Note 17 — SUMMER:
Reading edition
Pope says his merit in these Pastorals is his copying from the ancients. Can anything like this, and other conceits, be found in the natural and unaffected language of Virgil? No such thing. But what do we find in Dryden's imitation of Virgil, Ecl. ii. 13:
The creaking locusts with my voice conspire, They fried with heat, and I with fierce desire.
This is Virgil's:
Sole sub ardenti resonant arbusta cicadis.
And Pope had the imitation in his eye, not the original.—Bowles.