[1019] The ancient opinion that the souls of the just went thither. See Tully, Som. Scipion. and Manilius i. [ver. 733-799.]—Pope.
Virtue is in Cicero the title of admission into the milky way, but the version which Manilius gives of the popular creed assumes that the milky way is the general receptacle for earthly celebrities, without any special regard to their morals.
[1020] Shakespeare, Tempest, Act iv. Sc. 1. "The cloud-capped towers."
[1021] Dryden, Æn. vii. 310:
From that dire deluge through the wat'ry waste.—Wakefield.
MS.:
This hope kind nature's flattery has giv'n,
Behind his cloud-topp'd hills he builds a heav'n;
Some happier world which woods on woods infold,
Where never christian pierced for thirst of gold.
Pope must have assumed that the Indian's hope of a blissful immortality was an unsubstantial dream, or he would not have called it "nature's flattery."
[1022] MS.:
Where gold ne'er grows, and never Spaniards come,
Where trees bear maize, and rivers flow with rum.
Exiled or chained he lets you understand
Death but returns him to his native land;
Or firm as martyrs, smiling yields the ghost,
Rich of a life that is not to be lost.
But does he say the Maker is not good,
Till he's exalted to what state he would:
Himself alone high heav'n's peculiar care,
Alone made happy when he will and where?