[369] This is formed from Virgil, Geor. iv. 6. Sedley's version of the passage imitated:
The subject's humble, but not so the praise,
If any muse assists the poet's lays.
Dryden's Translation:
Slight is the subject, but the praise not small
If heav'n assist, and Phœbus hear my call.—Wakefield.
[370] "Compel," says Dennis, "is a botch for the sake of the rhyme. The word that should naturally have been used was either induce or provoke." Impel would have fitted both the rhyme and the sense.
[371] "Belinda was Mrs. Arabella Fermor; the Baron was Lord Petre, of small stature, who soon after married a great heiress, Mrs. Warmsley, and died, leaving a posthumous son; Thalestris was Mrs. Morley; Sir Plume was her brother, Sir George Brown, of Berkshire." Copied from a MS. in a book presented by R. Lord Burlington, to Mr. William Sherwin.—Warton.
All these persons were Roman Catholics. The marriage of Lord Petre to Miss Warmsley took place in March, 1712, and he died the year after in March, 1713, at the age of 22. Miss Fermor married Mr. Perkins, of Ufton Court, near Reading, in 1714. Her husband died in 1736, and she herself in 1738.—Croker.
[372] This passage is a palpable imitation of the exordium of the Æneis, and particularly the last line.
———tantæne animis cœlestibus iræ?
And dwell such passions in cœlestial minds?—Wakefield.
It was in the first editions: