Note 87 — THE TEMPLE OF FAME.
Reading edition
This expresses the mixed character of the odes of Horace: the second of these verses alludes to that line of his,
Spiritum Graiæ tenuem camœnæ,
as another which follows, to
Exegi monumentum ære perennius.
The action of the doves hints at a passage in the fourth ode of his third book:
Me fabulosæ Vulture in Apulo Altricis extra limen Apuliæ, Ludo fatigatumque somno, Fronde nova puerum palumbes Texêre; mirum quod foret omnibus— Ut tuto ab atris corpore viperis Dormirem et ursis; ut premerer sacra Lauroque, collataque myrto, Non sine Dîs animosus infans.
Which may be thus Englished:
While yet a child, I chanced to stray, And in a desert sleeping lay; The savage race withdrew, nor dared To touch the muses' future bard; But Cytherea's gentle dove Myrtles and bays around me spread, And crowned your infant poet's head Sacred to music and to love.—Pope.
In addition to these passages, he had in his mind Hor. Epist. lib. i. 19, quoted by Wakefield:
Temperat Archilochi Musam pede mascula Sappho, Temperat Alcæus.