In the original manuscript the couplet was slightly different:
Relenting Naïads wept in ev'ry bow'r,
And Jove consented in a silent show'r.
Pope. "Objection, that the Naïads weeping in bowers is not so proper, being water nymphs, and that the word consented is doubted by some to whom I have shown these verses. Alteration:
The Naïads wept in ev'ry wat'ry bow'r,
And Jove relented in a silent show'r.
Quære. Which of these do you like best?" Walsh. "The first. Upon second thoughts I think the second is best." Pope ended by adopting the first line of the second version, and the second line of the first.
[12] This is taken from Virg. Ecl. viii. 12.—Wakefield.
Dryden's translation, ver. 17:
Amidst thy laurels let this ivy twine,
Thine was my earliest muse.
Ivy, with the Romans, was the emblem of literary success, and the laurel crown was worn by a victorious general at a triumph. As Pollio, to whom Virgil addressed his eighth eclogue, was both a conqueror and a poet, the double garland allotted to him was appropriate, but there was no fitness in the application of the passage to Garth.
[13] A harsh line, and a false and affected thought.—Bowles.