better to adduce in
support of the credibility of his informant than the irrelevant
circumstance that he was "a person of no small rank." The description of
the witness declares his incompetence. It is not pretended that the
"person of no small rank" was intimate with Addison, or had any
authentic means of ascertaining his sentiments, and they are certainly
misrepresented by the assertion that he could not endure poetical
panegyrics on a Peace he disapproved, for in the Spectator of Oct. 30,
1712, he wrote up Tickell's laudatory verses, and "hoped his poem would
meet with such a reward from its patrons as so noble a performance
deserved."[20] There is not a party word added to extenuate the praise;
a tory might have endorsed the essay. Intolerance and "inexpressible
chagrin" were not at any time characteristics of Addison.

Tickell's Prospect of Peace went through six editions, and to judge by
the sale was more popular than Windsor Forest, which was published four
months later. The greater success of the far inferior poem was doubtless
owing to the eulogium in the Spectator. Pope joined in applauding
Tickell's work. He said that it contained "several most poetical images,
and fine pieces of painting," he specified certain "strokes of mastery,"
and he especially commended the versification.[21] His too liberal
praise may have been influenced by the couplet in which Tickell
exclaimed,

Like the young spreading laurel, Pope! thy name
Shoots up with strength and rises into fame.

Nearly the whole of the poem is in an equally dreary style, and this
dull mediocrity was not attained without numerous imitations of ancient
and modern authors. The insipidity did not exclude extravagance; for
both poetry and patriotism were thought to be displayed by a nonsensical
exaggeration of British beauty, valour, and power.

Windsor Forest is not free from flat passages, inflation of sentiment,
and false and puerile thoughts. Pope mixed up in it the beauties of his
manlier period with the vices of his early style. No writer clung more
tenaciously to the lifeless phantoms of paganism, nor applied the
hereditary common-places in a more servile manner. Liberty is
"Britannia's goddess;" the sun is "Phoebus' fiery car;" the sea is
"Neptune's self;" the harvest is "Ceres' gifts;" the orchard is "Pomona
crowned with fruits;" the ground is "painted by blushing Flora; "and the
flocks on the hills are attended by Pan. This last personage