And though rough rocks or gloomy summits frown.
[lines 91–2.] are not in the first editions.
[peculiar,] i.e. ‘proper,’ ‘appropriate.’
[winnow,] i.e. ‘waft,’ ‘disperse.’ John Evelyn refers to these ‘sea-born gales’ in the ‘Dedication’ of his Fumifugium, 1661:— ‘Those who take notice of the scent of the orange-flowers from the rivage of Genoa, and St. Pietro dell’ Arena; the blossomes of the rosemary from the Coasts of Spain, many leagues off at sea; or the manifest, and odoriferous wafts which flow from Fontenay and Vaugirard, even to Paris in the season of roses, with the contrary effect of those less pleasing smells from other accidents, will easily consent to what I suggest [i.e. the planting of sweet-smelling trees].’ (Miscellaneous Writings, 1825, p. 208.)
[Till, more unsteady, etc.] In the first edition:—
But, more unsteady than the southern gale,
Soon Commerce turn’d on other shores her sail.
There is a certain resemblance between this passage and one of the later paradoxes of Smollett’s Lismahago;—‘He affirmed, the nature of commerce was such, that it could not be fixed or perpetuated, but, having flowed to a certain height, would immediately begin to ebb, and so continue till the channels should be left almost dry; but there was no instance of the tide’s rising a second time to any considerable influx in the same nation’ (Humphry Clinker, 1771, ii. 192. Letter of Mr. Bramble to Dr. Lewis).
[lines 141–2.] are not in the first edition.
[Its former strength was but plethoric ill.] Cf. The Citizen of the World, 1762, i. 98:—‘In short, the state resembled one of those bodies bloated with disease, whose bulk is only a symptom of its wretchedness.’ [Mitford.]
[Yet still the loss, etc.] In the first edition:—