[89] In every edition before Warburton's it was "spreading honours." Pope probably considered that "rear," which denoted an upward direction, could not be consistently conjoined with "spreading." For "shores," improperly applied in the next line to a river, all the editions before 1736 had "banks."
[90] "Her" appears for the first time in the edition of Warburton in the place of "his," and is now the accepted reading, but it is manifestly a misprint, since "her" has no antecedent. The couplet is obscure. Pope could hardly intend to assert that the flow of the tide poured as much water into the Thames as all the other rivers of the world discharged into the ocean, and he probably meant that all the navigable rivers of the globe did not send more commerce to the sea than came from the sea up the Thames. Even in this case it was a wild, without being a poetical, exaggeration.
[91] In the first edition:
No seas so rich, so full no streams appear.
The epithets "clear," "gentle," "full," which Pope applies to the Thames, show that he had in his mind the celebrated passage in Cooper's Hill:
Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull,
Strong without rage, without o'er-flowing full.
[92] The ancients gave the name of the terrestrial Eridanus or Po, to a constellation which has somewhat the form of a winding river. Pope copied Denham:
Heav'n her Eridanus no more shall boast,
Whose fame in thine, like lesser currents lost,
By nobler streams shall visit Jove's abodes,
To shine amongst the stars and bathe the gods.
[93] Very ill expressed, especially the rivers swelling the lays.—Warton.
[94] The original readings were beyond all competition preferable both in strength and beauty: