Note 1067 — AN ESSAY ON MAN, IN FOUR EPISTLES (continued 3)
Reading edition
Locke, Essay on the Human Understanding, bk. ii. chap. 23, sect. 12: "If our sense of hearing were but one thousand times quicker than it is, how would a perpetual noise distract us. And we should in the quietest retirement be less able to sleep or meditate than in the middle of a sea-fight."—Warton.
Butler, Hudibras, ii. 1, 617.
Her voice, the music of the spheres, So loud, it deafens mortal ears.—Wakefield.
It was an ancient fancy that the planets rolled along spheres, emitting music as they went. Pope's supposition that the music would stun us, alludes to the remarks of Cicero, Somnium Scipionis, that the crash of harmony is so tremendous that human ears cannot receive it, just as human eyes cannot gaze at the sun. Warburton remarks that Pope should not have illustrated a philosophical argument by the example of an unreal sound.