In his translation of the prediction, that in the kingdom of Christ, "the sucking-child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den," Pope makes the cockatrice a "crested basilisk," and the asp a "speckled snake;" they have both scales of a "green lustre," and a "forky tongue," and with this last the "smiling infant shall innocently play." "The leopard," says Isaiah, "shall lie down with the kid, and the young lion, and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them"; but Pope could not leave this exquisite picture undecorated, and with him "boys in flow'ry bands the tiger lead." How grievously is the force and pathos of the passage impaired by the substitution of "boys" for the "little child"; how completely is the bewitching nature turned into masquerade by the engrafted notion that the beasts are led by "flow'ry bands." The alteration is an example of the justice of De Quincey's observation that "the Arcadia of Pope's age was the spurious Arcadia of the opera theatre."[6] The prophet refers anew to the time when creatures of prey shall cease to be carnivorous, and relates that "the lion shall eat straw like the bullock, and dust shall be the serpent's meat." Pope converts the second clause into the statement that "harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet," which alters the meaning, and introduces a conception more noticeable for its grotesqueness than for the enchanting vision it should conjure up of universal peace.[7] Pope says he was induced to subjoin in his notes the passages he had versified by "the fear that he had prejudiced Isaiah and Virgil by his management." The reputation of Isaiah and Virgil was safe, and no one can doubt that his real reason for inviting the comparison was the belief that he had improved upon them. He imagined that he had enriched the text of the prophet, and did not suspect that the majesty and truth of the original were vitiated by his embroidery. Bowles has drawn attention to the finest parts of the poem, and it may be allowed that the piece in general is powerful of its kind. The fault is in the kind itself, which belongs to a lower style than the living strains of Isaiah, and borders too closely upon the meretricious to suit the lofty theme. The Messiah is a prophetic vision of a golden age, and on this account was classed by Pope among his Pastorals.[8]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Pope printed in his notes only those passages of Isaiah which had some resemblance to the ideas of Virgil. To the other portions of the prophet which he put into verse he merely gave references.
[2] Jortin's Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. i, p. 323.
[3] Prideaux's Connection, ed. Wheeler, vol. ii, p. 518.
[4] Jortin's Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. p. 318.
[5] Wordsworth's Works, ed. 1836, vol. ii. p. 343.
[6] De Quincey's Works, vol. xv. p. 115.
[7] Such is the difference of taste that Wakefield says of Pope's variation, "This is indeed a glorious improvement on the sublime original. The diction has the true doric simplicity in perfection, and poetic genius never gave birth to a more delicate and pleasing image."
[8] Singer's Spence, p. 236.