Your praise the tuneful birds to heav'n shall bear,
And list'ning wolves grow milder as they hear.
So the verses were originally written. But the author, young as he was, soon found the absurdity which Spenser himself overlooked, of introducing wolves into England.—Pope.
There was no absurdity upon the principle of Pope, that the scene of pastorals was to be laid in the golden age, which could not be supposed to be subsequent to the reign of Edward I. when wolves still existed in this island. They lingered in Scotland in the reign of Charles II., and in Ireland in the reign of Queen Anne.
[48] Virg. Ecl. iii. 73:
Partem aliquam, venti, Divum referatis ad aures.—Pope.
[49] In place of this couplet and the next, the original MS. had these lines:
Such magic music dwells within your name,
The voice of Orpheus no such pow'r could claim;
Had you then lived, when he the forests drew,
The trees and Orpheus both had followed you.
[50] This verse is debased by the word dance. But he followed Dryden in Ecl. iii. 69:
Where Orpheus on his lyre laments his love,
With beasts encompassed, and a dancing grove.—Wakefield.