Note 142 — WINDSOR FOREST.
Reading edition
Horns were a classical attribute of rivers,—not I think, according to the common view, as a mark of dignity, but as a symbolical expression of the fact that the principal streams, like the ocean itself, are formed from a confluence of tributaries.—Croker.
Pope's personification of the Thames is the echo of Addison's translation of a passage in Claudian, describing the deity of the Eridanus:
His head above the floods he gently reared, And as he rose his golden horns appeared, That on the forehead shone divinely bright And o'er the banks diffused a yellow light: Beneath his arm an urn supported lies With stars embellished, and fictitious skies.