THE FABLE OF DRYOPE, &c. AMONG the fashions of Pope's earlier period, was that of conceiving Ovid to be the most powerful and expressive of poets all the rising generation of wits employed themselves in giving fragments of the Metamorphoses to the world; and the collection of those fragments, published by Garth, is prefaced by a panegyric of the most unsparing kind. Even the transitions of the original from fable to fable, which so invariably perplex the reader by the confusion of the narrative, and offend criticism by their palpable and perpetual artifice, are pronounced by this unhesitating advocate to be among the most exquisite contrivances of poetic ingenuity! The grave opinion of Quintilian, Illa vero frigida et puerilis est in scholis affectatio, ut hujus velut præstigiæ plausum petat,' was of no weight; and to this caprice of the hour we owe Pope's 'Dryope,' and Vertumnus and Pomona.' 6 Yet whatever the error in taste might have been, it was redeemed by the elegance of the translation. Warburton, with characteristic extravagance, actually declares the Metamorphoses to be a history of Providence, on the most grand and regular plan:'—a fertile tissue of follies and impurities, to be a great work of morals and philosophy! THE FABLE OF DRYOPE.* : 5 SHE said, and for her lost Galanthis sighs, 10 Whom Delphi and the Delian isle obey, Andræmon loved; and, bless'd in all those charms That pleased a god, succeeded to her arms. 14 'A lake there was, with shelving banks around, Whose verdant summit fragrant myrtles crown'd : These shades, unknowing of the fates, she sought, And to the Naiads flowery garlands brought; Her smiling babe, a pleasing charge, she press'd Within her arms, and norish'd at her breast. 20 * On occasion of the death of Hercules, his mother Alcmena recounts her misfortunes to Iole, who answers with a relation of those of her own family, in particular the transformations of her sister Dryope, which is the subject of the ensuing fable.-Pope. Not distant far a watery lotos grows; The spring was new; and all the verdant boughs, Of these she cropp'd to please her infant son, 25 The trembling tree with sudden horror shook. 30 Her stiffening feet were rooted in the ground. 40 50 I saw, unhappy! what I now relate; And stood the helpless witness of thy fate; Embraced thy boughs, thy rising bark delay'd; 55 There wish'd to grow, and mingle shade with shade. 60 'Behold Andræmon and the unhappy sire Appear, and for their Dryope inquire: A springing tree for Dryope they find, And print warm kisses on the panting rind; Prostrate, with tears their kindred plant bedew, And close embrace, as to the roots they grew. The face was all that now remain'd of thee; No more a woman, nor yet quite a tree; Thy branches hung with humid pearls appear; 65 From every leaf distils a trickling tear; And straight a voice, while yet a voice remains, Thus through the trembling boughs in sighs complains : "If to the wretched any faith be given, 71 75 I swear, by all the unpitying powers of heaven, 81 |