up the "steep and slippery ascent" to present themselves before the goddess. There is the same defect in Chaucer.
Tho come another companye
That Lad ydone the treachery, &c.—Pope.
Pope in this paragraph had not only Chaucer in view, but the passage of Virgil where he describes the criminals in the infernal regions. The second line of Pope's opening couplet was suggested by Dryden's translation, Æneis, vi. 825:
Expel their parents and usurp the throne.
[119] A glance at the Revolution of 1688.—Croker.
[120] The scene here changes from the Temple of Fame to that of Rumour, which is almost entirely Chaucer's. The particulars follow: