Pope's second Pastoral is an ostensible imitation of Spenser's first eclogue, which is devoted to a lover's complaint, but though Pope has echoed some of the sentiments of Spenser, and appropriated an occasional line, his style has little resemblance to that of his model.
[5] "An inaccurate word," says Warton, "instead of Thames;" and rendered confusing by the fact that there is a real river Thame, which is a tributary of the Thames. Milton has used the same licence, and speaks of the "royal towered Thame" in his lines on the English rivers.
[6] Originally thus in the MS.:
There to the winds Headrigg plained his hapless love,
And Amaryllis filled the vocal grove.—Warburton.
[7] Dryden's Theodore and Honoria:
The winds within the quiv'ring branches played,
And dancing trees a mournful music made.—Wakefield.
[8] Ver. 1, 2, 3, 4, were thus printed in the first edition:
A faithful swain, whom Love had taught to sing,
Bewailed his fate beside a silver spring;
Where gentle Thames his winding waters leads
Through verdant forests, and through flow'ry meads.—Pope.
[9] Dryden's Virg. Ecl. viii. 3:
To which the savage lynxes list'ning stood;
The rivers stood on heaps, and stopped the running flood.