I do not know whether we might not read, for modern copies are sometimes incorrect,
A breath unmakes them, as a breath has made.
Thomson, in his pastoral story of Palemon and Lavinia, appears to have copied a passage from Otway. Palemon thus addresses Lavinia:—
Oh, let me now into a richer soil
Transplant thee safe, where vernal suns and showers
Diffuse their warmest, largest influence;
And of my garden be the pride and joy!
Chamont employs the same image when speaking of Monimia; he says—
You took her up a little tender flower,
—— and with a careful loving hand
Transplanted her into your own fair garden,
Where the sun always shines.
The origin of the following imagery is undoubtedly Grecian; but it is still embellished and modified by our best poets:—
—— While universal Pan,
Knit with the graces and the hours, in dance
Led on th' eternal spring.
Paradise Lost.
Thomson probably caught this strain of imagery:
Sudden to heaven
Thence weary vision turns, where leading soft
The silent hours of love, with purest ray
Sweet Venus shines.
Summer, v. 1692.