The first version in Pope's manuscript, though not so closely copied from Scrope, is decidedly inferior to the text:
I burn, I burn, as when fierce whirlwinds raise
The spreading flames, and crackling harvests blaze.
[5] A childish, false thought.—Warton.
[6] Scrope's couplet exceeds this in simplicity, and to my taste, on the whole, is preferable:
My muse, and lute can now no longer please;
These are th' employments of a mind at ease.—Wakefield.
[7] As Ovid tells the story in his Metamorphoses, Apollo fell in love with Daphne and pursued her. When he was gaining upon her in the race she was transformed, at her own request, into a laurel. The Cretan dame was Ariadne. Bacchus was smitten with her extraordinary beauty, and married her.
[8] This happy line, which is not too extravagant for a lover, belongs to Pope.
[9] Andromeda, the daughter of Cepheus, an Æthiopian king. Her mother thought herself superior in beauty to the Nereids, which excited their jealousy, and through their influence a sea-monster was sent to prey upon man and beast in the dominions of Cepheus. To atone for her mother's vanity, and rid the land of the scourge, Cepheus agreed to offer up Andromeda to the monster. She was chained to a rock on the coast, where Perseus saw her at the critical moment when she was about to be devoured. Captivated by her charms he engaged and slew the monster, and made Andromeda his wife.
[10] This is very inferior to the conciseness, and simplicity of the original, "memini (meminerunt omnia amantes)." Sir Carr Scrope's translation is nearer the original, and more natural as well as elegant:
For they who truly love remember all.—Bowles.