note [Blake’s parody of a couplet from Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel]
begin page 7 | ↑ back to topIn his annotations to the Dedication to the King section of Reynold’s Discourses, Blake parodies a couplet which Malone attributes to Pope. The couplet is ‘They led their wild desires to woods and caves,/ And thought that all but SAVAGES were slaves.’ Blake’s parody is ‘When France got free Europe ‘twixt Fools & Knaves/ Were Savage first[e] to France, & after; Slaves.’ Both Keynes and Erdman keep Malone’s original attribution which is, as it turns out, incorrect. The couplet is not from Pope, but from Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel, lines 55-56.