396 
Goodman's Field Wells. — A place of entertain- 
ment established after the suppression of the 
theatre in this locality in 1735. 
Bride Lane, St. Bride’s.— The first meetings of 
the Madrigal Society (established in 1741) were 
held at a public-house in this lane, called “The 
Twelve Bells.” 
Epwarp F. Rimpaurr. 
POPE’S REVISION OF SPENCE’S ESSAY ON THE 
ODYSSEY. 
Spence’s almost idolatrous admiration of, and 
devotion to, Pope, is evident from the pains he 
took to preserve every little anecdote of him 
that he could elicit from conversation with him, or 
with those who knew him. Unfortunately, he 
had not Boswell’s address and talent for record- 
ing gossip, or the Anecdotes would have been a 
much more racy book. Spence was certainly an 
amiable, but I think a very weak man ; and it ap- 
pears to me that his learning has been overrated. 
He might indeed have been well designated as ‘a 
fildle-faddle bit of sterling.” 
T have the original MS. of the two last Dialogues 
of the Essay on the Odyssey as written by Spence, 
and on the first page is the following note: —“ The 
two last Evenings corrected by Mr. Pope.” Ona 
blank page at the end, Spence has again written :— 
“MS. of the two last Evenings corrected with 
Mr. Pope’s own hand, w serv’d y° Press, and is 
so mark’d as usual by Litchfield.” 
This will elucidate Malone’s note in his copy 
of the book, which Mr. Bolton Corney has tran- 
scribed. I think the first three dialogues were 
published in a little volume before Spence became 
acquainted with Pope, and perhaps led to that 
acquaintance. Their intercourse afterwards might 
supply some capital illustrations for a new edition 
of Mr. Corney’s curious chapter on Camaraderie 
Littéraire. The MS copy of Spence’s Essay bears 
frequent marks of Pope’s correcting hand by era- 
sure and interlineary correction, silently made. I 
transcribe the few passages where the poet’s revi- 
sion of his critic are accompanied by remarks. 
In Evening the Fourth, Spence had written : — 
“Tt may be inquired, too, how far this transla- 
tion may make a wrong use of terms borrowed from 
the arts and sciences, &c. [The instances are 
thus pointed out.] As where we read of a ship’s 
crew, Od. 3, 548. The longitude, Od. 19. 350. 
Doubling the Cape, Od. 9.90. Of Architraves, 
Colonnades, and the like, Od. 3. 516.” Pope has 
erased this and the references, and says :—-‘* These 
are great faults ; pray don’t point em out, but spare 
your servant.” 
At p.16. Spence had written: —“ Yellow is a 
proper epithet of fruit; but not of fruit that we 
say at the sume time is ripening into gold.” Upon 
which Pope observes: —‘“I think yellow may be 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
s‘ to ripen into gold, as gold is a deeper, fuller 
colour than yellow.” Again: ‘ What is proper in one 
language, may not be so in another. Were Homer 
to call the sea a thousand times by the title of 
mopoupeoc, ‘ purple deeps’ would not sound well in 
English. The reason’s evident; the word ‘purple’ 
among us is confined to one colour, and that not 
very applicable to the deep. Was any one to 
translate the purpureis oloribus of Horace, ‘purple 
swans’ would not be so literal as to miss the sense 
of the author entirely.” Upon which Pope has 
remarked :—‘‘ The sea is actually of a deep pur- 
ple in many places, and in many views.” 
Upon a passage in Spence’s Criticism, at p. 45., 
Pope says: —‘‘1 think this too nice.” And the 
couplet objected to by Spence— 
“ Deep in my soul the trust shall lodge secur’d, 
With ribs of steel, and marble heart immur’d.” 
he pronounced “ very bad.” And of some tumid 
metaphors he says, “ All too forced and over- 
charged.” 
At p.51. Spence says: —“ Does it not sound 
mean to talk of lopping a man? of lopping away 
all his posterity ? or of trimming him with brazen 
sheers? Is there not something mean, where a 
goddess is represented as beck’ning and waving 
her deathless hands; or, when the god’s are drag- 
ging those that have provok’d them to destruction 
by the Links of fate?” Of the two first instances, 
Pope says: —‘“ Intended to be comic in a sarcas- 
tic speech.” And of the last : —“ I think not at all 
mean, see the Greek.” The remarks are, however, 
expunged. 
The longest remonstrance occurs at p. 6. of the 
Fifth Dialogue. Spence had written: — “ The 
Odyssey, as a moral poem, exceeds all the writings of 
the ancients : it is perpetual in forming the manners, 
and in instructing the mind; it sets off the duties 
of life more fully as well as more agreeably than 
the Academy or Lyceum. Horace ventured to say 
thus much of the Iliad, and certainly it may be more 
justly said of this later production by the same hand.” 
For the words in Italics Pope has substituted :— 
“ Horace, who was so well acquainted with the 
tenets of both, has given Homer’s poems the pre- 
ference to either :” and says in a note :—“TI think. 
you are mistaken in limiting this commendation 
and judgment of Horace to the Iliad. He says it, 
at the beginning of his Epistle, of Homer in general, 
and afterwards proposes both poems equally as 
examples of morality ; though the Ziad be men- 
tioned first: but then follows —‘ Rursus quid vir- 
tus et quid sapientia possit, Utile proposuit nobis 
exemplar Ulyssem, &c. of the Odyssey.” 
At p.34. Spence says:—‘‘ There seems to be 
something mean and awkward in this image :— 
«« His loose head tottering as with wine opprest 
Obliquely drops, and nodding knocks his breast.’” 
Here Pope says: —“ Sure these are good lines. 
[No. 25. | 
EES 
