The Pleasures of Memory (Rogers)/Notes 2

by Samuel Rogers

ON THE SECOND PART.

Note x.P. 33, l. 19.

Yet still how sweet the soothings of his art!

The astronomer chalking his figures on the wall, in Hogarth's view of Bedlam, is an admirable exemplification of this idea. See the Rake's Progress, plate 8.

Note y.P. 34, l. 4.

Turns but to start, and gazes but to sigh!

The following stanzas are said to have been written on a blank leaf of this Poem. They present so affecting a reverse of the picture, that I cannot resist the opportunity of introducing them here.

Pleasures of Memory!—oh supremely blest,
And justly proud beyond a Poet's praise:
If the pure confines of thy tranquil breast
Contain, indeed, the subject of thy lays!
By me how envied!—for to me,
The herald still of misery,
Memory makes her influence known
By sighs, and tears, and grief alone:
I greet her as the fiend, to whom belong
The vulture's ravening beak, the raven's funeral song.

She tells of time misspent, of comfort lost,
Of fair occasions gone for ever by;
Of hopes too fondly nurs'd, too rudely cross'd,
Of many a cause to wish yet fear to die;
For what, except th' instinctive fear
Lest she survive, detains me here,
When "all the life of life" is tied?—
What, but the deep inherent dread,
Lest she beyond the grave resume her reign,
And realize the hell that priests and beldams feign?

 

Note z.P. 36, l. 1.

Hast thou thro' Eden's mid-wood vales pursued.

On the road-side between Penrith and Appleby there stands a small pillar with this inscription:

"This pillar was erected in the year 1656, by Ann, Countess Dowager of Pembroke, &c., for a memorial of her last parting, in this place, with her good and pious mother, Margaret, Countess Dowager of Cumberland, on the 2nd of April, 1616; in memory whereof she hath left an annuity of 41. to be distributed to the poor of the parish of Brougham, every 2nd day of April for ever, upon the stone-table placed hard by. Laus Deo!"

The Eden is the principal river of Cumberland, and rises in the wildest part of Westmoreland.

 

Note a.P. 36, l. 11.

O'er his dead son the gallant Ormond sigh'd.

Ormond bore the loss with patience and dignity: though he ever retained a pleasing, however melancholy, sense of the signal merit of Ossory. "I would not exchange my dead son," said he, "for any living son in Christendom.'

Hume, vi. 340.

The same sentiment is inscribed on Miss Dolman's urn at the Leasowes.

Heu, quanto minus est cum reliquis versari, quam tui meminisse!

 

Note b.P. 38, l. 18.

High on exulting wing the heath-cock rose.

This bird is remarkable for his exultation during the spring.

Brit. Zoology, 266.

 

Note c.P. 38, l. 23.

Derwent's clear mirror.

Keswick Lake in Cumberland.

 

Note d.P. 42, l. 33.

Down by St. Herbert's consecrated grove.

A small island covered with trees, among which were formerly the ruins of a religious house.

 

Note e.P. 44, l. 13.

When lo! a sudden blast the vessel blew.

In a lake surrounded with mountains, the agitations are often violent and momentary. The winds blow in gusts and eddies; and the water no sooner swells than it subsides.

See Bourn's Hist. of Westmoreland.

 

Note f.P. 45, l. 11.

To what pure beings, in a nobler sphere.

The several degrees of angels may probably have larger views, and some of them be endowed with capacities able to retain together, and constantly set before them, as in one picture, all their past knowledge at once. Locke on Human Understanding, b. ii. c. x. 9.

 

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R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, LONDON.