Here nearer suns prepare the ripening gem,
And here the ore, &c.
[176] This was suggested by a couplet of Denham's on the same subject in his Cooper's Hill:
Nor are his blessings to his banks confined,
But free and common as the sea or wind.—Wakefield.
[177] A wish that London may be made a free Port.—Pope.
[178] This resembles Waller in his panegyric on Cromwell:
While by your valour and your bounteous mind,
Nations, divided by the sea, are joined.—Wakefield.
[179] Better in the first edition, "Whose naked youth," and in the Miscellanies better still, "While naked youth."—Wakefield.
[180] "Admire" was formerly applied to anything which excited surprise, whether the surprise was coupled with commendation or censure, or was simply a sentiment of wonder. Thus Milton, using the word in this last sense, says, Par. Lost, i. 690:
Let none admire
That riches grow in hell; that soil may best
Deserve the precious bane.
"Admire" has the same signification in Windsor Forest. Pope means that the savages would be astonished at "our speech, our colour, and our strange attire," and not that they would admire them in our present laudatory sense of the term, which would be contrary to the fact. "A fair complexion," says Adam Smith, "is a shocking deformity upon the coast of Guinea. Thick lips and a flat nose are a beauty."