Through every Age some Tyrant passion reigns
Title:
The King and the Shepheard. A Fable. Immitated from the French. Primary Text:
MS Folger, 282-4. Secondary Ed:
1713 Misc, 166-71; rpt of 1713: 1903 Reynolds, 162- 4. Source:
La Fontaine, "Le Berger et le roi," X, 9, 284-6. Comment:
Until the last section, like "The Miller, his Son and the Asse" (which occurs early in the Folger MS), a close paraphrase of La Fontaine." This could be one of Finch's earlier fables, but its position in the Folger MS and its progress into a more original and free poem (she recalls Spenser) makes me place it as written later than the other poems quoted just above (nos 137-148). Finch is lead to describe the archetypal pastoral happy place (e.g., the tripet which describes the "umble Marks of an obscure Recess": "The Hook, the Scrip, and for unblam'd Delight/The merry Bagpipe, which, ere fall of Night,/Cou'd sympathizing Birds to tuneful Notes invite." Perhaps this is a poem copied out late into the Folger MS; perhaps it underwent later revision.
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