This he submitted to Walsh. Pope. "Quære, whether to say the sun is outshined be too bold and hyperbolical?" Walsh. "For pastoral it is." Pope. "If it should be softened with seems? Do you approve any of these alterations?
If Sylvia smile, she brightens all the shore,
{ All nature seems outshined, and charms no more.
{ Light seems outshined, and nature charms no more.
{ And vanquished nature seems to shine no more.
Quære, which of these three?" Walsh. "The last of these three I like best."
[51] Cowley, Davideis, iii. 553:
Hot as ripe noon, sweet as the blooming day,
Like July furious, but more fair than May.—Wakefield.
[52] An allusion to the royal oak, in which Charles II. had been hid from the pursuit after the battle of Worcester.—Pope.
This wretched pun on the word "bears" is called "dextrous" by Wakefield, but Warton says that it is "one of the most trifling and puerile conceits" in all Pope's works, and is only exceeded in badness by the riddle "which follows of the thistle and the lily."
[53] The contraction "I'll," which often occurs in these pastorals, is familiar and undignified.—Wakefield.
[54] It was thus in the manuscript:
Nay, tell me first what region canst thou find
In which by thistles lilies are outshined?
If all thy skill can make the meaning known,
The prize, the victor's prize, shall be thy own.—Wakefield.