Note 69 — THE TEMPLE OF FAME.
Reading edition
In the first edition,
Here too the wise and good their honours claim, Much-suff'ring heroes of less noisy fame.
Pope did not perceive that in the attempt to improve the poetry he had introduced an inconsistency. He winds up the preceding group of patriots with the "wise Aurelius," whom he celebrates as an example of "unbounded virtue," and the "much-suffering heroes" could not be instances of "less guilty fame" than a man whose virtue was unbounded. The classification was probably suggested by Addison's Vision in the Tatler of the Three Roads of Life, and having his original in his mind when he composed his poem, Pope avoided the inconsistency which he subsequently imported into the passage. "The persons," says Addison, "who travelled up this great path, were such whose thoughts were bent upon doing eminent services to mankind, or promoting the good of their country. On each side of this great road were several paths. These were most of them covered walks, and received into them men of retired virtue, who proposed to themselves the same end of their journey, though they chose to make it in shade and obscurity."