Not fabled Po more swells the poet's lays
While through the skies his shining current strays.—Wakefield.
[95] In saying that the Po did not swell the lays of the poet in the same degree as the Thames, Pope more especially alluded to the celebrated description of the latter in Cooper's Hill.
[96] In the earlier editions,
Nor all his stars a brighter lustre show,
Than the fair nymphs that gild thy shore below.
The MS. goes on thus:
Whose pow'rful charms enamoured gods may move
To quit for this the radiant court above;
And force great Jove, if Jove's a lover still,
To change Olympus, &c.
[97] Originally:
Happy the man, who to these shades retires,
But doubly happy, if the muse inspires!
Blest whom the sweets of home-felt quiet please;
But far more blest, who study joins with ease.—Pope.
The turn of this passage manifestly proves that our poet had in view that incomparable encomium of Virgil's second Georgic on philosophy and a country life.—Wakefield.
In addition to the imitation of the second Georgic, and the translation of lines in Horace and Lucan, Pope adopted hints, as Warton has remarked, from Philips's Cider: