Isaiah vii. 14. "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son." Ch. ix. ver. 6, 7. "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given,—the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government, and of his peace, there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice, for ever and ever."—Pope.
By "the virgin" Virgil meant Astræa, or Justice, who is said by the poets to have been driven from earth by the wickedness of mankind.—Professor Martyn.
[9] Isaiah xi. i.—Pope. "And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots."
[10] Pope lowers the comparison when he follows it out into details, and likens the endowments of the Messiah to leaves, and his head to the top of a tree on which the dove descends.
[11] Isaiah xlv. 8.—Pope. "Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness."
[12] Dryden's Don Sebastian:
But shed from nature like a kindly show'r.—Steevens.
[13] Isaiah xxv. 4,—Pope. "For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat."
[14] Warburton says that Pope referred to the fraud of the serpent, but the allusion is more general, and the poet had probably in his mind the "priscæ vestigia fraudis," which Wakefield quotes from Virg. Ecl. iv. 31, and which Dryden renders
Yet of old fraud some footsteps shall remain.