Note 1177 — AN ESSAY ON MAN, IN FOUR EPISTLES (continued 3)

Psalm civ. 3: "Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters, and walketh upon the wings of the wind."—Bowles.

Dryden's Ceyx and Alcyone:

And now sublime she rides upon the wind.—Warton.

Pope held that "fierce ambition" was instigated by the Almighty, Epist. i. ver. 159, and compared his inspiration of such tumultuous passions to his "heaving old ocean, and winging the storm." The poet must be understood as upholding the same extended and licentious doctrine when he returns to the comparison, and talks of "God mounting the storm" of the passions, and "walking upon the wind."