3. 548. The longitude, Od. 19. 350. Doubling
the Cape, Od. 9. 90. Of Architraves, Colonnades, and the like, Od. 3.
516." Pope has erased this and the references, and says:--"_These are
great faults; pray don't point 'em out, but spare your servant_."
At p. 16. Spence had written:--"Yellow is a proper epithet of fruit; but
not of fruit that we say at the same time is ripening into gold." Upon
which Pope observes:--"I think yellow may be s'd to ripen into gold, as
gold is a deeper, fuller colour than yellow." Again: "What is proper in
one language, may not be so in another. Were Homer to call the sea a
thousand times by the title of [Greek: porphureos], 'purple deeps' would
not sound well in English. The reason's evident: the word 'purple' among
us is confined to one colour, and that not very applicable to the deep.
Was any one to translate the _purpureis oloribus_ of Horace, 'purple
swans' would not be so literal as to miss the sense of the author
entirely." Upon which Pope has remarked:--"The sea is actually of a deep
purple in many places, and in many views."
Upon a passage in Spence's _Criticism_, at p. 45., Pope says:--"I think
this too nice." And the couplet objected to by Spence--
"Deep in my soul the trust shall lodge secur'd,
With ribs of steel, and marble heart immur'd,"
he pronounced "very bad." And of some tumid metaphors he says, "All too
forced and over-charged."
At p. 51. Spence says:--"Does it not sound mean to talk of lopping a
man? of lopping away all his posterity? or of trimming him with brazen
sheers? Is there not something mean, where a goddess is represented as
beck'ning and waving her deathless hands; or, when the gods are dragging
those that have provok'd them to destruction by the Links of fate?" Of
the two first instances, Pope says:--"Intended to be comic in a
sarcastic speech.
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