ectator for May 14, 1712, No.
378, where it is prefaced by these words: "I will make no apology for
entertaining the reader with the following poem, which is written by a
great genius, a friend of mine, in the country, who is not ashamed to
employ his wit in the praise of his Maker." After it was published,
Steele wrote on June 1, 1712, to Pope, and said, "I have turned to every
verse and chapter, and think you have preserved the sublime heavenly
spirit throughout the whole, especially at 'Hark a glad voice,' and 'The
lamb with wolves shall graze.' Your poem is better than the Pollio."
Upon this Johnson remarks, "That the Messiah excels the Pollio is no
great praise, if it be considered from what original the improvements
are derived." Bowles and Warton thought that Pope had kept up his verse
to the level of Isaiah, and had only here and there weakened the
sublimity by epithets. Wordsworth was of another opinion. When he
contended that the language of poetry should be a selection from the
real language of men "in a state of vivid sensation," and repudiated the
ornate conventional phraseology which passed for poetic diction, he
pointed to the paraphrases on parts of the Bible in illustration of what
he condemned, and to the passages as they exist in our authorised
version for a specimen of what he approved. "Pope's Messiah throughout"
was in his apprehension an adulteration of the original.[5] His
criticism appears well founded. The pure and natural language of the
prophet is sometimes exchanged for sickly, affected expressions.
"Righteousness" becomes "dewy nectar," "sheep" the "fleecy care," and
the call upon Jerusalem to "Arise and shine" is turned into an
invocation to "exalt her tow'ry head." Apart from these mawkish phrases,
the imitation is framed from first to last upon the mistaken principle
that the original would be embellished by amplifications, by a profusion
of epithets, and by a gaudier diction. The "fir-tree and box-tree" of
Isaiah are called by Pope "the _spiry_ fir, and _shapely_ box." Where
the sacred text announces that "instead of the thorn shall come up the
fir-tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle-tree," Pope
tells us that

"To _leafless_ shrubs the _flow'ring_ palms succeed,
And _od'rous_ myrtle to the _noisome_ weed."

In his translation of the prediction, that in the kingdom of Christ,
"the sucking-child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned
child shall pu