Melodious lines, such as the first verse in the first of these passages, which have the monosyllables relieved but by a single dissyllable, are past counting up. Addison praised Pope for exemplifying the faults in the language which condemned them. "The gaping of the vowels in the second line, the expletive 'do' in the third line, and the ten monosyllables in the fourth, give such a beauty to this passage, as would have been very much admired in an ancient poet." The feat was too easy to call for much admiration. There was more difficulty in eschewing than in mimicking the vicious style of bad versifiers. Pope himself has not avoided the frequent use of "low words" and "feeble expletives."
[169] Atterbury's Preface to Waller's Poems: "He had a fine ear, and knew how quickly that sense was cloyed by the same round of chiming words still returning upon it."
[170] Hopkins's translation of Ovid's Met., book xi.:
No tame nor savage beast dwells there; no breeze
Shakes the still boughs, or whispers thro' the trees:
Here easy streams with pleasing murmurs creep,
At once inviting and assisting sleep.—Wakefield.
Pope uses these trite ideas and "unvaried chimes" himself. In the fourth Pastoral we have "gentle breeze, trembling trees, whispering breeze, dies upon the trees," and in Eloisa we have "the curling breeze, panting on the trees."—Croker.
Pope took the idea from Boileau:
Si je louois Philis "en miracles féconde,"
Je trouverois bientôt, "à nulle autre seconde;"
Si je voulois vanter un objet "nonpareil,"
Je mettrois à l'instant, "plus beau que le soleil;"
Enfin, parlant toujours d' "astres" et de "merveilles,"
De "chefs-d'oeuvres des cieux," de "beautés sans pareilles."
[171] Dryden in his Annus Mirabilis, stanza 123:
So glides the trodden serpent on the grass,
And long behind his wounded volume trails.—Wakefield.
[172] Boileau's Art of Poetry translated by Soame and Dryden: