Then as I careless on the bed
Of gelid strawberries do tread,
And through the hazels thick espy
The hatching thrustle's shining eye.
The last circumstance is new, highly poetical, and could only have been described by one who was a real lover of nature, and a witness of her beauties in her most solitary retirements. Before this descriptive poem on Windsor Forest, I do not recollect any other professed composition on local scenery, except the poems of the authors already mentioned. Denham's is certainly the best prior to Pope's: his description of London at a distance is sublime:[4]
Under his proud survey the city lies,
And like a mist beneath a hill does rise,
Whose state and wealth, the bus'ness and the crowd,
Seems at this distance but a darker cloud.
Pope, by the expression of "majestic," has justly characterised the flow of Denham's couplets. It is extraordinary that Pope, who, by this expression, seems to have appreciated the general cast of harmony in Cooper's Hill, should have made his own cadences so regular and almost unvaried. Denham's couplets are often irregular, but the effect of the pauses in the following lines was obviously the result of a fine ear. The language truly suits the subject:
But his proud head the airy mountain hides
Among the clouds; his shoulders and his sides
A shady mantle clothes; his curled brows
Frown on the gentle stream, which calmly flows,
Whilst winds and storms his lofty forehead beat!
The occasional introduction of such passages should be managed with great care, but I appeal to any judge of poetry whether he does not feel the effect intended to be raised by the pauses of the lines just quoted?
He who has not an eye to observe every external appearance that nature may exhibit in every change of season, and who cannot with a glance distinguish every diversity of every hue in her variety of beauties, must so far be deficient in one of the essential qualities of a poet. Here Pope, from infirmities and from physical causes, was particularly deficient. When he left his own laurel circus at Twickenham, he was lifted into his chariot or his barge; and with weak eyes and tottering strength, it is physically impossible he could be a descriptive bard. Where description has been introduced among his poems, as far as his observation could go, he excelled; more could not be expected. It is for this reason that his Windsor Forest, and his Pastorals, must ever appear so defective to a lover of nature. In his Windsor Forest he has description, incident, and history. The descriptive part is too general, and unappropriate; the incident, or story part, is such as only would have been adopted by a young man who had just read Ovid; but the historical part is very judiciously and skilfully blended, and the conclusion highly animated and poetical: nor can we be insensible to its more lofty tone of versification.—Bowles.
Richardson transcribed the various readings of Windsor Forest into his copy of the quarto of 1717, and added this note:—"Altered from the first copy of the author's own hand, written out beautifully, as usual, for the perusal and criticism of his friends." The manuscript in Richardson's possession did not contain the entire work, but stopped at ver. 390. On the title-page of the manuscript was a memorandum by Pope, which says, "This poem was written just after the Pastorals, as appears by the last verse of it. That was in the year ——, when the author was ---- years of age. But the last hundred lines, including the celebration of the Peace, were added in the year ——, soon after the ratification of the treaty of Utrecht." Pope supplied the omitted dates in the octavo of 1736, where he ascribes the former part of Windsor Forest to 1704, and the latter part to 1710. The testimony of Pope carries little weight, and there is no subsidiary evidence to confirm the improbable statement that the larger portion of the poem was produced as early as 1704. The date he assigned to the remainder, in a note at ver. 1 of the edition of 1736, and again in a note on ver. 289, must have been a slip of the pen, or an error of the press. Warburton altered 1710 to 1713 in the first note, and left the mistake uncorrected in the second. The amended date was a fresh blunder, for it appears from the letters of Pope to Caryll on Nov. 29, and Dec. 5, 1712, that the new conclusion was then complete. Pope's memory deceived him when he stated that the end of the poem was written "soon after the ratification of the treaty of Utrecht." The treaty, as Mr. Croker remarks, was not signed till March 30, 1713, nor ratified till April 28, and Windsor Forest was published before March 9. The Peace had for some months been an accepted fact, and Pope did not wait for its formal ratification.
"Lord Lansdowne," said Pope to Spence, "insisted on my publishing my Windsor Forest, and the motto (non injussa cano) shows it."[5] Pope not only published, but composed Windsor Forest at the instigation of Lord Lansdowne, if the opening lines of the poem are to be believed. Trumbull, however, asserts that it was he who suggested the topic to Pope. "I should have commended his poem on Windsor Forest much more," wrote Sir William to Mr. Bridges, May 12, 1713, "if he had not served me a slippery trick; for you must know I had long since put him upon this subject, gave several hints, and at last, when he brought it, and read it, and made some little alterations, &c., not one word of putting in my name till I found it in print." The apparent discrepancy may be explained by the supposition that Trumbull proposed the earlier poem on the Forest, and Lord Lansdowne the subsequent celebration of the Peace. The poet tacked the new matter on to the old, and may have represented that he sang at the command of Granville, because the ultimate form which the work assumed was due to him.
Mrs. Delany, who was the niece of Lord Lansdowne, and lived with him in her youth, says, in her Autobiography, that he was a man of an open unsuspecting temper, that he had the greatest politeness and good-humour imaginable, that he was magnificent in his nature, and wasted his fortune to gratify his passion for display.[6] His predominant characteristics were amiability and vanity. His love of distinction incited him to become a dramatist, poet, and politician. He had aspirations without ability, and in none of these capacities did he exhibit any vigour of mind. His poetry was an imitation of Waller, "of whom," says Johnson, "he copied the faults, and very little more."[7] His plays reflect the worst qualities of the era of Charles II. In tragedy he thought that to be dull and stately was to be classical; in comedy that affected briskness of dialogue was liveliness, and indecent double meanings wit. He made no figure in politics, and owed his posts in the Harley administration to his wealth, family, and electioneering influence. His literature, aided by his hereditary advantages, sufficed to procure him a factitious fame while he lived, but his reputation was at an end the moment his works lost the lustre they derived from his social position.