t his hand on the cockatrice' den," Pope makes the
cockatrice a "_crested_ basilisk," and the asp a "_speckled_ snake;"
they have both scales of a "_green_ lustre," and a "_forky_ tongue," and
with this last the "_smiling_ infant shall _innocently_ play." "The
leopard," says Isaiah, "shall lie down with the kid, and the young
lion, and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them"; but
Pope could not leave this exquisite picture undecorated, and with him
"boys in _flow'ry_ bands the tiger lead." How grievously is the force
and pathos of the passage impaired by the substitution of "boys" for the
"little child"; how completely is the bewitching nature turned into
masquerade by the engrafted notion that the beasts are led by "_flow'ry_
bands." The alteration is an example of the justice of De Quincey's
observation that "the Arcadia of Pope's age was the spurious Arcadia of
the opera theatre."[6] The prophet refers anew to the time when
creatures of prey shall cease to be carnivorous, and relates that "the
lion shall eat straw like the bullock, and dust shall be the serpent's
meat." Pope converts the second clause into the statement that "harmless
serpents lick the pilgrim's feet," which alters the meaning, and
introduces a conception more noticeable for its grotesqueness than for
the enchanting vision it should conjure up of universal peace.[7] Pope
says he was induced to subjoin in his notes the passages he had
versified by "the fear that he had prejudiced Isaiah and Virgil by his
management." The reputation of Isaiah and Virgil was safe, and no one
can doubt that his real reason for inviting the comparison was the
belief that he had improved upon them. He imagined that he had enriched
the text of the prophet, and did not suspect that the majesty and truth
of the original were vitiated by his embroidery. Bowles has drawn
attention to the finest parts of the poem, and it may be allowed that
the piece in general is powerful of its kind. The fault is in the kind
itself, which belongs to a lower style than the living strains of
Isaiah, and borders too closely upon the meretricious to suit the lofty
theme. The Messiah is a prophetic vision of a golden age, and on this
account was classed by Pope among his Pastorals.[8]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Pope printed in his notes only those passages of Isaiah
which had some resemblance to the ideas of Virgil. To the other portions
of the prophet which he put into verse he m