Note 170 — AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM.
Reading edition
Hopkins's translation of Ovid's Met., book xi.:
No tame nor savage beast dwells there; no breeze Shakes the still boughs, or whispers thro' the trees: Here easy streams with pleasing murmurs creep, At once inviting and assisting sleep.—Wakefield.
Pope uses these trite ideas and "unvaried chimes" himself. In the fourth Pastoral we have "gentle breeze, trembling trees, whispering breeze, dies upon the trees," and in Eloisa we have "the curling breeze, panting on the trees."—Croker.
Pope took the idea from Boileau:
Si je louois Philis "en miracles féconde," Je trouverois bientôt, "à nulle autre seconde;" Si je voulois vanter un objet "nonpareil," Je mettrois à l'instant, "plus beau que le soleil;" Enfin, parlant toujours d' "astres" et de "merveilles," De "chefs-d'oeuvres des cieux," de "beautés sans pareilles."