to know, and conducts
him to the house of Rumour. There he has revealed to him the falsehood
of the world, and especially of pilgrims and pardoners, which was an
important doctrine to be inculcated in those days. When the scene has
been fully disclosed, "a man of great authority" appears, and the poet
starts up from his sleep, by which he seems to intimate that the wise
and serious frown upon those who listen to idle tales. His awaking "half
afraid," is the result of his

Remembring well what I had seen,
And how high and far I had been
In my ghost.

Pope, by reserving the inquiry addressed to him for the end of the poem,
represents himself as being asked in the temple of Rumour whether he has
come there for fame, which, is not more, but much less natural than the
arrangement of Chaucer, who supposes the question to be put in the
temple of Fame itself. Nor would it have been congenial to Chaucer's
modest disposition to make himself the climax of the piece.]

[Footnote 130: Garth, in the preface to his Dispensary: "Reputation of
this sort is very hard to be got, and very easy to be
lost."--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 131: Cowley's Complaint:

Thou who rewardest but with popular breath
And that too after death.--WAKEFIELD.

Pope's moral is inconsistent with the previous tone of his poem. He has
not treated the "second life in others' breath" as "vain," but speaks of
the position of Homer, Aristotle, &c. in the temple of Fame as though it
were a substantial triumph, a real dignity, and a glorious reward. The
purport of his piece is to enforce, and not to depreciate, the value of
literary renown. His whole life attests that this was his genuine
opinion. He was not endowed with the equanimity which neither covets nor
despises reputation, and it was pure affectation when he pretended, in
the concluding paragraph, that he did not "call for the favours of
fame," and that he held posthumous fame, in particular, to be a
worthless possession.]

[Footnote 132: Dryden, in Palamon and Arcite, says of women that they

Still follow fortune where she leads the way.]

PASTORALS,

WITH A

DISCOURSE ON PASTORAL.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1704.

Rura mihi et rigui placeant in vallibus amnes,
Flumina amem, sylvasque, inglorius!--VIRG.

These Pastorals were written at the age of sixteen, and then passed
through the hands of Mr. Walsh, Mr. Wycherley, G. Granville, afterwards
Lord Lansdowne,