CANTO I

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THE RAPE OF THE LOCK

AND OTHER POEMS

BY

ALEXANDER POPE

EDITED

WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES

BY

THOMAS MARC PARROTT, PH.D.

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED 1906

PREFACE

It has been the aim of the editor in preparing this little book to get

together sufficient material to afford a student in one of our high

schools or colleges adequate and typical specimens of the vigorous and

versatile genius of Alexander Pope. With this purpose he has included in

addition to 'The Rape of the Lock', the 'Essay on Criticism' as

furnishing the standard by which Pope himself expected his work to be

judged, the 'First Epistle' of the 'Essay on Man' as a characteristic

example of his didactic poetry, and the 'Epistle to Arbuthnot', both for

its exhibition of Pope's genius as a satirist and for the picture it

gives of the poet himself. To these are added the famous close of the

'Dunciad', the 'Ode to Solitude', a specimen of Pope's infrequent lyric

note, and the 'Epitaph on Gay'.

The first edition of 'The Rape of the Lock' has been given as an

appendix in order that the student may have the opportunity of comparing

the two forms of this poem, and of realizing the admirable art with

which Pope blended old and new in the version that is now the only one

known to the average reader. The text throughout is that of the Globe

Edition prepared by Professor A. W. Ward.

The editor can lay no claim to originality in the notes with which he

has attempted to explain and illustrate these poems. He is indebted at

every step to the labors of earlier editors, particularly to Elwin,

Courthope, Pattison, and Hales. If he has added anything of his own, it

has been in the way of defining certain words whose meaning or

connotation has changed since the time of Pope, and in paraphrasing

certain passages to bring out a meaning which has been partially

obscured by the poet's effort after brevity and concision.

In the general introduction the editor has aimed not so much to recite

the facts of Pope's life as to draw the portrait of a man whom he

believes to have been too often misunderstood and misrepresented. The

special introductions to the various poems are intended to acquaint the

student with the circumstances under which they were composed, to trace

their literary genesis and relationships, and, whenever necessary, to

give an outline of the train of thought which they embody.

In conclusion the editor would express the hope that his labors in the

preparation of this book may help, if only in some slight degree, to

stimulate the study of the work of a poet who, with all his limitations,

remains one of the abiding glories of English literature, and may

contribute not less to a proper appreciation of a man who with all his

faults was, on the evidence of those who knew him best, not only a great

poet, but a very human and lovable personality.

T. M. P.

'Princeton University', 'June' 4, 1906.

* * * * *

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

THE RAPE OF THE LOCK

AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM

AN ESSAY ON MAN, EPISTLE I

AN EPISTLE TO DR ARBUTHNOT

ODE ON SOLITUDE

THE DESCENT OF DULLNESS [FROM THE 'Dunciad', BOOK IV]

EPITAPH ON GAY

NOTES

THE RAPE OF THE LOCK

AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM

AN ESSAY ON MAN (EPISTLE I)

AN EPISTLE TO DR ARBUTHNOT

SELECTIONS

APPENDIX

THE FIRST EDITION OF THE RAPE OF THE LOCK

* * * * *

INTRODUCTION

Perhaps no other great poet in English Literature has been so

differently judged at different times as Alexander Pope. Accepted almost

on his first appearance as one of the leading poets of the day, he

rapidly became recognized as the foremost man of letters of his age. He

held this position throughout his life, and for over half a century

after his death his works were considered not only as masterpieces, but

as the finest models of poetry. With the change of poetic temper that

occurred at the beginning of the nineteenth century Pope's fame was

overshadowed. The romantic poets and critics even raised the question

whether Pope was a poet at all. And as his poetical fame diminished, the

harsh judgments of his personal character increased. It is almost

incredible with what exulting bitterness critics and editors of Pope

have tracked out and exposed his petty intrigues, exaggerated his

delinquencies, misrepresented his actions, attempted in short to blast

his character as a man.

Both as a man and as a poet Pope is sadly in need of a defender to-day.

And a defense is by no means impossible. The depreciation of Pope's

poetry springs, in the main, from an attempt to measure it by other

standards than those which he and his age recognized. The attacks upon

his character are due, in large measure, to a misunderstanding of the

spirit of the times in which he lived and to a forgetfulness of the

special circumstances of his own life. Tried in a fair court by

impartial judges Pope as a poet would be awarded a place, if not among

the noblest singers, at least high among poets of the second order. And

the flaws of character which even his warmest apologist must admit would

on the one hand be explained, if not excused, by circumstances, and on

the other more than counterbalanced by the existence of noble qualities

to which his assailants seem to have been quite blind.

Alexander Pope was born in London on May 21, 1688. His father was a

Roman Catholic linen draper, who had married a second time. Pope was the

only child of this marriage, and seems to have been a delicate,

sweet-tempered, precocious, and, perhaps, a rather spoiled child.

Pope's religion and his chronic ill-health are two facts of the highest

importance to be taken into consideration in any study of his life or

judgment of his character. The high hopes of the Catholics for a

restoration of their religion had been totally destroyed by the

Revolution of 1688. During all Pope's lifetime they were a sect at once

feared, hated, and oppressed by the severest laws. They were excluded

from the schools and universities, they were burdened with double taxes,

and forbidden to acquire real estate. All public careers were closed to

them, and their property and even their persons were in times of

excitement at the mercy of informers. In the last year of Pope's life a

proclamation was issued forbidding Catholics to come within ten miles of

London, and Pope himself, in spite of his influential friends, thought

it wise to comply with this edict. A fierce outburst of persecution

often evokes in the persecuted some of the noblest qualities of human

nature; but a long-continued and crushing tyranny that extends to all

the details of daily life is only too likely to have the most

unfortunate results on those who are subjected to it. And as a matter of

fact we find that the well-to-do Catholics of Pope's day lived in an

atmosphere of disaffection, political intrigue, and evasion of the law,

most unfavorable for the development of that frank, courageous, and

patriotic spirit for the lack of which Pope himself has so often been

made the object of reproach.

In a well-known passage of the 'Epistle to Arbuthnot', Pope has spoken

of his life as one long disease. He was in fact a humpbacked dwarf, not

over four feet six inches in height, with long, spider-like legs and

arms. He was subject to violent headaches, and his face was lined and

contracted with the marks of suffering. In youth he so completely ruined

his health by perpetual studies that his life was despaired of, and only

the most careful treatment saved him from an early death. Toward the

close of his life he became so weak that he could neither dress nor

undress without assistance. He had to be laced up in stiff stays in

order to sit erect, and wore a fur doublet and three pairs of stockings

to protect himself against the cold. With these physical defects he had

the extreme sensitiveness of mind that usually accompanies chronic ill

health, and this sensitiveness was outraged incessantly by the brutal

customs of the age. Pope's enemies made as free with his person as with

his poetry, and there is little doubt that he felt the former attacks

the more bitterly of the two. Dennis, his first critic, called him "a

short squab gentleman, the very bow of the God of love; his outward form

is downright monkey." A rival poet whom he had offended hung up a rod in

a coffee house where men of letters resorted, and threatened to whip

Pope like a naughty child if he showed his face there. It is said,

though perhaps not on the best authority, that when Pope once forgot

himself so far as to make love to Lady Mary Wortley Montague, the lady's

answer was "a fit of immoderate laughter." In an appendix to the

'Dunciad' Pope collected some of the epithets with which his enemies had

pelted him, "an ape," "an ass," "a frog," "a coward," "a fool," "a

little abject thing." He affected, indeed, to despise his assailants,

but there is only too good evidence that their poisoned arrows rankled

in his heart. Richardson, the painter, found him one day reading the

latest abusive pamphlet. "These things are my diversion," said the poet,

striving to put the best face on it; but as he read, his friends saw his

features "writhen with anguish," and prayed to be delivered from all

such "diversions" as these. Pope's enemies and their savage abuse are

mostly forgotten to-day. Pope's furious retorts have been secured to

immortality by his genius. It would have been nobler, no doubt, to have

answered by silence only; but before one condemns Pope it is only fair

to realize the causes of his bitterness.

Pope's education was short and irregular. He was taught the rudiments of

Latin and Greek by his family priest, attended for a brief period a

school in the country and another in London, and at the early age of

twelve left school altogether, and settling down at his father's house

in the country began to read to his heart's delight. He roamed through

the classic poets, translating passages that pleased him, went up for a

time to London to get lessons in French and Italian, and above all read

with eagerness and attention the works of older English poets,--Spenser,

Waller, and Dryden. He had already, it would seem, determined to become

a poet, and his father, delighted with the clever boy's talent, used to

set him topics, force him to correct his verses over and over, and

finally, when satisfied, dismiss him with the praise, "These are good

rhymes." He wrote a comedy, a tragedy, an epic poem, all of which he

afterward destroyed and, as he laughingly confessed in later years, he

thought himself "the greatest genius that ever was."

Pope was not alone, however, in holding a high opinion of his talents.

While still a boy in his teens he was taken up and patronized by a

number of gentlemen, Trumbull, Walsh, and Cromwell, all dabblers in

poetry and criticism. He was introduced to the dramatist Wycherly,

nearly fifty years his senior, and helped to polish some of the old

man's verses. His own works were passed about in manuscript from hand to

hand till one of them came to the eyes of Dryden's old publisher,

Tonson. Tonson wrote Pope a respectful letter asking for the honor of

being allowed to publish them. One may fancy the delight with which the

sixteen-year-old boy received this offer. It is a proof of Pope's

patience as well as his precocity that he delayed three years before

accepting it. It was not till 1709 that his first published verses, the

'Pastorals', a fragment translated from Homer, and a modernized version

of one of the 'Canterbury Tales', appeared in Tonson's 'Miscellany'.

With the publication of the 'Pastorals', Pope embarked upon his life as

a man of letters. They seem to have brought him a certain recognition,

but hardly fame. That he obtained by his next poem, the 'Essay on

Criticism', which appeared in 1711. It was applauded in the 'Spectator',

and Pope seems about this time to have made the acquaintance of Addison

and the little senate which met in Button's coffee house. His poem the

'Messiah' appeared in the 'Spectator' in May 1712; the first draft of

'The Rape of the Lock' in a poetical miscellany in the same year, and

Addison's request, in 1713, that he compose a prologue for the tragedy

of 'Cato' set the final stamp upon his rank as a poet.

Pope's friendly relations with Addison and his circle were not, however,

long continued. In the year 1713 he gradually drew away from them and

came under the influence of Swift, then at the height of his power in

political and social life. Swift introduced him to the brilliant Tories,

politicians and lovers of letters, Harley, Bolingbroke, and Atterbury,

who were then at the head of affairs. Pope's new friends seem to have

treated him with a deference which he had never experienced before, and

which bound him to them in unbroken affection. Harley used to regret

that Pope's religion rendered him legally incapable of holding a

sinecure office in the government, such as was frequently bestowed in

those days upon men of letters, and Swift jestingly offered the young

poet twenty guineas to become a Protestant. But now, as later, Pope was

firmly resolved not to abandon the faith of his parents for the sake of

worldly advantage. And in order to secure the independence he valued so

highly he resolved to embark upon the great work of his life, the

translation of Homer.

"What led me into that," he told a friend long after, "was purely the

want of money. I had then none; not even to buy books." It seems that

about this time, 1713, Pope's father had experienced some heavy

financial losses, and the poet, whose receipts in money had so far been

by no means in proportion to the reputation his works had brought him,

now resolved to use that reputation as a means of securing from the

public a sum which would at least keep him for life from poverty or the

necessity of begging for patronage. It is worth noting that Pope was the

first Englishman of letters who threw himself thus boldly upon the

public and earned his living by his pen.

The arrangements for the publication and sale of Pope's translation of

Homer were made with care and pushed on with enthusiasm. He issued in

1713 his proposals for an edition to be published by subscription, and

his friends at once became enthusiastic canvassers. We have a

characteristic picture of Swift at this time, bustling about a crowded

ante-chamber, and informing the company that the best poet in England

was Mr. Pope (a Papist) who had begun a translation of Homer for which

they must all subscribe, "for," says he, "the author shall not begin to

print till I have a thousand guineas for him." The work was to be in six

volumes, each costing a guinea. Pope obtained 575 subscribers, many of

whom took more than one set. Lintot, the publisher, gave Pope £1200 for

the work and agreed to supply the subscription copies free of charge. As

a result Pope made something between £5000 and £6000, a sum absolutely

unprecedented in the history of English literature, and amply sufficient

to make him independent for life.

But the sum was honestly earned by hard and wearisome work. Pope was no

Greek scholar; it is said, indeed, that he was just able to make out the

sense of the original with a translation. And in addition to the fifteen

thousand lines of the 'Iliad', he had engaged to furnish an introduction

and notes. At first the magnitude of the undertaking frightened him.

"What terrible moments," he said to Spence, "does one feel after one has

engaged for a large work. In the beginning of my translating the

'Iliad', I wished anybody would hang me a hundred times. It sat so

heavily on my mind at first that I often used to dream of it and do

sometimes still." In spite of his discouragement, however, and of the

ill health which so constantly beset him, Pope fell gallantly upon his

task, and as time went on came almost to enjoy it. He used to translate

thirty or forty verses in the morning before rising and, in his own

characteristic phrase, "piddled over them for the rest of the day." He

used every assistance possible, drew freely upon the scholarship of

friends, corrected and recorrected with a view to obtaining clearness

and point, and finally succeeded in producing a version which not only

satisfied his own critical judgment, but was at once accepted by the

English-speaking world as the standard translation of Homer.

The first volume came out in June, 1715, and to Pope's dismay and wrath

a rival translation appeared almost simultaneously. Tickell, one of

Addison's "little senate," had also begun a translation of the 'Iliad',

and although he announced in the preface that he intended to withdraw in

favor of Pope and take up a translation of the 'Odyssey', the poet's

suspicions were at once aroused. And they were quickly fanned into a

flame by the gossip of the town which reported that Addison, the

recognized authority in literary criticism, pronounced Tickell's version

"the best that ever was in any language." Rumor went so far, in fact, as

to hint pretty broadly that Addison himself was the author, in part, at

least, of Tickell's book; and Pope, who had been encouraged by Addison

to begin his long task, felt at once that he had been betrayed. His

resentment was all the more bitter since he fancied that Addison, now at

the height of his power and prosperity in the world of letters and of

politics, had attempted to ruin an enterprise on which the younger man

had set all his hopes of success and independence, for no better reason

than literary jealousy and political estrangement. We know now that Pope

was mistaken, but there was beyond question some reason at the time for

his thinking as he did, and it is to the bitterness which this incident

caused in his mind that we owe the famous satiric portrait of Addison as

Atticus.

The last volume of the 'Iliad' appeared in the spring of 1720, and in it

Pope gave a renewed proof of his independence by dedicating the whole

work, not to some lord who would have rewarded him with a handsome

present, but to his old acquaintance, Congreve, the last survivor of the

brilliant comic dramatists of Dryden's day. And now resting for a time

from his long labors, Pope turned to the adornment and cultivation of

the little house and garden that he had leased at Twickenham.

Pope's father had died in 1717, and the poet, rejecting politely but

firmly the suggestion of his friend, Atterbury, that he might now turn

Protestant, devoted himself with double tenderness to the care of his

aged and infirm mother. He brought her with him to Twickenham, where she

lived till 1733, dying in that year at the great age of ninety-one. It

may have been partly on her account that Pope pitched upon Twickenham as

his abiding place. Beautifully situated on the banks of the Thames, it

was at once a quiet country place and yet of easy access to London, to

Hampton Court, or to Kew. The five acres of land that lay about the

house furnished Pope with inexhaustible entertainment for the rest of

his life. He "twisted and twirled and harmonized" his bit of ground

"till it appeared two or three sweet little lawns opening and opening

beyond one another, the whole surrounded by impenetrable woods."

Following the taste of his times in landscape gardening, he adorned his

lawns with artificial mounds, a shell temple, an obelisk, and a

colonnade. But the crowning glory was the grotto, a tunnel decorated

fantastically with shells and bits of looking-glass, which Pope dug

under a road that ran through his grounds. Here Pope received in state,

and his house and garden was for years the center of the most brilliant

society in England. Here Swift came on his rare visits from Ireland, and

Bolingbroke on his return from exile. Arbuthnot, Pope's beloved

physician, was a frequent visitor, and Peterborough, one of the most

distinguished of English soldiers, condescended to help lay out the

garden. Congreve came too, at times, and Gay, the laziest and most

good-natured of poets. Nor was the society of women lacking at these

gatherings. Lady Mary Wortley Montague, the wittiest woman in England,

was often there, until her bitter quarrel with the poet; the grim old

Duchess of Marlborough appeared once or twice in Pope's last years; and

the Princess of Wales came with her husband to inspire the leaders of

the opposition to the hated Walpole and the miserly king. And from first

to last, the good angel of the place was the blue-eyed, sweet-tempered

Patty Blount, Pope's best and dearest friend.

Not long after the completion of the 'Iliad', Pope undertook to edit

Shakespeare, and completed the work in 1724. The edition is, of course,

quite superseded now, but it has its place in the history of

Shakespearean studies as the first that made an effort, though irregular

and incomplete, to restore the true text by collation and conjecture. It

has its place, too, in the story of Pope's life, since the bitter

criticism which it received, all the more unpleasant to the poet since

it was in the main true, was one of the principal causes of his writing

the 'Dunciad'. Between the publication of his edition of Shakespeare,

however, and the appearance of the 'Dunciad', Pope resolved to complete

his translation of Homer, and with the assistance of a pair of friends,

got out a version of the Odyssey in 1725. Like the 'Iliad', this was

published by subscription, and as in the former case the greatest men in

England were eager to show their appreciation of the poet by filling up

his lists. Sir Robert Walpole, the great Whig statesman, took ten

copies, and Harley, the fallen Tory leader, put himself, his wife, and

his daughter down for sixteen. Pope made, it is said, about £3700 by

this work.

In 1726, Swift visited Pope and encouraged him to complete a satire

which he seems already to have begun on the dull critics and hack

writers of the day. For one cause or another its publication was

deferred until 1728, when it appeared under the title of the 'Dunciad'.

Here Pope declared open war upon his enemies. All those who had attacked

his works, abused his character, or scoffed at his personal deformities,

were caricatured as ridiculous and sometimes disgusting figures in a

mock epic poem celebrating the accession of a new monarch to the throne

of Dullness. The 'Dunciad' is little read to-day except by professed

students of English letters, but it made, naturally enough, a great stir

at the time and vastly provoked the wrath of all the dunces whose names

it dragged to light. Pope has often been blamed for stooping to such

ignoble combat, and in particular for the coarseness of his abuse, and

for his bitter jests upon the poverty of his opponents. But it must be

remembered that no living writer had been so scandalously abused as

Pope, and no writer that ever lived was by nature so quick to feel and

to resent insult. The undoubted coarseness of the work is in part due to

the gross license of the times in speech and writing, and more

particularly to the influence of Swift, at this time predominant over

Pope. And in regard to Pope's trick of taunting his enemies with

poverty, it must frankly be confessed that he seized upon this charge as

a ready and telling weapon. Pope was at heart one of the most charitable

of men. In the days of his prosperity he is said to have given away one

eighth of his income. And he was always quick to succor merit in

distress; he pensioned the poet Savage and he tried to secure patronage

for Johnson. But for the wretched hack writers of the common press who

had barked against him he had no mercy, and he struck them with the

first rod that lay ready to his hands.

During his work on the 'Dunciad', Pope came into intimate relations with

Bolingbroke, who in 1725 had returned from his long exile in France and

had settled at Dawley within easy reach of Pope's villa at Twickenham.

Bolingbroke was beyond doubt one of the most brilliant and stimulating

minds of his age. Without depth of intellect or solidity of character,

he was at once a philosopher, a statesman, a scholar, and a fascinating

talker. Pope, who had already made his acquaintance, was delighted to

renew and improve their intimacy, and soon came wholly under the

influence of his splendid friend. It is hardly too much to say that all

the rest of Pope's work is directly traceable to Bolingbroke. The 'Essay

on Man' was built up on the precepts of Bolingbroke's philosophy; the

'Imitations of Horace' were undertaken at Bolingbroke's suggestion; and

the whole tone of Pope's political and social satire during the years

from 1731 to 1738 reflects the spirit of that opposition to the

administration of Walpole and to the growing influence of the commercial

class, which was at once inspired and directed by Bolingbroke. And yet

it is exactly in the work of this period that we find the best and with

perhaps one exception, the 'Essay on Man', the most original, work of

Pope. He has obtained an absolute command over his instrument of

expression. In his hands the heroic couplet sings, and laughs, and

chats, and thunders. He has turned from the ignoble warfare with the

dunces to satirize courtly frivolity and wickedness in high places. And

most important of all to the student of Pope, it is in these last works

that his personality is most clearly revealed. It has been well said

that the best introduction to the study of Pope, the man, is to get the

'Epistle to Arbuthnot' by heart.

Pope gradually persuaded himself that all the works of these years, the

'Essay on Man', the 'Satires, Epistles', and 'Moral Essays', were but

parts of one stupendous whole. He told Spence in the last years of his

life: "I had once thought of completing my ethic work in four

books.--The first, you know, is on the Nature of Man [the 'Essay on

Man']; the second would have been on knowledge and its limits--here

would have come in an Essay on Education, part of which I have inserted

in the 'Dunciad' ['i.e.' in the Fourth Book, published in 1742]. The

third was to have treated of Government, both ecclesiastical and

civil--and this was what chiefly stopped my going on. I could not have

said what 'I would' have said without provoking every church on the face

of the earth; and I did not care for living always in boiling

water.--This part would have come into my 'Brutus' [an epic poem which

Pope never completed], which is planned already. The fourth would have

been on Morality; in eight or nine of the most concerning branches of

it."

It is difficult, if not impossible, to believe that Pope with his

irregular methods of work and illogical habit of thought had planned so

vast and elaborate a system before he began its execution. It is far

more likely that he followed his old method of composing on the

inspiration of the moment, and produced the works in question with

little thought of their relation or interdependence. But in the last

years of his life, when he had made the acquaintance of Warburton, and

was engaged in reviewing and perfecting the works of this period, he

noticed their general similarity in form and spirit, and, possibly under

Warburton's influence, conceived the notion of combining and

supplementing them to form that "Greater Essay on Man" of which he spoke

to Spence, and of which Warburton himself has given us a detailed

account.

Warburton, a wide-read, pompous, and polemical clergyman, had introduced

himself to the notice of Pope by a defense of the philosophical and

religious principles of the 'Essay on Man'. In spite of the influence of

the free-thinking Bolingbroke, Pope still remained a member of the

Catholic church and sincerely believed himself to be an orthodox, though

liberal, Christian, and he had, in consequence, been greatly

disconcerted by a criticism of his poem published in Switzerland and

lately translated into English. Its author, Pierre de Crousaz,

maintained, and with a considerable degree of truth, that the principles

of Pope's poem if pushed to their logical conclusion were destructive to

religion and would rank their author rather among atheists than

defenders of the faith. The very word "atheist" was at that day

sufficient to put the man to whom it was applied beyond the pale of

polite society, and Pope, who quite lacked the ability to refute in

logical argument the attack of de Crousaz, was proportionately delighted

when Warburton came forward in his defense, and in a series of letters

asserted that Pope's whole intention was to vindicate the ways of God to

man, and that de Crousaz had mistaken his purpose and misunderstood his

language. Pope's gratitude to his defender knew no bounds; he declared

that Warburton understood the 'Essay' better than he did himself; he

pronounced him the greatest critic he ever knew, secured an introduction

to him, introduced him to his own rich and influential friends, in short

made the man's fortune for him outright. When the University of Oxford

hesitated to give Warburton, who had never attended a university, the

degree of D.D., Pope declined to accept the degree of D.C.L. which had

been offered him at the same time, and wrote the Fourth Book of the

'Dunciad' to satirize the stupidity of the university authorities. In

conjunction with Warburton he proceeded further to revise the whole

poem, for which his new friend wrote notes and a ponderous introduction,

and made the capital mistake of substituting the frivolous, but clever,

Colley Gibber, with whom he had recently become embroiled, for his old

enemy, Theobald, as the hero. And the last year of his life was spent in

getting out new editions of his poems accompanied by elaborate

commentaries from the pen of Warburton.

In the spring of 1744, it was evident that Pope was failing fast. In

addition to his other ailments he was now attacked by an asthmatical

dropsy, which no efforts of his physicians could remove. Yet he

continued to work almost to the last, and distributed copies of his

'Ethic Epistles' to his friends about three weeks before his death, with

the smiling remark that like the dying Socrates he was dispensing his

morality among his friends. His mind began to wander; he complained that

he saw all things as through a curtain, and told Spence once "with a

smile of great pleasure and with the greatest softness" that he had seen

a vision. His friends were devoted in their attendance. Bolingbroke sat

weeping by his chair, and on Spence's remarking how Pope with every

rally was always saying something kindly of his friends, replied: "I

never in my life knew a man that had so tender a heart for his

particular friends, or a more general friendship for mankind. I have

known him these thirty years; and value myself more for that man's love

than"--here his head dropped and his voice broke in tears. It was

noticed that whenever Patty Blount came into the room, the dying flame

of life flashed up in a momentary glow. At the very end a friend

reminded Pope that as a professed Catholic he ought to send for a

priest. The dying man replied that he did not believe it essential, but

thanked him for the suggestion. When the priest appeared, Pope attempted

to rise from his bed that he might receive the sacrament kneeling, and

the priest came out from the sick room "penetrated to the last degree

with the state of mind in which he found his penitent, resigned and

wrapt up in the love of God and man." The hope that sustained Pope to

the end was that of immortality. "I am so certain of the soul's being

immortal," he whispered, almost with his last breath, "that I seem to

feel it within me, as it were by intuition." He died on the evening of

May 30, so quietly that his friends hardly knew that the end had come.

He was buried in Twickenham Church, near the monument he had erected to

his parents, and his coffin was carried to the grave by six of the

poorest men of the parish.

It is plain even from so slight a sketch as this that the common

conception of Pope as "the wicked wasp of Twickenham," a bitter,

jealous, and malignant spirit, is utterly out of accord with the facts

of his life. Pope's faults of character lie on the surface, and the most

perceptible is that which has done him most harm in the eyes of

English-speaking men. He was by nature, perhaps by training also,

untruthful. If he seldom stooped to an outright lie, he never hesitated

to equivocate; and students of his life have found that it is seldom

possible to take his word on any point where his own works or interests

were concerned. I have already (p. x) attempted to point out the

probable cause of this defect; and it is, moreover, worth while to

remark that Pope's manifold intrigues and evasions were mainly of the

defensive order. He plotted and quibbled not so much to injure others as

to protect himself. To charge Pope with treachery to his friends, as has

sometimes been done, is wholly to misunderstand his character.

Another flaw, one can hardly call it a vice, in Pope's character was his

constant practice of considering everything that came in his way as

copy. It was this which led him to reclaim his early letters from his

friends, to alter, rewrite, and redate them, utterly unconscious of the

trouble which he was preparing for his future biographers. The letters,

he thought, were good reading but not so good as he could make them, and

he set to work to improve them with all an artist's zeal, and without a

trace of a historian's care for facts. It was this which led him to

embody in his description of a rich fool's splendid house and park

certain unmistakable traces of a living nobleman's estate and to start

in genuine amazement and regret when the world insisted on identifying

the nobleman and the fool. And when Pope had once done a good piece of

work, he had all an artist's reluctance to destroy it. He kept bits of

verse by him for years and inserted them into appropriate places in his

poems. This habit it was that brought about perhaps the gravest charge

that has ever been made against Pope, that of accepting £1000 to

suppress a satiric portrait of the old Duchess of Marlborough, and yet

of publishing it in a revision of a poem that he was engaged on just

before his death. The truth seems to be that Pope had drawn this

portrait in days when he was at bitter enmity with the Duchess, and

after the reconcilement that took place, unwilling to suppress it

entirely, had worked it over, and added passages out of keeping with the

first design, but pointing to another lady with whom he was now at odds.

Pope's behavior, we must admit, was not altogether creditable, but it

was that of an artist reluctant to throw away good work, not that of a

ruffian who stabs a woman he has taken money to spare.

Finally Pope was throughout his life, and notably in his later years,

the victim of an irritable temper and a quick, abusive tongue. His

irritability sprang in part, we may believe, from his physical

sufferings, even more, however, from the exquisitely sensitive heart

which made him feel a coarse insult as others would a blow. And of the

coarseness of the insults that were heaped upon Pope no one except the

careful student of his life can have any conception. His genius, his

morals, his person, his parents, and his religion were overwhelmed in

one indiscriminate flood of abuse. Too high spirited to submit tamely to

these attacks, too irritable to laugh at them, he struck back, and his

weapon was personal satire which cut like a whip and left a brand like a

hot iron. And if at times, as in the case of Addison, Pope was mistaken

in his object and assaulted one who was in no sense his enemy, the fault

lies not so much in his alleged malice as in the unhappy state of

warfare in which he lived.

Over against the faults of Pope we may set more than one noble

characteristic. The sensitive heart and impulsive temper that led him so

often into bitter warfare, made him also most susceptible to kindness

and quick to pity suffering. He was essentially of a tender and loving

nature, a devoted son, and a loyal friend, unwearied in acts of kindness

and generosity. His ruling passion, to use his own phrase, was a

devotion to letters, and he determined as early and worked as diligently

to make himself a poet as ever Milton did. His wretched body was

dominated by a high and eager mind, and he combined in an unparalleled

degree the fiery energy of the born poet with the tireless patience of

the trained artist.

But perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of Pope is his manly

independence. In an age when almost without exception his fellow-writers

stooped to accept a great man's patronage or sold their talents into the

slavery of politics, Pope stood aloof from patron and from party. He

repeatedly declined offers of money that were made him, even when no

condition was attached. He refused to change his religion, though he was

far from being a devout Catholic, in order to secure a comfortable

place. He relied upon his genius alone for his support, and his genius

gave him all that he asked, a modest competency. His relations with his

rich and powerful friends were marked by the same independent spirit. He

never cringed or flattered, but met them on even terms, and raised

himself by merit alone from his position as the unknown son of an humble

shopkeeper to be the friend and associate of the greatest fortunes and

most powerful minds in England. It is not too much to say that the

career of a man of letters as we know it to-day, a career at once

honorable and independent, takes its rise from the life and work of

Alexander Pope.

The long controversies that have raged about Pope's rank as a poet seem

at last to be drawing to a close; and it has become possible to strike a

balance between the exaggerated praise of his contemporaries and the

reckless depreciation of romantic critics. That he is not a poet of the

first order is plain, if for no other reason than that he never produced

a work in any of the greatest forms of poetry. The drama, the epic, the

lyric, were all outside his range. On the other hand, unless a

definition of poetry be framed--and Dr. Johnson has well remarked that

"to circumscribe poetry by a definition will only show the narrowness of

the definer"--which shall exclude all gnomic and satiric verse, and so

debar the claims of Hesiod, Juvenal, and Boileau, it is impossible to

deny that Pope is a true poet. Certain qualities of the highest poet

Pope no doubt lacked, lofty imagination, intense passion, wide human

sympathy. But within the narrow field which he marked out for his own he

approaches perfection as nearly as any English poet, and Pope's merit

consists not merely in the smoothness of his verse or the polish of

separate epigrams, as is so often stated, but quite as much in the vigor

of his conceptions and the unity and careful proportion of each poem as

a whole. It is not too much to say that 'The Rape of the Lock' is one of

the best-planned poems in any language. It is as symmetrical and

exquisitely finished as a Grecian temple.

Historically Pope represents the fullest embodiment of that spirit which

began to appear in English literature about the middle of the

seventeenth century, and which we are accustomed to call the "classical"

spirit. In essence this movement was a protest against the irregularity

and individual license of earlier poets. Instead of far-fetched wit and

fanciful diction, the classical school erected the standards of common

sense in conception and directness in expression. And in so doing they

restored poetry which had become the diversion of the few to the

possession of the many. Pope, for example, is preeminently the poet of

his time. He dealt with topics that were of general interest to the

society in which he lived; he pictured life as he saw it about him. And

this accounts for his prompt and general acceptance by the world of his

day.

For the student of English literature Pope's work has a threefold value.

It represents the highest achievement of one of the great movements in

the developments of English verse. It reflects with unerring accuracy

the life and thought of his time--not merely the outward life of beau

and belle in the days of Queen Anne, but the ideals of the age in art,

philosophy, and politics. And finally it teaches as hardly any other

body of English verse can be said to do, the perennial value of

conscious and controlling art. Pope's work lives and will live while

English poetry is read, not because of its inspiration, imagination, or

depth of thought, but by its unity of design, vigor of expression, and

perfection of finish--by those qualities, in short, which show the poet

as an artist in verse.

CHIEF DATES IN POPE'S LIFE

1688 Born, May 21.

1700 Moves to Binfield.

1709 'Pastorals'.

1711 'Essay on Criticism'.

1711-12 Contributes to 'Spectator'.

1712 'Rape of the Lock', first form.

1713 'Windsor Forest'.

1713 Issues proposals for translation of Homer.

1714 'Rape of the Lock', second form.

1715 First volume of the 'Iliad'.

1715 'Temple of Fame'.

1717 Pope's father dies.

1717 'Works', including some new poems.

1719 Settles at Twickenham.

1720 Sixth and last volume of the 'Iliad'.

1722 Begins translation of 'Odyssey'.

1725 Edits Shakespeare.

1726 Finishes translation of 'Odyssey'.

1727-8 'Miscellanies' by Pope and Swift.

1728-9 'Dunciad'.

1731-2 'Moral Essays': 'Of Taste', 'Of the Use of Riches'.

1733-4 'Essay on Man'.

1733-8 'Satires and Epistles'.

1735 'Works'.

1735 'Letters' published by Curll.

1741 'Works in Prose'; vol. II. includes the correspondence with Swift.

1742 Fourth book of 'Dunciad'.

1742 Revised 'Dunciad'.

1744 Died, May 30.

1751 First collected edition, published by Warburton, 9 vols.

* * * * *

SELECTIONS FROM POPE

* * * * *

THE RAPE OF THE LOCK

AN HEROI-COMICAL POEM

Nolueram, Belinda, tuos violare capillos;

Sed juvat, hoc precibus me tribuisse tuis.

Mart, [Epigr, XII. 84.]

TO MRS. ARABELLA FERMOR

MADAM,

It will be in vain to deny that I have some regard for this piece, since

I dedicate it to You. Yet you may bear me witness, it was intended only

to divert a few young Ladies, who have good sense and good humour enough

to laugh not only at their sex's little unguarded follies, but at their

own. But as it was communicated with the air of a Secret, it soon found

its way into the world. An imperfect copy having been offer'd to a

Bookseller, you had the good-nature for my sake to consent to the

publication of one more correct: This I was forc'd to, before I had

executed half my design, for the Machinery was entirely wanting to

compleat it.

The Machinery, Madam, is a term invented by the Critics, to signify that

part which the Deities, Angels, or Dæmons are made to act in a Poem:

For the ancient Poets are in one respect like many modern Ladies: let an

action be never so trivial in itself, they always make it appear of the

utmost importance. These Machines I determined to raise on a very new

and odd foundation, the Rosicrucian doctrine of Spirits.

I know how disagreeable it is to make use of hard words before a Lady;

but't is so much the concern of a Poet to have his works understood, and

particularly by your Sex, that you must give me leave to explain two or

three difficult terms.

The Rosicrucians are a people I must bring you acquainted with. The best

account I know of them is in a French book call'd 'Le Comte de

Gabalis', which both in its title and size is so like a Novel, that

many of the Fair Sex have read it for one by mistake. According to these

Gentlemen, the four Elements are inhabited by Spirits, which they call

Sylphs, Gnomes, Nymphs, and Salamanders. The Gnomes or Dæmons of Earth

delight in mischief; but the Sylphs whose habitation is in the Air, are

the best-condition'd creatures imaginable. For they say, any mortals may

enjoy the most intimate familiarities with these gentle Spirits, upon a

condition very easy to all true Adepts, an inviolate preservation of

Chastity.

As to the following Canto's, all the passages of them are as fabulous,

as the Vision at the beginning, or the Transformation at the end;

(except the loss of your Hair, which I always mention with reverence).

The Human persons are as fictitious as the airy ones; and the character

of Belinda, as it is now manag'd, resembles you in nothing but in

Beauty.

If this Poem had as many Graces as there are in your Person, or in your

Mind, yet I could never hope it should pass thro' the world half so

Uncensur'd as You have done. But let its fortune be what it will, mine

is happy enough, to have given me this occasion of assuring you that I

am, with the truest esteem, Madam,

Your most obedient, Humble Servant,

A. Pope

CANTO I

What dire offence from am'rous causes springs,

What mighty contests rise from trivial things,

I sing--This verse to CARYL, Muse! is due:

This, ev'n Belinda may vouchsafe to view:

Slight is the subject, but not so the praise, 5

If She inspire, and He approve my lays.

Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel

A well-bred Lord t' assault a gentle Belle?

O say what stranger cause, yet unexplor'd,

Could make a gentle Belle reject a Lord? 10

In tasks so bold, can little men engage,

And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty Rage?

Sol thro' white curtains shot a tim'rous ray,

And oped those eyes that must eclipse the day:

Now lap-dogs give themselves the rousing shake, 15

And sleepless lovers, just at twelve, awake:

Thrice rung the bell, the slipper knock'd the ground,

And the press'd watch return'd a silver sound.

Belinda still her downy pillow prest,

Her guardian SYLPH prolong'd the balmy rest: 20

'Twas He had summon'd to her silent bed

The morning-dream that hover'd o'er her head;

A Youth more glitt'ring than a Birth-night Beau,

(That ev'n in slumber caus'd her cheek to glow)

Seem'd to her ear his winning lips to lay, 25

And thus in whispers said, or seem'd to say.

Fairest of mortals, thou distinguish'd care

Of thousand bright Inhabitants of Air!

If e'er one vision touch.'d thy infant thought,

Of all the Nurse and all the Priest have taught; 30

Of airy Elves by moonlight shadows seen,

The silver token, and the circled green,

Or virgins visited by Angel-pow'rs,

With golden crowns and wreaths of heav'nly flow'rs;

Hear and believe! thy own importance know, 35

Nor bound thy narrow views to things below.

Some secret truths, from learned pride conceal'd,

To Maids alone and Children are reveal'd:

What tho' no credit doubting Wits may give?

The Fair and Innocent shall still believe. 40

Know, then, unnumber'd Spirits round thee fly,

The light Militia of the lower sky:

These, tho' unseen, are ever on the wing,

Hang o'er the Box, and hover round the Ring.

Think what an equipage thou hast in Air, 45

And view with scorn two Pages and a Chair.

As now your own, our beings were of old,

And once inclos'd in Woman's beauteous mould;

Thence, by a soft transition, we repair

From earthly Vehicles to these of air. 50

Think not, when Woman's transient breath is fled

That all her vanities at once are dead;

Succeeding vanities she still regards,

And tho' she plays no more, o'erlooks the cards.

Her joy in gilded Chariots, when alive, 55

And love of Ombre, after death survive.

For when the Fair in all their pride expire,

To their first Elements their Souls retire:

The Sprites of fiery Termagants in Flame

Mount up, and take a Salamander's name. 60

Soft yielding minds to Water glide away,

And sip, with Nymphs, their elemental Tea.

The graver Prude sinks downward to a Gnome,

In search of mischief still on Earth to roam.

The light Coquettes in Sylphs aloft repair, 65

And sport and flutter in the fields of Air.

"Know further yet; whoever fair and chaste

Rejects mankind, is by some Sylph embrac'd:

For Spirits, freed from mortal laws, with ease

Assume what sexes and what shapes they please. 70

What guards the purity of melting Maids,

In courtly balls, and midnight masquerades,

Safe from the treach'rous friend, the daring spark,

The glance by day, the whisper in the dark,

When kind occasion prompts their warm desires, 75

When music softens, and when dancing fires?

'Tis but their Sylph, the wise Celestials know,

Tho' Honour is the word with Men below.

Some nymphs there are, too conscious of their face,

For life predestin'd to the Gnomes' embrace. 80

These swell their prospects and exalt their pride,

When offers are disdain'd, and love deny'd:

Then gay Ideas crowd the vacant brain,

While Peers, and Dukes, and all their sweeping train,

And Garters, Stars, and Coronets appear, 85

And in soft sounds, Your Grace salutes their ear.

'T is these that early taint the female soul,

Instruct the eyes of young Coquettes to roll,

Teach Infant-cheeks a bidden blush to know,

And little hearts to flutter at a Beau. 90

Oft, when the world imagine women stray,

The Sylphs thro' mystic mazes guide their way,

Thro' all the giddy circle they pursue,

And old impertinence expel by new.

What tender maid but must a victim fall 95

To one man's treat, but for another's ball?

When Florio speaks what virgin could withstand,

If gentle Damon did not squeeze her hand?

With varying vanities, from ev'ry part,

They shift the moving Toyshop of their heart; 100

Where wigs with wigs, with sword-knots sword-knots strive,

Beaux banish beaux, and coaches coaches drive.

This erring mortals Levity may call;

Oh blind to truth! the Sylphs contrive it all.

Of these am I, who thy protection claim, 105

A watchful sprite, and Ariel is my name.

Late, as I rang'd the crystal wilds of air,

In the clear Mirror of thy ruling Star

I saw, alas! some dread event impend,

Ere to the main this morning sun descend, 110

But heav'n reveals not what, or how, or where:

Warn'd by the Sylph, oh pious maid, beware!

This to disclose is all thy guardian can:

Beware of all, but most beware of Man!"

He said; when Shock, who thought she slept too long, 115

Leap'd up, and wak'd his mistress with his tongue.

'T was then, Belinda, if report say true,

Thy eyes first open'd on a Billet-doux;

Wounds, Charms, and Ardors were no sooner read,

But all the Vision vanish'd from thy head. 120

And now, unveil'd, the Toilet stands display'd,

Each silver Vase in mystic order laid.

First, rob'd in white, the Nymph intent adores,

With head uncover'd, the Cosmetic pow'rs.

A heav'nly image in the glass appears, 125

To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears;

Th' inferior Priestess, at her altar's side,

Trembling begins the sacred rites of Pride.

Unnumber'd treasures ope at once, and here

The various off'rings of the world appear; 130

From each she nicely culls with curious toil,

And decks the Goddess with the glitt'ring spoil.

This casket India's glowing gems unlocks,

And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.

The Tortoise here and Elephant unite, 135

Transformed to combs, the speckled, and the white.

Here files of pins extend their shining rows,

Puffs, Powders, Patches, Bibles, Billet-doux.

Now awful Beauty puts on all its arms;

The fair each moment rises in her charms, 140

Repairs her smiles, awakens ev'ry grace,

And calls forth all the wonders of her face;

Sees by degrees a purer blush arise,

And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes.

The busy Sylphs surround their darling care, 145

These set the head, and those divide the hair,

Some fold the sleeve, whilst others plait the gown:

And Betty's prais'd for labours not her own.

CANTO II

Not with more glories, in th' etherial plain,

The Sun first rises o'er the purpled main,

Than, issuing forth, the rival of his beams

Launch'd on the bosom of the silver Thames.

Fair Nymphs, and well-drest Youths around her shone. 5

But ev'ry eye was fix'd on her alone.

On her white breast a sparkling Cross she wore,

Which Jews might kiss, and Infidels adore.

Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose,

Quick as her eyes, and as unfix'd as those: 10

Favours to none, to all she smiles extends;

Oft she rejects, but never once offends.

Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike,

And, like the sun, they shine on all alike.

Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride, 15

Might hide her faults, if Belles had faults to hide:

If to her share some female errors fall,

Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all.

This Nymph, to the destruction of mankind,

Nourish'd two Locks, which graceful hung behind 20

In equal curls, and well conspir'd to deck

With shining ringlets the smooth iv'ry neck.

Love in these labyrinths his slaves detains,

And mighty hearts are held in slender chains.

With hairy springes we the birds betray, 25

Slight lines of hair surprise the finny prey,

Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare,

And beauty draws us with a single hair.

Th' advent'rous Baron the bright locks admir'd;

He saw, he wish'd, and to the prize aspir'd. 30

Resolv'd to win, he meditates the way,

By force to ravish, or by fraud betray;

For when success a Lover's toil attends,

Few ask, if fraud or force attain'd his ends.

For this, ere Phoebus rose, he had implor'd 35

Propitious heav'n, and ev'ry pow'r ador'd,

But chiefly Love--to Love an Altar built,

Of twelve vast French Romances, neatly gilt.

There lay three garters, half a pair of gloves;

And all the trophies of his former loves; 40

With tender Billet-doux he lights the pyre,

And breathes three am'rous sighs to raise the fire.

Then prostrate falls, and begs with ardent eyes

Soon to obtain, and long possess the prize:

The pow'rs gave ear, and granted half his pray'r, 45

The rest, the winds dispers'd in empty air.

But now secure the painted vessel glides,

The sun-beams trembling on the floating tides:

While melting music steals upon the sky,

And soften'd sounds along the waters die; 50

Smooth flow the waves, the Zephyrs gently play,

Belinda smil'd, and all the world was gay.

All but the Sylph--with careful thoughts opprest,

Th' impending woe sat heavy on his breast.

He summons strait his Denizens of air; 55

The lucid squadrons round the sails repair:

Soft o'er the shrouds aërial whispers breathe,

That seem'd but Zephyrs to the train beneath.

Some to the sun their insect-wings unfold,

Waft on the breeze, or sink in clouds of gold; 60

Transparent forms, too fine for mortal sight,

Their fluid bodies half dissolv'd in light,

Loose to the wind their airy garments flew,

Thin glitt'ring textures of the filmy dew,

Dipt in the richest tincture of the skies, 65

Where light disports in ever-mingling dyes,

While ev'ry beam new transient colours flings,

Colours that change whene'er they wave their wings.

Amid the circle, on the gilded mast,

Superior by the head, was Ariel plac'd; 70

His purple pinions op'ning to the sun,

He rais'd his azure wand, and thus begun.

Ye Sylphs and Sylphids, to your chief give ear!

Fays, Fairies, Genii, Elves, and Dæmons, hear!

Ye know the spheres and various tasks assign'd 75

By laws eternal to th' aërial kind.

Some in the fields of purest Æther play,

And bask and whiten in the blaze of day.

Some guide the course of wand'ring orbs on high,

Or roll the planets thro' the boundless sky. 80

Some less refin'd, beneath the moon's pale light

Pursue the stars that shoot athwart the night,

Or suck the mists in grosser air below,

Or dip their pinions in the painted bow,

Or brew fierce tempests on the wintry main, 85

Or o'er the glebe distil the kindly rain.

Others on earth o'er human race preside,

Watch all their ways, and all their actions guide:

Of these the chief the care of Nations own,

And guard with Arms divine the British Throne. 90

Our humbler province is to tend the Fair,

Not a less pleasing, tho' less glorious care;

To save the powder from too rude a gale,

Nor let th' imprison'd-essences exhale;

To draw fresh colours from the vernal flow'rs; 95

To steal from rainbows e'er they drop in show'rs

A brighter wash; to curl their waving hairs,

Assist their blushes, and inspire their airs;

Nay oft, in dreams, invention we bestow,

To change a Flounce, or add a Furbelow. 100

This day, black Omens threat the brightest Fair,

That e'er deserv'd a watchful spirit's care;

Some dire disaster, or by force, or slight;

But what, or where, the fates have wrapt in night.

Whether the nymph shall break Diana's law, 105

Or some frail China jar receive a flaw;

Or stain her honour or her new brocade;

Forget her pray'rs, or miss a masquerade;

Or lose her heart, or necklace, at a ball;

Or whether Heav'n has doom'd that Shock must fall. 110

Haste, then, ye spirits! to your charge repair:

The flutt'ring fan be Zephyretta's care;

The drops to thee, Brillante, we consign;

And, Momentilla, let the watch be thine;

Do thou, Crispissa, tend her fav'rite Lock; 115

Ariel himself shall be the guard of Shock.

To fifty chosen Sylphs, of special note,

We trust th' important charge, the Petticoat:

Oft have we known that seven-fold fence to fail,

Tho' stiff with hoops, and arm'd with ribs of whale; 120

Form a strong line about the silver bound,

And guard the wide circumference around.

Whatever spirit, careless of his charge,

His post neglects, or leaves the fair at large,

Shall feel sharp vengeance soon o'ertake his sins, 125

Be stopp'd in vials, or transfix'd with pins;

Or plung'd in lakes of bitter washes lie,

Or wedg'd whole ages in a bodkin's eye:

Gums and Pomatums shall his flight restrain,

While clogg'd he beats his silken wings in vain; 130

Or Alum styptics with contracting pow'r

Shrink his thin essence like a rivel'd flow'r:

Or, as Ixion fix'd, the wretch shall feel

The giddy motion of the whirling Mill,

In fumes of burning Chocolate shall glow, 135

And tremble at the sea that froths below!

He spoke; the spirits from the sails descend;

Some, orb in orb, around the nymph extend;

Some thrid the mazy ringlets of her hair;

Some hang upon the pendants of her ear: 140

With beating hearts the dire event they wait,

Anxious, and trembling for the birth of Fate.

CANTO III

Close by those meads, for ever crown'd with flow'rs,

Where Thames with pride surveys his rising tow'rs,

There stands a structure of majestic frame,

Which from the neighb'ring Hampton takes its name.

Here Britain's statesmen oft the fall foredoom 5

Of foreign Tyrants and of Nymphs at home;

Here thou, great ANNA! whom three realms obey.

Dost sometimes counsel take--and sometimes Tea.

Hither the heroes and the nymphs resort,

To taste awhile the pleasures of a Court; 10

In various talk th' instructive hours they past,

Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last;

One speaks the glory of the British Queen,

And one describes a charming Indian screen;

A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes; 15

At ev'ry word a reputation dies.

Snuff, or the fan, supply each pause of chat,

With singing, laughing, ogling, and _all that_.

Mean while, declining from the noon of day,

The sun obliquely shoots his burning ray; 20

The hungry Judges soon the sentence sign,

And wretches hang that jury-men may dine;

The merchant from th' Exchange returns in peace,

And the long labours of the Toilet cease.

Belinda now, whom thirst of fame invites, 25

Burns to encounter two advent'rous Knights,

At Ombre singly to decide their doom;

And swells her breast with conquests yet to come.

Straight the three bands prepare in arms to join,

Each band the number of the sacred nine. 30

Soon as she spreads her hand, th' aërial guard

Descend, and sit on each important card:

First Ariel perch'd upon a Matadore,

Then each, according to the rank they bore;

For Sylphs, yet mindful of their ancient race, 35

Are, as when women, wondrous fond of place.

Behold, four Kings in majesty rever'd,

With hoary whiskers and a forky beard;

And four fair Queens whose hands sustain a flow'r,

Th' expressive emblem of their softer pow'r; 40

Four Knaves in garbs succinct, a trusty band,

Caps on their heads, and halberts in their hand;

And particolour'd troops, a shining train,

Draw forth to combat on the velvet plain.

The skilful Nymph reviews her force with care: 45

Let Spades be trumps! she said, and trumps they were.

Now move to war her sable Matadores,

In show like leaders of the swarthy Moors.

Spadillio first, unconquerable Lord!

Led off two captive trumps, and swept the board. 50

As many more Manillio forc'd to yield,

And march'd a victor from the verdant field.

Him Basto follow'd, but his fate more hard

Gain'd but one trump and one Plebeian card.

With his broad sabre next, a chief in years, 55

The hoary Majesty of Spades appears,

Puts forth one manly leg, to sight reveal'd,

The rest, his many-colour'd robe conceal'd.

The rebel Knave, who dares his prince engage,

Proves the just victim of his royal rage. 60

Ev'n mighty Pam, that Kings and Queens o'erthrew

And mow'd down armies in the fights of Lu,

Sad chance of war! now destitute of aid,

Falls undistinguish'd by the victor spade!

Thus far both armies to Belinda yield; 65

Now to the Baron fate inclines the field.

His warlike Amazon her host invades,

Th' imperial consort of the crown of Spades.

The Club's black Tyrant first her victim dy'd,

Spite of his haughty mien, and barb'rous pride: 70

What boots the regal circle on his head,

His giant limbs, in state unwieldy spread;

That long behind he trails his pompous robe,

And, of all monarchs, only grasps the globe?

The Baron now his Diamonds pours apace; 75

Th' embroider'd King who shows but half his face,

And his refulgent Queen, with pow'rs combin'd

Of broken troops an easy conquest find.

Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, in wild disorder seen,

With throngs promiscuous strow the level green. 80

Thus when dispers'd a routed army runs,

Of Asia's troops, and Afric's sable sons,

With like confusion different nations fly,

Of various habit, and of various dye,

The pierc'd battalions dis-united fall, 85

In heaps on heaps; one fate o'erwhelms them all.

The Knave of Diamonds tries his wily arts,

And wins (oh shameful chance!) the Queen of Hearts.

At this, the blood the virgin's cheek forsook,

A livid paleness spreads o'er all her look; 90

She sees, and trembles at th' approaching ill,

Just in the jaws of ruin, and Codille.

And now (as oft in some distemper'd State)

On one nice Trick depends the gen'ral fate.

An Ace of Hearts steps forth: The King unseen 95

Lurk'd in her hand, and mourn'd his captive Queen:

He springs to Vengeance with an eager pace,

And falls like thunder on the prostrate Ace.

The nymph exulting fills with shouts the sky;

The walls, the woods, and long canals reply. 100

Oh thoughtless mortals! ever blind to fate,

Too soon dejected, and too soon elate.

Sudden, these honours shall be snatch'd away,

And curs'd for ever this victorious day.

For lo! the board with cups and spoons is crown'd, 105

The berries crackle, and the mill turns round;

On shining Altars of Japan they raise

The silver lamp; the fiery spirits blaze:

From silver spouts the grateful liquors glide,

While China's earth receives the smoking tide: 110

At once they gratify their scent and taste,

And frequent cups prolong the rich repast.

Straight hover round the Fair her airy band;

Some, as she sipp'd, the fuming liquor fann'd,

Some o'er her lap their careful plumes display'd, 115

Trembling, and conscious of the rich brocade.

Coffee, (which makes the politician wise,

And see thro' all things with his half-shut eyes)

Sent up in vapours to the Baron's brain

New Stratagems, the radiant Lock to gain. 120

Ah cease, rash youth! desist ere't is too late,

Fear the just Gods, and think of Scylla's Fate!

Chang'd to a bird, and sent to flit in air,

She dearly pays for Nisus' injur'd hair!

But when to mischief mortals bend their will, 125

How soon they find fit instruments of ill!

Just then, Clarissa drew with tempting grace

A two-edg'd weapon from her shining case:

So Ladies in Romance assist their Knight,

Present the spear, and arm him for the fight. 130

He takes the gift with rev'rence, and extends

The little engine on his fingers' ends;

This just behind Belinda's neck he spread,

As o'er the fragrant steams she bends her head.

Swift to the Lock a thousand Sprites repair, 135

A thousand wings, by turns, blow back the hair;

And thrice they twitch'd the diamond in her ear;

Thrice she look'd back, and thrice the foe drew near.

Just in that instant, anxious Ariel sought

The close recesses of the Virgin's thought; 140

As on the nosegay in her breast reclin'd,

He watch'd th' Ideas rising in her mind,

Sudden he view'd, in spite of all her art,

An earthly Lover lurking at her heart.

Amaz'd, confus'd, he found his pow'r expir'd, 145

Resign'd to fate, and with a sigh retir'd.

The Peer now spreads the glitt'ring Forfex wide,

T' inclose the Lock; now joins it, to divide.

Ev'n then, before the fatal engine clos'd,

A wretched Sylph too fondly interpos'd; 150

Fate urg'd the shears, and cut the Sylph in twain,

(But airy substance soon unites again)

The meeting points the sacred hair dissever

From the fair head, for ever, and for ever!

Then flash'd the living lightning from her eyes, 155

And screams of horror rend th' affrighted skies.

Not louder shrieks to pitying heav'n are cast,

When husbands, or when lapdogs breathe their last;

Or when rich China vessels fall'n from high,

In glitt'ring dust and painted fragments lie! 160

Let wreaths of triumph now my temples twine

(The victor cry'd) the glorious Prize is mine!

While fish in streams, or birds delight in air,

Or in a coach and six the British Fair,

As long as Atalantis shall be read, 165

Or the small pillow grace a Lady's bed,

While visits shall be paid on solemn days,

When num'rous wax-lights in bright order blaze,

While nymphs take treats, or assignations give,

So long my honour, name, and praise shall live! 170

What Time would spare, from Steel receives its date,

And monuments, like men, submit to fate!

Steel could the labour of the Gods destroy,

And strike to dust th' imperial tow'rs of Troy;

Steel could the works of mortal pride confound, 175

And hew triumphal arches to the ground.

What wonder then, fair nymph! thy hairs should feel,

The conqu'ring force of unresisted steel?

CANTO IV

But anxious cares the pensive nymph oppress'd,

And secret passions labour'd in her breast.

Not youthful kings in battle seiz'd alive,

Not scornful virgins who their charms survive,

Not ardent lovers robb'd of all their bliss, 5

Not ancient ladies when refus'd a kiss,

Not tyrants fierce that unrepenting die,

Not Cynthia when her manteau's pinn'd awry,

E'er felt such rage, resentment, and despair,

As thou, sad Virgin! for thy ravish'd Hair. 10

For, that sad moment, when the Sylphs withdrew

And Ariel weeping from Belinda flew,

Umbriel, a dusky, melancholy sprite,

As ever sully'd the fair face of light,

Down to the central earth, his proper scene, 15

Repair'd to search the gloomy Cave of Spleen.

Swift on his sooty pinions flits the Gnome,

And in a vapour reach'd the dismal dome.

No cheerful breeze this sullen region knows,

The dreaded East is all the wind that blows. 20

Here in a grotto, shelter'd close from air,

And screen'd in shades from day's detested glare,

She sighs for ever on her pensive bed,

Pain at her side, and Megrim at her head.

Two handmaids wait the throne: alike in place, 25

But diff'ring far in figure and in face.

Here stood Ill-nature like an ancient maid,

Her wrinkled form in black and white array'd;

With store of pray'rs, for mornings, nights, and noons,

Her hand is fill'd; her bosom with lampoons. 30

There Affectation, with a sickly mien,

Shows in her cheek the roses of eighteen,

Practis'd to lisp, and hang the head aside.

Faints into airs, and languishes with pride,

On the rich quilt sinks with becoming woe, 35

Wrapt in a gown, for sickness, and for show.

The fair ones feel such maladies as these,

When each new night-dress gives a new disease.

A constant Vapour o'er the palace flies;

Strange phantoms rising as the mists arise; 40

Dreadful, as hermit's dreams in haunted shades,

Or bright, as visions of expiring maids.

Now glaring fiends, and snakes on rolling spires,

Pale spectres, gaping tombs, and purple fires:

Now lakes of liquid gold, Elysian scenes, 45

And crystal domes, and angels in machines.

Unnumber'd throngs on every side are seen,

Of bodies chang'd to various forms by Spleen.

Here living Tea-pots stand, one arm held out,

One bent; the handle this, and that the spout: 50

A Pipkin there, like Homer's Tripod walks;

Here sighs a Jar, and there a Goose-pie talks;

Men prove with child, as pow'rful fancy works,

And maids turn'd bottles, call aloud for corks.

Safe past the Gnome thro' this fantastic band, 55

A branch of healing Spleenwort in his hand.

Then thus address'd the pow'r: "Hail, wayward Queen!

Who rule the sex to fifty from fifteen:

Parent of vapours and of female wit,

Who give th' hysteric, or poetic fit, 60

On various tempers act by various ways,

Make some take physic, others scribble plays;

Who cause the proud their visits to delay,

And send the godly in a pet to pray.

A nymph there is, that all thy pow'r disdains, 65

And thousands more in equal mirth maintains.

But oh! if e'er thy Gnome could spoil a grace,

Or raise a pimple on a beauteous face,

Like Citron-waters matrons cheeks inflame,

Or change complexions at a losing game; 70

If e'er with airy horns I planted heads,

Or rumpled petticoats, or tumbled beds,

Or caus'd suspicion when no soul was rude,

Or discompos'd the head-dress of a Prude,

Or e'er to costive lap-dog gave disease, 75

Which not the tears of brightest eyes could ease:

Hear me, and touch Belinda with chagrin,

That single act gives half the world the spleen."

The Goddess with a discontented air

Seems to reject him, tho' she grants his pray'r. 80

A wond'rous Bag with both her hands she binds,

Like that where once Ulysses held the winds;

There she collects the force of female lungs,

Sighs, sobs, and passions, and the war of tongues.

A Vial next she fills with fainting fears, 85

Soft sorrows, melting griefs, and flowing tears.

The Gnome rejoicing bears her gifts away,

Spreads his black wings, and slowly mounts to day.

Sunk in Thalestris' arms the nymph he found,

Her eyes dejected and her hair unbound. 90

Full o'er their heads the swelling bag he rent,

And all the Furies issu'd at the vent.

Belinda burns with more than mortal ire,

And fierce Thalestris fans the rising fire.

"O wretched maid!" she spread her hands, and cry'd, 95

(While Hampton's echoes, "Wretched maid!" reply'd)

"Was it for this you took such constant care

The bodkin, comb, and essence to prepare?

For this your locks in paper durance bound,

For this with tort'ring irons wreath'd around? 100

For this with fillets strain'd your tender head,

And bravely bore the double loads of lead?

Gods! shall the ravisher display your hair,

While the Fops envy, and the Ladies stare!

Honour forbid! at whose unrivall'd shrine 105

Ease, pleasure, virtue, all our sex resign.

Methinks already I your tears survey,

Already hear the horrid things they say,

Already see you a degraded toast,

And all your honour in a whisper lost! 110

How shall I, then, your helpless fame defend?

'T will then be infamy to seem your friend!

And shall this prize, th' inestimable prize,

Expos'd thro' crystal to the gazing eyes,

And heighten'd by the diamond's circling rays, 115

On that rapacious hand for ever blaze?

Sooner shall grass in Hyde-park Circus grow,

And wits take lodgings in the sound of Bow;

Sooner let earth, air, sea, to Chaos fall,

Men, monkeys, lap-dogs, parrots, perish all!" 120

She said; then raging to Sir Plume repairs,

And bids her Beau demand the precious hairs;

(Sir Plume of amber snuff-box justly vain,

And the nice conduct of a clouded cane)

With earnest eyes, and round unthinking face, 125

He first the snuff-box open'd, then the case,

And thus broke out--"My Lord, why, what the devil?

"Z--ds! damn the lock! 'fore Gad, you must be civil!

Plague on't!'t is past a jest--nay prithee, pox!

Give her the hair"--he spoke, and rapp'd his box. 130

"It grieves me much" (reply'd the Peer again)

"Who speaks so well should ever speak in vain.

But by this Lock, this sacred Lock I swear,

(Which never more shall join its parted hair;

Which never more its honours shall renew, 135

Clipp'd from the lovely head where late it grew)

That while my nostrils draw the vital air,

This hand, which won it, shall for ever wear."

He spoke, and speaking, in proud triumph spread

The long-contended honours of her head. 140

But Umbriel, hateful Gnome! forbears not so;

He breaks the Vial whence the sorrows flow.

Then see! the nymph in beauteous grief appears,

Her eyes half-languishing, half-drown'd in tears;

On her heav'd bosom hung her drooping head, 145

Which, with a sigh, she rais'd; and thus she said.

"For ever curs'd be this detested day,

Which snatch'd my best, my fav'rite curl away!

Happy! ah ten times happy had I been,

If Hampton-Court these eyes had never seen! 150

Yet am not I the first mistaken maid,

By love of Courts to num'rous ills betray'd.

Oh had I rather un-admir'd remain'd

In some lone isle, or distant Northern land;

Where the gilt Chariot never marks the way, 155

Where none learn Ombre, none e'er taste Bohea!

There kept my charms conceal'd from mortal eye,

Like roses, that in deserts bloom and die.

What mov'd my mind with youthful Lords to roam?

Oh had I stay'd, and said my pray'rs at home! 160

'T was this, the morning omens seem'd to tell,

Thrice from my trembling hand the patch-box fell;

The tott'ring China shook without a wind.

Nay, Poll sat mute, and Shock was most unkind!

A Sylph too warn'd me of the threats of fate, 165

In mystic visions, now believ'd too late!

See the poor remnants of these slighted hairs!

My hands shall rend what ev'n thy rapine spares:

These in two sable ringlets taught to break,

Once gave new beauties to the snowy neck; 170

The sister-lock now sits uncouth, alone,

And in its fellow's fate foresees its own;

Uncurl'd it hangs, the fatal shears demands,

And tempts once more thy sacrilegious hands.

Oh hadst thou, cruel! been content to seize 175

Hairs less in sight, or any hairs but these!"

CANTO V

She said: the pitying audience melt in tears.

But Fate and Jove had stopp'd the Baron's ears.

In vain Thalestris with reproach assails,

For who can move when fair Belinda fails?

Not half so fix'd the Trojan could remain, 5

While Anna begg'd and Dido rag'd in vain.

Then grave Clarissa graceful wav'd her fan;

Silence ensu'd, and thus the nymph began.

"Say why are Beauties prais'd and honour'd most,

The wise man's passion, and the vain man's toast? 10

Why deck'd with all that land and sea afford,

Why Angels call'd, and Angel-like ador'd?

Why round our coaches crowd the white-glov'd Beaux,

Why bows the side-box from its inmost rows;

How vain are all these glories, all our pains, 15

Unless good sense preserve what beauty gains:

That men may say, when we the front-box grace:

'Behold the first in virtue as in face!'

Oh! if to dance all night, and dress all day,

Charm'd the small-pox, or chas'd old-age away; 20

Who would not scorn what housewife's cares produce,

Or who would learn one earthly thing of use?

To patch, nay ogle, might become a Saint,

Nor could it sure be such a sin to paint.

But since, alas! frail beauty must decay, 25

Curl'd or uncurl'd, since Locks will turn to grey;

Since painted, or not painted, all shall fade,

And she who scorns a man, must die a maid;

What then remains but well our pow'r to use,

And keep good-humour still whate'er we lose? 30

And trust me, dear! good-humour can prevail,

When airs, and flights, and screams, and scolding fail.

Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll;

Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul."

So spoke the Dame, but no applause ensu'd; 35

Belinda frown'd, Thalestris call'd her Prude.

"To arms, to arms!" the fierce Virago cries,

And swift as lightning to the combat flies.

All side in parties, and begin th' attack;

Fans clap, silks rustle, and tough whalebones crack; 40

Heroes' and Heroines' shouts confus'dly rise,

And bass, and treble voices strike the skies.

No common weapons in their hands are found,

Like Gods they fight, nor dread a mortal wound.

So when bold Homer makes the Gods engage, 45

And heav'nly breasts with human passions rage;

'Gainst Pallas, Mars; Latona, Hermes arms;

And all Olympus rings with loud alarms:

Jove's thunder roars, heav'n trembles all around,

Blue Neptune storms, the bellowing deeps resound: 50

Earth shakes her nodding tow'rs, the ground gives way.

And the pale ghosts start at the flash of day!

Triumphant Umbriel on a sconce's height

Clapp'd his glad wings, and sate to view the fight:

Propp'd on the bodkin spears, the Sprites survey 55

The growing combat, or assist the fray.

While thro' the press enrag'd Thalestris flies,

And scatters death around from both her eyes,

A Beau and Witling perish'd in the throng,

One died in metaphor, and one in song. 60

"O cruel nymph! a living death I bear,"

Cry'd Dapperwit, and sunk beside his chair.

A mournful glance Sir Fopling upwards cast,

"Those eyes are made so killing"--was his last.

Thus on Mæander's flow'ry margin lies 65

Th' expiring Swan, and as he sings he dies.

When bold Sir Plume had drawn Clarissa down,

Chloe stepp'd in, and kill'd him with a frown;

She smil'd to see the doughty hero slain,

But, at her smile, the Beau reviv'd again. 70

Now Jove suspends his golden scales in air,

Weighs the Men's wits against the Lady's hair;

The doubtful beam long nods from side to side;

At length the wits mount up, the hairs subside.

See, fierce Belinda on the Baron flies, 75

With more than usual lightning in her eyes:

Nor fear'd the Chief th' unequal fight to try,

Who sought no more than on his foe to die.

But this bold Lord with manly strength endu'd,

She with one finger and a thumb subdu'd: 80

Just where the breath of life his nostrils drew,

A charge of Snuff the wily virgin threw;

The Gnomes direct, to ev'ry atom just,

The pungent grains of titillating dust.

Sudden, with starting tears each eye o'erflows, 85

And the high dome re-echoes to his nose.

Now meet thy fate, incens'd Belinda cry'd,

And drew a deadly bodkin from her side.

(The same, his ancient personage to deck,

Her great great grandsire wore about his neck, 90

In three seal-rings; which after, melted down,

Form'd a vast buckle for his widow's gown:

Her infant grandame's whistle next it grew,

The bells she jingled, and the whistle blew;

Then in a bodkin grac'd her mother's hairs, 95

Which long she wore, and now Belinda wears.)

"Boast not my fall" (he cry'd) "insulting foe!

Thou by some other shalt be laid as low,

Nor think, to die dejects my lofty mind:

All that I dread is leaving you behind! 100

Rather than so, ah let me still survive,

And burn in Cupid's flames--but burn alive."

"Restore the Lock!" she cries; and all around

"Restore the Lock!" the vaulted roofs rebound.

Not fierce Othello in so loud a strain 105

Roar'd for the handkerchief that caus'd his pain.

But see how oft ambitious aims are cross'd,

And chiefs contend 'till all the prize is lost!

The Lock, obtain'd with guilt, and kept with pain,

In ev'ry place is sought, but sought in vain: 110

With such a prize no mortal must be blest,

So heav'n decrees! with heav'n who can contest?

Some thought it mounted to the Lunar sphere,

Since all things lost on earth are treasur'd there.

There Hero's wits are kept in pond'rous vases, 115

And beau's in snuff-boxes and tweezer-cases.

There broken vows and death-bed alms are found,

And lovers' hearts with ends of riband bound,

The courtier's promises, and sick man's pray'rs,

The smiles of harlots, and the tears of heirs, 120

Cages for gnats, and chains to yoke a flea,

Dry'd butterflies, and tomes of casuistry.

But trust the Muse--she saw it upward rise,

Tho' mark'd by none but quick, poetic eyes:

(So Rome's great founder to the heav'ns withdrew, 125

To Proculus alone confess'd in view)

A sudden Star, it shot thro' liquid air,

And drew behind a radiant trail of hair.

Not Berenice's Locks first rose so bright,

The heav'ns bespangling with dishevell'd light. 130

The Sylphs behold it kindling as it flies,

And pleas'd pursue its progress thro' the skies.

This the Beau monde shall from the Mall survey,

And hail with music its propitious ray.

This the blest Lover shall for Venus take, 135

And send up vows from Rosamonda's lake.

This Partridge soon shall view in cloudless skies,

When next he looks thro' Galileo's eyes;

And hence th' egregious wizard shall foredoom

The fate of Louis, and the fall of Rome. 140

Then cease, bright Nymph! to mourn thy ravish'd hair,

Which adds new glory to the shining sphere!

Not all the tresses that fair head can boast,

Shall draw such envy as the Lock you lost.

For, after all the murders of your eye, 145

When, after millions slain, yourself shall die:

When those fair suns shall set, as set they must,

And all those tresses shall be laid in dust,

This Lock, the Muse shall consecrate to fame,

And 'midst the stars inscribe Belinda's name. 150

* * * * *

CONTENTS OF THE ESSAY ON CRITICISM

PART I

Introduction. That 'tis as great a fault to judge ill, as to write

v. 1. ill, and a more dangerous one to the public,

v. 9 to 18 That a true Taste is as rare to be found, as a true

Genius.

v. 19 to 25 That most men are born with some Taste, but spoiled by

false Education.

v. 26 to 45 The multitude of Critics, and causes of them.

v. 46 to 67. That we are to study our own Taste, and know the Limits

of it.

v. 68 to 87 Nature the best guide of Judgment.

v. 88 Improv'd by Art and Rules,--which are but methodis'd

Nature.

v. id, to 110 Rules derived from the Practice of the Ancient Poets.

v. 120 to 138 That therefore the Ancients are necessary to be studyd,

by a Critic, particularly Homer and Virgil.

v. 140 to 180 Of Licenses, and the use of them by the Ancients.

v. 181, etc. Reverence due to the Ancients, and praise of them.

PART II. Ver. 201, etc.

Causes hindering a true Judgment,

v. 208 1. Pride.

v. 215 2. Imperfect Learning.

v. 233 to 288 3. Judging by parts, and not by the whole.

v. 288, 305, Critics in Wit, Language, Versification, only.

399, etc.

v. 384 4. Being too hard to please, or too apt to admire.

v. 394 5. Partiality--too much Love to a Sect,--to the

Ancients or Moderns.

v. 408 6. Prejudice or Prevention.

v. 424 7. Singularity.

v. 430 8. Inconstancy.

v. 452 etc. 9. Party Spirit.

v. 466 10. Envy.

v. 508, etc. Against Envy, and in praise of Good-nature.

v. 526, etc. When Severity is chiefly to be used by Critics.

PART III. Ver. 560, etc.

v. 563 Rules for the Conduct of Manners in a Critic.

v. 566 1. Candour, Modesty.

v. 572 Good-breeding.

v. 578 Sincerity, and Freedom of advice.

v. 584 2. When one's Counsel is to be restrained.

v. 600 Character of an incorrigible Poet.

v. 610 And of an impertinent Critic, etc.

v. 629 Character of a good Critic.

v. 645. The History of Criticism, and Characters of the best

Critics,

Aristotle,

v. 653 Horace,

v. 665 Dionysius,

v. 667 Petronius,

v. 670 Quintilian,

v. 675 Longinus.

v. 693 Of the Decay of Criticism, and its Revival.

Erasmus,

v. 705 Vida,

v. 714 Boileau,

v. 725 Lord Roscommon, etc.

Conclusion.

AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM

'Tis hard to say, if greater want of skill

Appear in writing or in judging ill;

But, of the two, less dang'rous is th' offence

To tire our patience, than mislead our sense.

Some few in that, but numbers err in this, 5

Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss;

A fool might once himself alone expose,

Now one in verse makes many more in prose.

'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none

Go just alike, yet each believes his own. 10

In Poets as true genius is but rare,

True Taste as seldom is the Critic's share;

Both must alike from Heav'n derive their light,

These born to judge, as well as those to write.

Let such teach others who themselves excel, 15

And censure freely who have written well.

Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true,

But are not Critics to their judgment too?

Yet if we look more closely, we shall find

Most have the seeds of judgment in their mind: 20

Nature affords at least a glimm'ring light;

The lines, tho' touch'd but faintly, are drawn right.

But as the slightest sketch, if justly trac'd, }

Is by ill-colouring but the more disgrac'd, }

So by false learning is good sense defac'd: } 25

Some are bewilder'd in the maze of schools,

And some made coxcombs Nature meant but fools.

In search of wit these lose their common sense,

And then turn Critics in their own defence:

Each burns alike, who can, or cannot write, 30

Or with a Rival's, or an Eunuch's spite.

All fools have still an itching to deride,

And fain would be upon the laughing side.

If Mævius scribble in Apollo's spite,

There are who judge still worse than he can write. 35

Some have at first for Wits, then Poets past,

Turn'd Critics next, and prov'd plain fools at last.

Some neither can for Wits nor Critics pass,

As heavy mules are neither horse nor ass.

Those half-learn'd witlings, num'rous in our isle, 40

As half-form'd insects on the banks of Nile;

Unfinish'd things, one knows not what to call,

Their generation's so equivocal:

To tell 'em, would a hundred tongues require,

Or one vain wit's, that might a hundred tire. 45

But you who seek to give and merit fame,

And justly bear a Critic's noble name,

Be sure yourself and your own reach to know,

How far your genius, taste, and learning go;

Launch not beyond your depth, but be discreet, 50

And mark that point where sense and dulness meet.

Nature to all things fix'd the limits fit,

And wisely curb'd proud man's pretending wit.

As on the land while here the ocean gains,

In other parts it leaves wide sandy plains; 55

Thus in the soul while memory prevails,

The solid pow'r of understanding fails;

Where beams of warm imagination play,

The memory's soft figures melt away.

One science only will one genius fit; 60

So vast is art, so narrow human wit:

Not only bounded to peculiar arts,

But oft in those confin'd to single parts.

Like kings we lose the conquests gain'd before,

By vain ambition still to make them more; 65

Each might his sev'ral province well command,

Would all but stoop to what they understand.

First follow Nature, and your judgment frame

By her just standard, which is still the same:

Unerring NATURE, still divinely bright, 70

One clear, unchang'd, and universal light,

Life, force, and beauty, must to all impart,

At once the source, and end, and test of Art.

Art from that fund each just supply provides,

Works without show, and without pomp presides: 75

In some fair body thus th' informing soul

With spirits feeds, with vigour fills the whole,

Each motion guides, and ev'ry nerve sustains;

Itself unseen, but in th' effects, remains.

Some, to whom Heav'n in wit has been profuse, 80

Want as much more, to turn it to its use;

For wit and judgment often are at strife,

Tho' meant each other's aid, like man and wife.

'T is more to guide, than spur the Muse's steed;

Restrain his fury, than provoke his speed; 85

The winged courser, like a gen'rous horse,

Shows most true mettle when you check his course.

Those RULES of old discovered, not devis'd,

Are Nature still, but Nature methodiz'd;

Nature, like liberty, is but restrain'd 90

By the same laws which first herself ordain'd.

Hear how learn'd Greece her useful rules indites,

When to repress, and when indulge our flights:

High on Parnassus' top her sons she show'd,

And pointed out those arduous paths they trod; 95

Held from afar, aloft, th' immortal prize,

And urg'd the rest by equal steps to rise.

Just precepts thus from great examples giv'n,

She drew from them what they deriv'd from Heav'n.

The gen'rous Critic fann'd the Poet's fire, 100

And taught the world with reason to admire.

Then Criticism the Muse's handmaid prov'd,

To dress her charms, and make her more belov'd:

But following wits from that intention stray'd,

Who could not win the mistress, woo'd the maid; 105

Against the Poets their own arms they turn'd,

Sure to hate most the men from whom they learn'd.

So modern 'Pothecaries, taught the art

By Doctor's bills to play the Doctor's part,

Bold in the practice of mistaken rules, 110

Prescribe, apply, and call their masters fools.

Some on the leaves of ancient authors prey,

Nor time nor moths e'er spoil'd so much as they.

Some drily plain, without invention's aid,

Write dull receipts how poems may be made. 115

These leave the sense, their learning to display,

And those explain the meaning quite away.

You then whose judgment the right course would steer,

Know well each ANCIENT'S proper character;

His fable, subject, scope in ev'ry page; 120

Religion, Country, genius of his Age:

Without all these at once before your eyes,

Cavil you may, but never criticize.

Be Homer's works your study and delight,

Read them by day, and meditate by night; 125

Thence form your judgment, thence your maxims bring,

And trace the Muses upward to their spring.

Still with itself compar'd, his text peruse;

And let your comment be the Mantuan Muse.

When first young Maro in his boundless mind 130

A work t' outlast immortal Rome design'd,

Perhaps he seem'd above the critic's law,

And but from Nature's fountains scorn'd to draw:

But when t' examine ev'ry part he came,

Nature and Homer were, he found, the same. 135

Convinc'd, amaz'd, he checks the bold design;

And rules as strict his labour'd work confine,

As if the Stagirite o'erlook'd each line.

Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem;

To copy nature is to copy them. 140

Some beauties yet no Precepts can declare,

For there's a happiness as well as care.

Music resembles Poetry, in each

Are nameless graces which no methods teach,

And which a master-hand alone can reach. 145

If, where the rules not far enough extend,

(Since rules were made but to promote their end)

Some lucky Licence answer to the full

Th' intent propos'd, that Licence is a rule.

Thus Pegasus, a nearer way to take, 150

May boldly deviate from the common track;

From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part,

And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art,

Which without passing thro' the judgment, gains

The heart, and all its end at once attains. 155

In prospects thus, some objects please our eyes,

Which out of nature's common order rise,

The shapeless rock, or hanging precipice.

Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend,

And rise to faults true Critics dare not mend. 160

But tho' the Ancients thus their rules invade,

(As Kings dispense with laws themselves have made)

Moderns, beware! or if you must offend

Against the precept, ne'er transgress its End;

Let it be seldom, and compell'd by need; 165

And have, at least, their precedent to plead.

The Critic else proceeds without remorse,

Seizes your fame, and puts his laws in force.

I know there are, to whose presumptuous thoughts

Those freer beauties, ev'n in them, seem faults. 170

Some figures monstrous and mis-shap'd appear,

Consider'd singly, or beheld too near,

Which, but proportion'd to their light, or place,

Due distance reconciles to form and grace.

A prudent chief not always must display 175

His pow'rs in equal ranks, and fair array.

But with th' occasion and the place comply,

Conceal his force, nay seem sometimes to fly.

Those oft are stratagems which error seem,

Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream. 180

Still green with bays each ancient Altar stands,

Above the reach of sacrilegious hands;

Secure from Flames, from Envy's fiercer rage,

Destructive War, and all-involving Age.

See, from each clime the learn'd their incense bring! 185

Hear, in all tongues consenting Pæans ring!

In praise so just let ev'ry voice be join'd,

And fill the gen'ral chorus of mankind.

Hail, Bards triumphant! born in happier days;

Immortal heirs of universal praise! 190

Whose honours with increase of ages grow,

As streams roll down, enlarging as they flow;

Nations unborn your mighty names shall sound,

And worlds applaud that must not yet be found!

Oh may some spark of your celestial fire, 195

The last, the meanest of your sons inspire,

(That on weak wings, from far, pursues your flights;

Glows while he reads, but trembles as he writes)

To teach vain Wits a science little known,

T' admire superior sense, and doubt their own! 200

Of all the Causes which conspire to blind

Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind,

What the weak head with strongest bias rules,

Is _Pride_, the never-failing voice of fools.

Whatever nature has in worth denied, 205

She gives in large recruits of needful pride;

For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find

What wants in blood and spirits, swell'd with wind:

Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence,

And fills up all the mighty Void of sense. 210

If once right reason drives that cloud away,

Truth breaks upon us with resistless day.

Trust not yourself; but your defects to know,

Make use of ev'ry friend--and ev'ry foe.

A _little learning_ is a dang'rous thing; 215

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.

There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

And drinking largely sobers us again.

Fir'd at first sight with what the Muse imparts,

In fearless youth we tempt the heights of Arts, 220

While from the bounded level of our mind

Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind;

But more advanc'd, behold with strange surprise

New distant scenes of endless science rise!

So pleas'd at first the tow'ring Alps we try, 225

Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky,

Th' eternal snows appear already past,

And the first clouds and mountains seem the last;

But, those attain'd, we tremble to survey

The growing labours of the lengthen'd way, 230

Th' increasing prospect tires our wand'ring eyes,

Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!

A perfect Judge will read each work of Wit

With the same spirit that its author writ:

Survey the WHOLE, nor seek slight faults to find 235

Where nature moves, and rapture warms the mind;

Nor lose, for that malignant dull delight,

The gen'rous pleasure to be charm'd with Wit.

But in such lays as neither ebb, nor flow,

Correctly cold, and regularly low, 240

That shunning faults, one quiet tenour keep,

We cannot blame indeed--but we may sleep.

In wit, as nature, what affects our hearts

Is not th' exactness of peculiar parts;

'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call, 245

But the joint force and full result of all.

Thus when we view some well-proportion'd dome,

(The world's just wonder, and ev'n thine, O Rome!)

No single parts unequally surprize,

All comes united to th' admiring eyes; 250

No monstrous height, or breadth, or length appear;

The Whole at once is bold, and regular.

Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,

Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.

In every work regard the writer's End, 255

Since none can compass more than they intend;

And if the means be just, the conduct true,

Applause, in spight of trivial faults, is due;

As men of breeding, sometimes men of wit,

T' avoid great errors, must the less commit: 260

Neglect the rules each verbal Critic lays,

For not to know some trifles, is a praise.

Most Critics, fond of some subservient art,

Still make the Whole depend upon a Part:

They talk of principles, but notions prize, 265

And all to one lov'd Folly sacrifice.

Once on a time, La Mancha's Knight, they say,

A certain bard encount'ring on the way,

Discours'd in terms as just, with looks as sage,

As e'er could Dennis of the Grecian stage; 270

Concluding all were desp'rate sots and fools,

Who durst depart from Aristotle's rules.

Our Author, happy in a judge so nice,

Produc'd his Play, and begg'd the Knight's advice;

Made him observe the subject, and the plot, 275

The manners, passions, unities; what not?

All which, exact to rule, were brought about,

Were but a Combat in the lists left out.

"What! leave the Combat out?" exclaims the Knight;

Yes, or we must renounce the Stagirite. 280

"Not so, by Heav'n" (he answers in a rage),

"Knights, squires, and steeds, must enter on the stage."

So vast a throng the stage can ne'er contain.

"Then build a new, or act it in a plain."

Thus Critics, of less judgment than caprice, 285

Curious not knowing, not exact but nice,

Form short Ideas; and offend in arts

(As most in manners) by a love to parts.

Some to _Conceit_ alone their taste confine,

And glitt'ring thoughts struck out at ev'ry line; 290

Pleas'd with a work where nothing's just or fit;

One glaring Chaos and wild heap of wit.

Poets like painters, thus, unskill'd to trace

The naked nature and the living grace,

With gold and jewels cover ev'ry part, 295

And hide with ornaments their want of art.

True Wit is Nature to advantage dress'd,

What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd;

Something, whose truth convinc'd at sight we find,

That gives us back the image of our mind. 300

As shades more sweetly recommend the light,

So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit.

For works may have more wit than does 'em good,

As bodies perish thro' excess of blood.

Others for Language all their care express, 305

And value books, as women men, for Dress:

Their praise is still--the Style is excellent:

The Sense, they humbly take upon content.

Words are like leaves; and where they most abound,

Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found, 310

False Eloquence, like the prismatic glass,

Its gaudy colours spreads on ev'ry place;

The face of Nature we no more survey,

All glares alike, without distinction gay:

But true expression, like th' unchanging Sun, 315

Clears and improves whate'er it shines upon,

It gilds all objects, but it alters none.

Expression is the dress of thought, and still

Appears more decent, as more suitable;

A vile conceit in pompous words express'd, 320

Is like a clown in regal purple dress'd:

For diff'rent styles with diff'rent subjects sort,

As several garbs with country, town, and court.

Some by old words to fame have made pretence,

Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense; 325

Such labour'd nothings, in so strange a style,

Amaze th' unlearn'd, and make the learned smile.

Unlucky, as Fungoso in the play, }

These sparks with awkward vanity display }

What the fine gentleman wore yesterday; } 330

And but so mimic ancient wits at best,

As apes our grandsires, in their doublets drest.

In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold;

Alike fantastic, if too new, or old:

Be not the first by whom the new are try'd, 335

Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

But most by Numbers judge a Poet's song;

And smooth or rough, with them is right or wrong:

In the bright Muse though thousand charms conspire,

Her voice is all these tuneful fools admire; 340

Who haunt Parnassus but to please their ear, }

Not mend their minds; as some to Church repair, }

Not for the doctrine, but the music there. }

These equal syllables alone require,

Tho' oft the ear the open vowe's tire; 345

While expletives their feeble aid do join;

And ten low words oft creep in one dull line:

While they ring round the same unvary'd chimes,

With sure returns of still expected rhymes;

Where-e'er you find "the cooling western breeze," 350

In the next line, it "whispers through the trees:"

If crystal streams "with pleasing murmurs creep,"

The reader's threaten'd (not in vain) with "sleep:"

Then, at the last and only couplet fraught

With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, 355

A needless Alexandrine ends the song

That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.

Leave such to tune their own dull rhymes, and know

What's roundly smooth or languishingly slow;

And praise the easy vigour of a line, 360

Where Denham's strength, and Waller's sweetness join.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,

As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.

'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence,

The sound must seem an Echo to the sense: 365

Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,

And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;

But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,

The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar:

When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, 370

The line too labours, and the words move slow;

Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.

Hear how Timotheus' varied lays surprize,

And bid alternate passions fall and rise! 375

While, at each change, the son of Libyan Jove

Now burns with glory, and then melts with love,

Now his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow,

Now sighs steal out, and tears begin to flow:

Persians and Greeks like turns of nature found, 380

And the world's victor stood subdu'd by Sound!

The pow'r of Music all our hearts allow,

And what Timotheus was, is DRYDEN now.

Avoid Extremes; and shun the fault of such,

Who still are pleas'd too little or too much. 385

At ev'ry trifle scorn to take offence,

That always shows great pride, or little sense;

Those heads, as stomachs, are not sure the best,

Which nauseate all, and nothing can digest.

Yet let not each gay Turn thy rapture move; 390

For fools admire, but men of sense approve:

As things seem large which we thro' mists descry,

Dulness is ever apt to magnify.

Some foreign writers, some our own despise;

The Ancients only, or the Moderns prize. 395

Thus Wit, like Faith, by each man is apply'd

To one small sect, and all are damn'd beside.

Meanly they seek the blessing to confine,

And force that sun but on a part to shine,

Which not alone the southern wit sublimes, 400

But ripens spirits in cold northern climes;

Which from the first has shone on ages past,

Enlights the present, and shall warm the last;

Tho' each may feel increases and decays,

And see now clearer and now darker days. 405

Regard not then if Wit be old or new,

But blame the false, and value still the true.

Some ne'er advance a Judgment of their own,

But catch the spreading notion of the Town;

They reason and conclude by precedent, 410

And own stale nonsense which they ne'er invent.

Some judge of author's names, not works, and then

Nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men.

Of all this servile herd the worst is he

That in proud dulness joins with Quality, 415

A constant Critic at the great man's board,

To fetch and carry nonsense for my Lord.

What woful stuff this madrigal would be,

In some starv'd hackney sonneteer, or me?

But let a Lord once own the happy lines, 420

How the wit brightens! how the style refines!

Before his sacred name flies ev'ry fault,

And each exalted stanza teems with thought!

The Vulgar thus through Imitation err;

As oft the Learn'd by being singular; 425

So much they scorn the crowd, that if the throng

By chance go right, they purposely go wrong;

So Schismatics the plain believers quit,

And are but damn'd for having too much wit.

Some praise at morning what they blame at night; 430

But always think the last opinion right.

A Muse by these is like a mistress us'd,

This hour she's idoliz'd, the next abus'd;

While their weak heads like towns unfortify'd,

'Twixt sense and nonsense daily change their side. 435

Ask them the cause; they're wiser still, they say;

And still to-morrow's wiser than to-day.

We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow,

Our wiser sons, no doubt, will think us so.

Once School-divines this zealous isle o'er-spread; 440

Who knew most Sentences, was deepest read;

Faith, Gospel, all, seem'd made to be disputed,

And none had sense enough to be confuted:

Scotists and Thomists, now, in peace remain,

Amidst their kindred cobwebs in Duck-lane. 445

If Faith itself has diff'rent dresses worn,

What wonder modes in Wit should take their turn?

Oft', leaving what is natural and fit,

The current folly proves the ready wit;

And authors think their reputation safe, 450

Which lives as long as fools are pleas'd to laugh.

Some valuing those of their own side or mind,

Still make themselves the measure of mankind:

Fondly we think we honour merit then,

When we but praise ourselves in other men. 455

Parties in Wit attend on those of State,

And public faction doubles private hate.

Pride, Malice, Folly, against Dryden rose,

In various shapes of Parsons, Critics, Beaus;

But sense surviv'd, when merry jests were past; 460

For rising merit will buoy up at last.

Might he return, and bless once more our eyes,

New Blackmores and new Milbourns must arise:

Nay should great Homer lift his awful head,

Zoilus again would start up from the dead. 465

Envy will merit, as its shade, pursue;

But like a shadow, proves the substance true;

For envy'd Wit, like Sol eclips'd, makes known

Th' opposing body's grossness, not its own,

When first that sun too pow'rful beams displays, 470

It draws up vapours which obscure its rays;

But ev'n those clouds at last adorn its way,

Reflect new glories, and augment the day.

Be thou the first true merit to befriend;

His praise is lost, who stays, till all commend. 475

Short is the date, alas, of modern rhymes,

And 'tis but just to let them live betimes.

No longer now that golden age appears,

When Patriarch-wits surviv'd a thousand years:

Now length of Fame (our second life) is lost, 480

And bare threescore is all ev'n that can boast;

Our sons their fathers' failing language see,

And such as Chaucer is, shall Dryden be.

So when the faithful pencil has design'd

Some bright Idea of the master's mind, 485

Where a new world leaps out at his command,

And ready Nature waits upon his hand;

When the ripe colours soften and unite,

And sweetly melt into just shade and light;

When mellowing years their full perfection give, 490

And each bold figure just begins to live,

The treach'rous colours the fair art betray,

And all the bright creation fades away!

Unhappy Wit, like most mistaken things,

Atones not for that envy which it brings. 495

In youth alone its empty praise we boast,

But soon the short-liv'd vanity is lost:

Like some fair flow'r the early spring supplies.

That gaily blooms, but ev'n in blooming dies.

What is this Wit, which must our cares employ? 500

The owner's wife, that other men enjoy;

Then most our trouble still when most admir'd,

And still the more we give, the more requir'd;

Whose fame with pains we guard, but lose with ease,

Sure some to vex, but never all to please; 505

'Tis what the vicious fear, the virtuous shun,

By fools't is hated, and by knaves undone!

If Wit so much from Ign'rance undergo,

Ah let not Learning too commence its foe!

Of old, those met rewards who could excel, 510

And such were prais'd who but endeavour'd well:

Tho' triumphs were to gen'rals only due,

Crowns were reserv'd to grace the soldiers too,

Now, they who reach Parnassus' lofty crown,

Employ their pains to spurn some others down; 515

And while self-love each jealous writer rules,

Contending wits become the sport of fools:

But still the worst with most regret commend,

For each ill Author is as bad a Friend.

To what base ends, and by what abject ways, 520

Are mortals urg'd thro' sacred lust of praise!

Ah ne'er so dire a thirst of glory boast,

Nor in the Critic let the Man be lost.

Good-nature and good-sense must ever join;

To err is human, to forgive, divine. 525

But if in noble minds some dregs remain

Not yet purg'd off, of spleen and sour disdain;

Discharge that rage on more provoking crimes,

Nor fear a dearth in these flagitious times.

No pardon vile Obscenity should find, 530

Tho' wit and art conspire to move your mind;

But Dulness with Obscenity must prove

As shameful sure as Impotence in love.

In the fat age of pleasure wealth and ease

Sprung the rank weed, and thriv'd with large increase: 535

When love was all an easy Monarch's care;

Seldom at council, never in a war:

Jilts rul'd the state, and statesmen farces writ;

Nay wits had pensions, and young Lords had wit:

The Fair sate panting at a Courtier's play, 540

And not a Mask went unimprov'd away:

The modest fan was lifted up no more,

And Virgins smil'd at what they blush'd before.

The following licence of a Foreign reign

Did all the dregs of bold Socinus drain; 545

Then unbelieving priests reform'd the nation,

And taught more pleasant methods of salvation;

Where Heav'n's free subjects might their rights dispute,

Lest God himself should seem too absolute:

Pulpits their sacred satire learn'd to spare, 550

And Vice admir'd to find a flatt'rer there!

Encourag'd thus, Wit's Titans brav'd the skies,

And the press groan'd with licens'd blasphemies.

These monsters, Critics! with your darts engage,

Here point your thunder, and exhaust your rage! 555

Yet shun their fault, who, scandalously nice,

Will needs mistake an author into vice;

All seems infected that th' infected spy,

As all looks yellow to the jaundic'd eye.

Learn then what MORALS Critics ought to show, 560

For't is but half a Judge's task, to know.

'Tis not enough, taste, judgment, learning, join;

In all you speak, let truth and candour shine:

That not alone what to your sense is due

All may allow; but seek your friendship too. 565

Be silent always when you doubt your sense;

And speak, tho' sure, with seeming diffidence:

Some positive, persisting fops we know,

Who, if once wrong, will needs be always so;

But you, with pleasure own your errors past, 570

And make each day a Critic on the last.

'T is not enough, your counsel still be true;

Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do;

Men must be taught as if you taught them not,

And things unknown propos'd as things forgot. 575

Without Good Breeding, truth is disapprov'd;

That only makes superior sense belov'd.

Be niggards of advice on no pretence;

For the worst avarice is that of sense.

With mean complacence ne'er betray your trust, 580

Nor be so civil as to prove unjust.

Fear not the anger of the wise to raise;

Those best can bear reproof, who merit praise.

'T were well might critics still this freedom take,

But Appius reddens at each word you speak, 585

And stares, tremendous, with a threat'ning eye,

Like some fierce Tyrant in old tapestry.

Fear most to tax an Honourable fool,

Whose right it is, uncensur'd, to be dull;

Such, without wit, are Poets when they please, 590

As without learning they can take Degrees.

Leave dang'rous truths to unsuccessful Satires,

And flattery to fulsome Dedicators,

Whom, when they praise, the world believes no more,

Than when they promise to give scribbling o'er. 595

'T is best sometimes your censure to restrain,

And charitably let the dull be vain:

Your silence there is better than your spite,

For who can rail so long as they can write?

Still humming on, their drowsy course they keep, 600

And lash'd so long, like tops, are lash'd asleep.

False steps but help them to renew the race,

As, after stumbling, Jades will mend their pace.

What crowds of these, impenitently bold,

In sounds and jingling syllables grown old, 605

Still run on Poets, in a raging vein,

Ev'n to the dregs and squeezings of the brain,

Strain out the last dull droppings of their sense,

And rhyme with all the rage of Impotence.

Such shameless Bards we have; and yet't is true, 610

There are as mad abandon'd Critics too.

The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,

With loads of learned lumber in his head,

With his own tongue still edifies his ears,

And always list'ning to himself appears. 615

All books he reads, and all he reads assails.

From Dryden's Fables down to Durfey's Tales.

With him, most authors steal their works, or buy;

Garth did not write his own Dispensary.

Name a new Play, and he's the Poet's friend, 620

Nay show'd his faults--but when would Poets mend?

No place so sacred from such fops is barr'd,

Nor is Paul's church more safe than Paul's churchyard:

Nay, fly to Altars; there they'll talk you dead:

For Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread. 625

Distrustful sense with modest caution speaks, }

It still looks home, and short excursions makes; }

But rattling nonsense in full volleys breaks, }

And never shock'd, and never turn'd aside,

Bursts out, resistless, with a thund'ring tide. 630

But where's the man, who counsel can bestow,

Still pleas'd to teach, and yet not proud to know?

Unbiass'd, or by favour, or by spite;

Not dully prepossess'd, nor blindly right;

Tho' learn'd, well-bred; and tho' well-bred, sincere, 635

Modestly bold, and humanly severe:

Who to a friend his faults can freely show,

And gladly praise the merit of a foe?

Blest with a taste exact, yet unconfin'd;

A knowledge both of books and human kind: 640

Gen'rous converse; a soul exempt from pride;

And love to praise, with reason on his side?

Such once were Critics; such the happy few,

Athens and Rome in better ages knew.

The mighty Stagirite first left the shore, 645

Spread all his sails, and durst the deeps explore:

He steer'd securely, and discover'd far,

Led by the light of the Mæonian Star.

Poets, a race long unconfin'd, and free,

Still fond and proud of savage liberty, 650

Receiv'd his laws; and stood convinc'd 't was fit,

Who conquer'd Nature, should preside o'er Wit.

Horace still charms with graceful negligence,

And without method talks us into sense,

Will, like a friend, familiarly convey 655

The truest notions in the easiest way.

He, who supreme in judgment, as in wit,

Might boldly censure, as he boldly writ,

Yet judg'd with coolness, tho' he sung with fire;

His Precepts teach but what his works inspire. 660

Our Critics take a contrary extreme,

They judge with fury, but they write with fle'me:

Nor suffers Horace more in wrong Translations

By Wits, than Critics in as wrong Quotations.

See Dionysius Homer's thoughts refine, 665

And call new beauties forth from ev'ry line!

Fancy and art in gay Petronius please,

The scholar's learning, with the courtier's ease.

In grave Quintilian's copious work, we find

The justest rules, and clearest method join'd: 670

Thus useful arms in magazines we place,

All rang'd in order, and dispos'd with grace,

But less to please the eye, than arm the hand,

Still fit for use, and ready at command.

Thee, bold Longinus! all the Nine inspire, 675

And bless their Critic with a Poet's fire.

An ardent Judge, who zealous in his trust,

With warmth gives sentence, yet is always just;

Whose own example strengthens all his laws;

And is himself that great Sublime he draws. 680

Thus long succeeding Critics justly reign'd,

Licence repress'd, and useful laws ordain'd.

Learning and Rome alike in empire grew;

And Arts still follow'd where her Eagles flew;

From the same foes, at last, both felt their doom, 685

And the same age saw Learning fall, and Rome.

With Tyranny, then Superstition join'd,

As that the body, this enslav'd the mind;

Much was believ'd, but little understood,

And to be dull was constru'd to be good; 690

A second deluge Learning thus o'er-run,

And the Monks finish'd what the Goths begun.

At length Erasmus, that great injur'd name,

(The glory of the Priesthood, and the shame!)

Stemm'd the wild torrent of a barb'rous age, 695

And drove those holy Vandals off the stage.

But see! each Muse, in LEO'S golden days,

Starts from her trance, and trims her wither'd bays,

Rome's ancient Genius, o'er its ruins spread,

Shakes off the dust, and rears his rev'rend head. 700

Then Sculpture and her sister-arts revive;

Stones leap'd to form, and rocks began to live;

With sweeter notes each rising Temple rung;

A Raphael painted, and a Vida sung.

Immortal Vida: on whose honour'd brow 705

The Poet's bays and Critic's ivy grow:

Cremona now shal ever boast thy name,

As next in place to Mantua, next in fame!

But soon by impious arms from Latium chas'd,

Their ancient bounds the banish'd Muses pass'd; 710

Thence Arts o'er all the northern world advance,

But Critic-learning flourish'd most in France:

The rules a nation, born to serve, obeys;

And Boileau still in right of Horace sways.

But we, brave Britons, foreign laws despis'd, 715

And kept unconquer'd, and unciviliz'd;

Fierce for the liberties of wit, and bold,

We still defy'd the Romans, as of old.

Yet some there were, among the sounder few

Of those who less presum'd, and better knew, 720

Who durst assert the juster ancient cause,

And here restor'd Wit's fundamental laws.

Such was the Muse, whose rules and practice tell,

"Nature's chief Master-piece is writing well."

Such was Roscommon, not more learn'd than good, 725

With manners gen'rous as his noble blood;

To him the wit of Greece and Rome was known,

And ev'ry author's merit, but his own.

Such late was Walsh--the Muse's judge and friend,

Who justly knew to blame or to commend; 730

To failings mild, but zealous for desert;

The clearest head, and the sincerest heart.

This humble praise, lamented shade! receive,

This praise at least a grateful Muse may give:

The Muse, whose early voice you taught to sing, 735

Prescrib'd her heights, and prun'd her tender wing,

(Her guide now lost) no more attempts to rise,

But in low numbers short excursions tries:

Content, if hence th' unlearn'd their wants may view,

The learn'd reflect on what before they knew: 740

Careless of censure, nor too fond of fame;

Still pleas'd to praise, yet not afraid to blame,

Averse alike to flatter, or offend;

Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend.

* * * * *

AN ESSAY ON MAN

TO H. ST. JOHN LORD BOLINGBROKE

THE DESIGN

Having proposed to write some pieces on Human Life and Manners, such as

(to use my Lord Bacon's expression) _come home to Men's Business and

Bosoms_, I thought it more satisfactory to begin with considering _Man_

in the abstract, his _Nature_ and his _State_; since, to prove any moral

duty, to enforce any moral precept, or to examine the perfection or

imperfection of any creature whatsoever, it is necessary first to know

what _condition_ and _relation_ it is placed in, and what is the proper

end and purpose of its _being_.

The science of Human Nature is, like all other sciences, reduced to a

_few clear points_: There are not _many certain truths_ in this world.

It is therefore in the Anatomy of the mind as in that of the Body; more

good will accrue to mankind by attending to the large, open, and

perceptible parts, than by studying too much such finer nerves and

vessels, the conformations and uses of which will for ever escape our

observation. The _disputes_ are all upon these last, and, I will venture

to say, they have less sharpened the _wits_ than the _hearts_ of men

against each other, and have diminished the practice, more than advanced

the theory of Morality. If I could flatter myself that this Essay has

any merit, it is in steering betwixt the extremes of doctrines seemingly

opposite, in passing over terms utterly unintelligible, and in forming a

_temperate_ yet not _inconsistent_, and a _short_ yet not _imperfect_

system of Ethics.

This I might have done in prose, but I chose verse, and even rhyme, for

two reasons. The one will appear obvious; that principles, maxims, or

precepts so written, both strike the reader more strongly at first, and

are more easily retained by him afterwards: The other may seem odd, but

is true, I found I could express them more _shortly_ this way than in

prose itself; and nothing is more certain, than that much of the _force_

as well as _grace_ of arguments or instructions, depends on their

_conciseness_. I was unable to treat this part of my subject more in

_detail_, without becoming dry and tedious; or more _poetically_,

without sacrificing perspicuity to ornament, without wandring from the

precision, or breaking the chain of reasoning: If any man can unite all

these without diminution of any of them, I freely confess he will

compass a thing above my capacity.

What is now published, is only to be considered as a _general Map_ of

MAN, marking out no more than the _greater parts_, their _extent_, their

_limits_, and their _connection_, and leaving the particular to be more

fully delineated in the charts which are to follow. Consequently, these

Epistles in their progress (if I have health and leisure to make any

progress) will be less dry, and more susceptible of poetical ornament. I

am here only opening the _fountains_, and clearing the passage. To

deduce the _rivers_, to follow them in their course, and to observe

their effects, may be a task more agreeable.

P.

ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE I

Of the Nature and State of Man, with respect to the UNIVERSE.

_Of_ Man _in the abstract_.

I. v. 17 &c. _That we can judge only with regard to our_ own

system, _being ignorant of the_ relations _of

systems and things_.

II. v. 35, &c. _That Man is not to be deemed_ imperfect, _but a Being

suited to his_ place _and_ rank _in the creation,

agreeable to the_ general Order _of things, and

conformable to_ Ends _and_ Relations _to him unknown_.

III. v. 77, &c. _That it is partly upon his_ ignorance _of_ future

_events, and partly upon the_ hope _of a_ future

_state, that all his happiness in the present

depends_.

IV. v. 109, &c. _The_ pride _of aiming at more knowledge, and

pretending to more Perfections, the cause of Man's

error and misery. The_ impiety _of putting himself in

the place of_ God, _and judging of the fitness or

unfitness, perfection or imperfection, justice or

injustice of his dispensations_.

V. v. 131, &c. _The_ absurdity _of conceiting himself the _final cause

_of the creation, or expecting that perfection in the_

moral _world, which is not in the_ natural.

VI. v. 173, &c. _The_ unreasonableness _of his complaints against_

Providence, _while on the one hand he demands the

Perfections of the Angels, and on the other the bodily

qualifications of the Brutes; though, to possess any of

the_ sensitive faculties _in a higher degree, would

render him miserable_.

VII. v. 207. _That throughout the whole visible world, an universal_

order _and_ gradation _in the sensual and mental

faculties is observed, which causes a_ subordination

_of creature to creature, and of all creatures to Man.

The gradations of_ sense, instinct, thought,

reflection, reason; _that Reason alone countervails

fill the other faculties_.

VIII. v. 233. _How much further this_ order _and_ subordination _of

living creatures may extend, above and below us; were

any part of which broken, not that part only, but the

whole connected_ creation _must be destroyed_.

IX. v. 250. _The_ extravagance, madness, _and_ pride _of such a

desire_.

X. v. 281, &c. _The consequence of all, the_ absolute submission

_to the end_. _due to Providence, both as to our_ present _and_

future state,

EPISTLE I

Awake, my ST. JOHN! leave all meaner things

To low ambition, and the pride of Kings.

Let us (since Life can little more supply

Than just to look about us and to die)

Expatiate free o'er all this scene of Man; 5

A mighty maze! but not without a plan;

A Wild, where weeds and flow'rs promiscuous shoot;

Or Garden, tempting with forbidden fruit.

Together let us beat this ample field,

Try what the open, what the covert yield; 10

The latent tracts, the giddy heights, explore

Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar;

Eye Nature's walks, shoot Folly as it flies,

And catch the Manners living as they rise;

Laugh where we must, be candid where we can; 15

But vindicate the ways of God to Man.

I. Say first, of God above, or Man below,

What can we reason, but from what we know?

Of Man, what see we but his station here,

From which to reason, or to which refer? 20

Thro' worlds unnumber'd tho' the God be known,

'Tis ours to trace him only in our own.

He, who thro' vast immensity can pierce,

See worlds on worlds compose one universe,

Observe how system into system runs, 25

What other planets circle other suns,

What vary'd Being peoples ev'ry star,

May tell why Heav'n has made us as we are.

But of this frame the bearings, and the ties,

The strong connexions, nice dependencies, 30

Gradations just, has thy pervading soul

Look'd thro'? or can a part contain the whole?

Is the great chain, that draws all to agree,

And drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee?

II. Presumptuous Man! the reason wouldst thou find, 35

Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind?

First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,

Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less?

Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made

Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade? 40

Or ask of yonder argent fields above,

Why JOVE'S satellites are less than JOVE?

Of Systems possible, if 'tis confest

That Wisdom infinite must form the best,

Where all must full or not coherent be, 45

And all that rises, rise in due degree;

Then, in the scale of reas'ning life, 'tis plain,

There must be, somewhere, such a rank as Man:

And all the question (wrangle e'er so long)

Is only this, if God has plac'd him wrong? 50

Respecting Man, whatever wrong we call,

May, must be right, as relative to all.

In human works, tho' labour'd on with pain,

A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain;

In God's, one single can its end produce; 55

Yet serves to second too some other use.

So Man, who here seems principal alone,

Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown,

Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal;

'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole. 60

When the proud steed shall know why Man restrains

His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains:

When the dull Ox, why now he breaks the clod,

Is now a victim, and now Ægypt's God:

Then shall Man's pride and dulness comprehend 65

His actions', passions', being's, use and end;

Why doing, suff'ring, check'd, impell'd; and why

This hour a slave, the next a deity.

Then say not Man's imperfect, Heav'n in fault;

Say rather, Man's as perfect as he ought: 70

His knowledge measur'd to his state and place;

His time a moment, and a point his space.

If to be perfect in a certain sphere,

What matter, soon or late, or here or there?

The blest to day is as completely so, 75

As who began a thousand years ago.

III. Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of Fate,

All but the page prescrib'd, their present state:

From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:

Or who could suffer Being here below? 80

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,

Had he thy Reason, would he skip and play?

Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food,

And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.

Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv'n, 85

That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n:

Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,

A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,

Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world. 90

Hope humbly then: with trembling pinions soar;

Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.

What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,

But gives that Hope to be thy blessing now.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast: 95

Man never Is, but always To be blest:

The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,

Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind

Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind: 100

His soul, proud Science never taught to stray

Far as the solar walk, or milky way;

Yet simple Nature to his hope has giv'n,

Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heav'n;

Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd, 105

Some happier island in the watry waste,

Where slaves once more their native land behold,

No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.

To Be, contents his natural desire,

He asks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire; 110

But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,

His faithful dog shall bear him company.

IV. Go, wiser thou! and, in thy scale of sense,

Weight thy Opinion against Providence;

Call imperfection what thou fancy'st such, 115

Say, here he gives too little, there too much:

Destroy all Creatures for thy sport or gust,

Yet cry, If Man's unhappy, God's unjust;

If Man alone engross not Heav'n's high care,

Alone made perfect here, immortal there: 120

Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,

Re-judge his justice, be the God of God.

In Pride, in reas'ning Pride, our error lies;

All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.

Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes, 125

Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods.

Aspiring to be Gods, if Angels fell,

Aspiring to be Angels, Men rebel:

And who but wishes to invert the laws

Of ORDER, sins against th' Eternal Cause. 130

V. Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies shine,

Earth for whose use? Pride answers, "'Tis for mine:

For me kind Nature wakes her genial Pow'r,

Suckles each herb, and spreads out ev'ry flow'r;

Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew 135

The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew;

For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings;

For me, health gushes from a thousand springs;

Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise;

My foot-stool earth, my canopy the skies." 140

But errs not Nature from his gracious end,

From burning suns when livid deaths descend,

When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep

Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep?

"No, ('tis reply'd) the first Almighty Cause 145

Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws;

Th' exceptions few; some change since all began:

And what created perfect?"--Why then Man?

If the great end be human Happiness,

Then Nature deviates; and can Man do less? 150

As much that end a constant course requires

Of show'rs and sun-shine, as of Man's desires;

As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,

As Men for ever temp'rate, calm, and wise.

If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav'n's design, 155

Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline?

Who knows but he, whose hand the lightning forms,

Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the storms;

Pours fierce Ambition in a Cæsar's mind,

Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind? 160

From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning springs;

Account for moral, as for nat'ral things:

Why charge we Heav'n in those, in these acquit?

In both, to reason right is to submit.

Better for Us, perhaps, it might appear, 165

Were there all harmony, all virtue here;

That never air or ocean felt the wind;

That never passion discompos'd the mind.

But ALL subsists by elemental strife;

And Passions are the elements of Life. 170

The gen'ral ORDER, since the whole began,

Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man.

VI. What would this Man? Now upward will he soar,

And little less than Angel, would be more;

Now looking downwards, just as griev'd appears 175

To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears.

Made for his use all creatures if he call,

Say what their use, had he the pow'rs of all?

Nature to these, without profusion, kind,

The proper organs, proper pow'rs assign'd; 180

Each seeming want compensated of course,

Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force;

All in exact proportion to the state;

Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.

Each beast, each insect, happy in its own: 185

Is Heav'n unkind to Man, and Man alone?

Shall he alone, whom rational we call,

Be pleas'd with nothing, if not bless'd with all?

The bliss of Man (could Pride that blessing find)

Is not to act or think beyond mankind; 190

No pow'rs of body or of soul to share,

But what his nature and his state can bear.

Why has not Man a microscopic eye?

For this plain reason, Man is not a Fly.

Say what the use, were finer optics giv'n, 195

T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n?

Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,

To smart and agonize at every pore?

Or quick effluvia darting thro' the brain,

Die of a rose in aromatic pain? 200

If Nature thunder'd in his op'ning ears,

And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres,

How would he wish that Heav'n had left him still

The whisp'ring Zephyr, and the purling rill?

Who finds not Providence all good and wise, 205

Alike in what it gives, and what denies?

VII. Far as Creation's ample range extends,

The scale of sensual, mental pow'rs ascends:

Mark how it mounts, to Man's imperial race,

From the green myriads in the peopled grass: 210

What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme,

The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam:

Of smell, the headlong lioness between,

And hound sagacious on the tainted green:

Of hearing, from the life that fills the Flood, 215

To that which warbles thro' the vernal wood:

The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!

Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:

In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true

From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew? 220

How Instinct varies in the grov'lling swine,

Compar'd, half-reas'ning elephant, with thine!

'Twixt that, and Reason, what a nice barrier,

For ever sep'rate, yet for ever near!

Remembrance and Reflection how ally'd; 225

What thin partitions Sense from Thought divide:

And Middle natures, how they long to join,

Yet never pass th' insuperable line!

Without this just gradation, could they be

Subjected, these to those, or all to thee? 230

The pow'rs of all subdu'd by thee alone,

Is not thy Reason all these pow'rs in one?

VIII. See, thro' this air, this ocean, and this earth,

All matter quick, and bursting into birth.

Above, how high, progressive life may go! 235

Around, how wide! how deep extend below!

Vast chain of Being! which from God began,

Natures ethereal, human, angel, man,

Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see,

No glass can reach; from Infinite to thee, 240

From thee to Nothing.--On superior pow'rs

Were we to press, inferior might on ours:

Or in the full creation leave a void,

Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd:

From Nature's chain whatever link you strike, 245

Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.

And, if each system in gradation roll

Alike essential to th' amazing Whole,

The least confusion but in one, not all

That system only, but the Whole must fall. 250

Let Earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly,

Planets and Suns run lawless thro' the sky;

Let ruling Angels from their spheres be hurl'd,

Being on Being wreck'd, and world on world;

Heav'n's whole foundations to their centre nod, 255

And Nature tremble to the throne of God.

All this dread ORDER break--for whom? for thee?

Vile worm!--Oh Madness! Pride! Impiety!

IX. What if the foot, ordain'd the dust to tread,

Or hand, to toil, aspir'd to be the head? 260

What if the head, the eye, or ear repin'd

To serve mere engines to the ruling Mind?

Just as absurd for any part to claim

To be another, in this gen'ral frame:

Just as absurd, to mourn the tasks or pains, 265

The great directing MIND of ALL ordains.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole,

Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;

That, chang'd thro' all, and yet in all the same;

Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame; 270

Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,

Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,

Lives thro' all life, extends thro' all extent,

Spreads undivided, operates unspent;

Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, 275

As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart:

As full, as perfect, in vile Man that mourns,

As the rapt Seraph that adores and burns:

To him no high, no low, no great, no small;

He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all. 280

X. Cease then, nor ORDER Imperfection name:

Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.

Know thy own point: This kind, this due degree

Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee.

Submit.--In this, or any other sphere, 285

Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:

Safe in the hand of one disposing Pow'r,

Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.

All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;

All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not see; 290

All Discord, Harmony not understood;

All partial Evil, universal Good:

And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite,

One truth is clear, WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT.

* * * * *

EPISTLE TO DR ARBUTHNOT

Advertisement to the first publication of this _Epistle_

This paper is a sort of bill of complaint, begun many years since, and

drawn up by snatches, as the several occasions offered. I had no

thoughts of publishing it, till it pleased some Persons of Rank and

Fortune (the Authors of _Verses to the Imitator of Horace_, and of an

_Epistle to a Doctor of Divinity from a Nobleman at Hampton Court_) to

attack, in a very extraordinary manner, not only my Writings (of which,

being public, the Public is judge), but my P_erson, Morals_, and

_Family_, whereof, to those who know me not, a truer information may be

requisite. Being divided between the necessity to say something of

_myself_, and my own laziness to undertake so awkward a task, I thought

it the shortest way to put the last hand to this Epistle. If it have any

thing pleasing, it will be that by which I am most desirous to please,

the _Truth_ and the _Sentiment_; and if any thing offensive, it will be

only to those I am least sorry to offend, _the vicious_ or _the

ungenerous_.

Many will know their own pictures in it, there being not a circumstance

but what is true; but I have, for the most part, spared their _Names_,

and they may escape being laughed at, if they please.

I would have some of them know, it was owing to the request of the

learned and candid Friend to whom it is inscribed, that I make not as

free use of theirs as they have done of mine. However, I shall have this

advantage, and honour, on my side, that whereas, by their proceeding,

any abuse may be directed at any man, no injury can possibly be done by

mine, since a nameless character can never be found out, but by its

_truth_ and _likeness_.

P.

P. shut, shut the door, good John! fatigu'd, I said,

Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead.

The Dog-star rages! nay't is past a doubt,

All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out:

Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand, 5

They rave, recite, and madden round the land.

What walls can guard me, or what shade can hide?

They pierce my thickets, thro' my Grot they glide;

By land, by water, they renew the charge;

They stop the chariot, and they board the barge. 10

No place is sacred, not the Church is free;

Ev'n Sunday shines no Sabbath-day to me;

Then from the Mint walks forth the Man of rhyme,

Happy to catch me just at Dinner-time.

Is there a Parson, much bemus'd in beer, 15

A maudlin Poetess, a rhyming Peer,

A Clerk, foredoom'd his father's soul to cross,

Who pens a Stanza, when he should _engross_?

Is there, who, lock'd from ink and paper, scrawls

With desp'rate charcoal round his darken'd walls? 20

All fly to TWIT'NAM, and in humble strain

Apply to me, to keep them mad or vain.

Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the Laws,

Imputes to me and my damn'd works the cause:

Poor Cornus sees his frantic wife elope, 25

And curses Wit, and Poetry, and Pope.

Friend to my Life! (which did not you prolong,

The world had wanted many an idle song)

What _Drop_ or _Nostrum_ can this plague remove?

Or which must end me, a Fool's wrath or love? 30

A dire dilemma! either way I'm sped,

If foes, they write, if friends, they read me dead.

Seiz'd and tied down to judge, how wretched I!

Who can't be silent, and who will not lie.

To laugh, were want of goodness and of grace, 35

And to be grave, exceeds all Pow'r of face.

I sit with sad civility, I read

With honest anguish, and an aching head;

And drop at last, but in unwilling ears,

This saving counsel, "Keep your piece nine years." 40

"Nine years!" cries he, who high in Drury-lane,

Lull'd by soft Zephyrs thro' the broken pane,

Rhymes ere he wakes, and prints before _Term_ ends,

Oblig'd by hunger, and request of friends:

"The piece, you think, is incorrect? why, take it, 45

I'm all submission, what you'd have it, make it."

Three things another's modest wishes bound,

My Friendship, and a Prologue, and ten pound.

Pitholeon sends to me: "You know his Grace

I want a Patron; ask him for a Place." 50

"Pitholeon libell'd me,"--"but here's a letter

Informs you, Sir, 't was when he knew no better.

Dare you refuse him? Curll invites to dine,"

"He'll write a _Journal_, or he'll turn Divine."

Bless me! a packet.--"'Tis a stranger sues, 55

A Virgin Tragedy, an Orphan Muse."

If I dislike it, "Furies, death and rage!"

If I approve, "Commend it to the Stage."

There (thank my stars) my whole Commission ends,

The Play'rs and I are, luckily, no friends, 60

Fir'd that the house reject him, "'Sdeath I'll print it,

And shame the fools--Your Int'rest, Sir, with Lintot!"

'Lintot, dull rogue! will think your price too much:'

"Not, Sir, if you revise it, and retouch."

All my demurs but double his Attacks; 65

At last he whispers, "Do; and we go snacks."

Glad of a quarrel, straight I clap the door,

Sir, let me see your works and you no more.

'Tis sung, when Midas' Ears began to spring,

(Midas, a sacred person and a king) 70

His very Minister who spy'd them first,

(Some say his Queen) was forc'd to speak, or burst.

And is not mine, my friend, a sorer case,

When ev'ry coxcomb perks them in my face?

A. Good friend, forbear! you deal in dang'rous things. 75

I'd never name Queens, Ministers, or Kings;

Keep close to Ears, and those let asses prick;

'Tis nothing--P. Nothing? if they bite and kick?

Out with it, DUNCIAD! let the secret pass,

That secret to each fool, that he's an Ass: 80

The truth once told (and wherefore should we lie?)

The Queen of Midas slept, and so may I.

You think this cruel? take it for a rule,

No creature smarts so little as a fool.

Let peals of laughter, Codrus! round thee break, 85

Thou unconcern'd canst hear the mighty crack:

Pit, Box, and gall'ry in convulsions hurl'd,

Thou stand'st unshook amidst a bursting world.

Who shames a Scribbler? break one cobweb thro',

He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew: 90

Destroy his fib or sophistry, in vain,

The creature's at his dirty work again,

Thron'd in the centre of his thin designs,

Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines!

Whom have I hurt? has Poet yet, or Peer, 95

Lost the arch'd eye-brow, or Parnassian sneer?

* * * * *

Does not one table Bavius still admit?

Still to one Bishop Philips seem a wit?

Still Sappho--A. Hold! for God's sake--you 'll offend,

No Names!--be calm!--learn prudence of a friend! 100

I too could write, and I am twice as tall;

But foes like these--P. One Flatt'rer's worse than all.

Of all mad creatures, if the learn'd are right,

It is the slaver kills, and not the bite.

A fool quite angry is quite innocent: 105

Alas! 'tis ten times worse when they _repent_.

One dedicates in high heroic prose,

And ridicules beyond a hundred foes:

One from all Grubstreet will my fame defend,

And more abusive, calls himself my friend. 110

This prints my _Letters_, that expects a bribe,

And others roar aloud, "Subscribe, subscribe."

There are, who to my person pay their court:

I cough like _Horace_, and, tho' lean, am short,

_Ammon's_ great son one shoulder had too high, 115

Such _Ovid's_ nose, and "Sir! you have an Eye"--

Go on, obliging creatures, make me see

All that disgrac'd my Betters, met in me.

Say for my comfort, languishing in bed,

"Just so immortal _Maro_ held his head:" 120

And when I die, be sure you let me know

Great _Homer_ died three thousand years ago.

Why did I write? what sin to me unknown

Dipt me in ink, my parents', or my own?

As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, 125

I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.

I left no calling for this idle trade,

No duty broke, no father disobey'd.

The Muse but serv'd to ease some friend, not Wife,

To help me thro' this long disease, my Life, 130

To second, ARBUTHNOT! thy Art and Care,

And teach the Being you preserv'd, to bear.

But why then publish? _Granville_ the polite,

And knowing _Walsh_, would tell me I could write;

Well-natur'd _Garth_ inflam'd with early praise; 135

And _Congreve_ lov'd, and _Swift_ endur'd my lays;

The courtly _Talbot, Somers, Sheffield_, read;

Ev'n mitred _Rochester_ would nod the head,

And _St. John's_ self (great _Dryden's_ friends before)

With open arms receiv'd one Poet more. 140

Happy my studies, when by these approv'd!

Happier their author, when by these belov'd!

From these the world will judge of men and books,

Not from the _Burnets, Oldmixons_, and _Cookes_.

Soft were my numbers; who could take offence, 145

While pure Description held the place of Sense?

Like gentle _Fanny's_ was my flow'ry theme,

A painted mistress, or a purling stream.

Yet then did _Gildon_ draw his venal quill;--

I wish'd the man a dinner, and sat still. 150

Yet then did _Dennis_ rave in furious fret;

I never answer'd,--I was not in debt.

If want provok'd, or madness made them print,

I wag'd no war with _Bedlam_ or the _Mint_.

Did some more sober Critic come abroad; 155

If wrong, I smil'd; if right, I kiss'd the rod.

Pains, reading, study, are their just pretence,

And all they want is spirit, taste, and sense.

Commas and points they set exactly right,

And 'twere a sin to rob them of their mite. 160

Yet ne'er one sprig of laurel grac'd these ribalds,

From slashing _Bentley_ down to pidling _Tibalds_:

Each wight, who reads not, and but scans and spells,

Each Word-catcher, that lives on syllables,

Ev'n such small Critics some regard may claim, 165

Preserv'd in _Milton's_ or in _Shakespeare's_ name.

Pretty! in amber to observe the forms

Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms!

The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare,

But wonder how the devil they got there. 170

Were others angry: I excus'd them too;

Well might they rage, I gave them but their due.

A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find;

But each man's secret standard in his mind,

That Casting-weight pride adds to emptiness, 175

This, who can gratify? for who can _guess?_

The Bard whom pilfer'd Pastorals renown,

Who turns a Persian tale for half a Crown,

Just writes to make his barrenness appear,

And strains, from hard-bound brains, eight lines a year; 180

He, who still wanting, tho' he lives on theft,

Steals much, spends little, yet has nothing left:

And He, who now to sense, now nonsense leaning,

Means not, but blunders round about a meaning:

And He, whose fustian's so sublimely bad, 185

It is not Poetry, but prose run mad:

All these, my modest Satire bade _translate_,

And own'd that nine such Poets made a _Tate_.

How did they fume, and stamp, and roar, and chafe!

And swear, not ADDISON himself was safe. 190

Peace to all such! but were there One whose fires

True Genius kindles, and fair Fame inspires;

Blest with each talent and each art to please,

And born to write, converse, and live with ease:

Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, 195

Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne.

View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes,

And hate for arts that caus'd himself to rise;

Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,

And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; 200

Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,

Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike;

Alike reserv'd to blame, or to commend.

A tim'rous foe, and a suspicious friend;

Dreading ev'n fools, by Flatterers besieg'd, 205

And so obliging, that he ne'er oblig'd;

Like _Cato_, give his little Senate laws,

And sit attentive to his own applause;

While Wits and Templars ev'ry sentence raise,

And wonder with a foolish face of praise:-- 210

Who but must laugh, if such a man there be?

Who would not weep, if Atticus were he?

What tho' my Name stood rubric on the walls

Or plaister'd posts, with claps, in capitals?

Or smoking forth, a hundred hawkers' load, 215

On wings of winds came flying all abroad?

I sought no homage from the Race that write;

I kept, like Asian Monarchs, from their sight:

Poems I heeded (now be-rhym'd so long)

No more than thou, great George! a birth-day song. 220

I ne'er with wits or witlings pass'd my days,

To spread about the itch of verse and praise;

Nor like a puppy, daggled thro' the town,

To fetch and carry sing-song up and down;

Nor at Rehearsals sweat, and mouth'd, and cry'd, 225

With handkerchief and orange at my side;

But sick of fops, and poetry, and prate,

To Bufo left the whole Castalian state.

Proud as Apollo on his forked hill,

Sat full-blown Bufo, puff'd by ev'ry quill; 230

Fed with soft Dedication all day long.

Horace and he went hand in hand in song.

His Library (where busts of Poets dead

And a true Pindar stood without a head,)

Receiv'd of wits an undistinguish'd race, 235

Who first his judgment ask'd, and then a place:

Much they extoll'd his pictures, much his seat,

And flatter'd ev'ry day, and some days eat:

Till grown more frugal in his riper days,

He paid some bards with port, and some with praise; 240

To some a dry rehearsal saw assign'd,

And others (harder still) he paid in kind.

_Dryden_ alone (what wonder?) came not nigh,

_Dryden_ alone escap'd this judging eye:

But still the _Great_ have kindness in reserve, 245

He help'd to bury whom he help'd to starve.

May some choice patron bless each gray goose quill!

May ev'ry _Bavius_ have his _Bufo_ still!

So, when a Statesman wants a day's defence,

Or Envy holds a whole week's war with Sense, 250

Or simple pride for flatt'ry makes demands,

May dunce by dunce be whistled off my hands!

Blest be the _Great!_ for those they take away.

And those they left me; for they left me Gay;

Left me to see neglected Genius bloom, 255

Neglected die, and tell it on his tomb:

Of all thy blameless life the sole return

My Verse, and Queenb'ry weeping o'er thy urn.

Oh let me live my own, and die so too!

(To live and die is all I have to do:) 260

Maintain a Poet's dignity and ease,

And see what friends, and read what books I please;

Above a Patron, tho' I condescend

Sometimes to call a minister my friend.

I was not born for Courts or great affairs; 265

I pay my debts, believe, and say my pray'rs;

Can sleep without a Poem in my head;

Nor know, if _Dennis_ be alive or dead.

Why am I ask'd what next shall see the light?

Heav'ns! was I born for nothing but to write? 270

Has Life no joys for me? or, (to be grave)

Have I no friend to serve, no soul to save?

"I found him close with _Swift_"--'Indeed? no doubt,'

(Cries prating _Balbus_) 'something will come out.'

'Tis all in vain, deny it as I will. 275

'No, such a Genius never can lie still;'

And then for mine obligingly mistakes

The first Lampoon Sir _Will_, or _Bubo_ makes.

Poor guiltless I! and can I choose but smile,

When ev'ry Coxcomb knows me by my _Style_? 280

Curst be the verse, how well soe'er it flow,

That tends to make one worthy man my foe,

Give Virtue scandal, Innocence a fear,

Or from the soft-eyed Virgin steal a tear!

But he who hurts a harmless neighbour's peace, 285

Insults fall'n worth, or Beauty in distress,

Who loves a Lie, lame slander helps about,

Who writes a Libel, or who copies out:

That Fop, whose pride affects a patron's name,

Yet absent, wounds an author's honest fame: 290

Who can _your_ merit _selfishly_ approve.

And show the _sense_ of it without the _love_;

Who has the vanity to call you friend,

Yet wants the honour, injur'd, to defend;

Who tells whate'er you think, whate'er you say, 295

And, if he lie not, must at least betray:

Who to the _Dean_, and _silver bell_ can swear,

And sees at _Canons_ what was never there;

Who reads, but with a lust to misapply,

Make Satire a Lampoon, and Fiction, Lie. 300

A lash like mine no honest man shall dread,

But all such babbling blockheads in his stead.

Let _Sporus_ tremble--A. What? that thing of silk,

_Sporus_, that mere white curd of Ass's milk?

Satire or sense, alas! can _Sporus_ feel? 305

Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?

P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,

This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings;

Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys,

Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys: 310

So well-bred spaniels civilly delight

In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.

Eternal smiles his emptiness betray,

As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.

Whether in florid impotence he speaks, 315

And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks;

Or at the ear of _Eve_, familiar Toad,

Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad,

In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies,

Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies. 320

His wit all see-saw, between _that_ and _this_, }

Now high, now low, now master up, now miss, }

And he himself one vile Antithesis. }

Amphibious thing! that acting either part,

The trifling head or the corrupted heart, 325

Fop at the toilet, flatt'rer at the board,

Now trips a Lady, and now struts a Lord.

_Eve's_ tempter thus the Rabbins have exprest,

A Cherub's face, a reptile all the rest;

Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust; 330

Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.

Not Fortune's worshipper, nor fashion's fool,

Not Lucre's madman, nor Ambition's tool,

Not proud, nor servile;--be one Poet's praise,

That, if he pleas'd, he pleas'd by manly ways: 335

That Flatt'ry, ev'n to Kings, he held a shame,

And thought a Lie in verse or prose the same.

That not in Fancy's maze he wander'd long,

But stoop'd to Truth, and moraliz'd his song:

That not for Fame, but Virtue's better end, 340

He stood the furious foe, the timid friend,

The damning critic, half approving wit,

The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit;

Laugh'd at the loss of friends he never had,

The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad; 345

The distant threats of vengeance on his head,

The blow unfelt, the tear he never shed;

The tale reviv'd, the lie so oft o'erthrown,

Th' imputed trash, and dulness not his own;

The morals blacken'd when the writings scape, 350

The libell'd person, and the pictur'd shape;

Abuse, on all he lov'd, or lov'd him, spread,

A friend in exile, or a father, dead;

The whisper, that to greatness still too near,

Perhaps, yet vibrates on his SOV'REIGN'S ear:-- 355

Welcome for thee, fair _Virtue_! all the past;

For thee, fair Virtue! welcome ev'n the _last_!

A. But why insult the poor, affront the great?

P. A knave's a knave, to me, in ev'ry state:

Alike my scorn, if he succeed or fail, 360

_Sporus_ at court, or _Japhet_ in a jail

A hireling scribbler, or a hireling peer,

Knight of the post corrupt, or of the shire;

If on a Pillory, or near a Throne,

He gain his Prince's ear, or lose his own. 365

Yet soft by nature, more a dupe than wit,

_Sappho_ can tell you how this man was bit;

This dreaded Sat'rist _Dennis_ will confess

Foe to his pride, but friend to his distress:

So humble, he has knock'd at _Tibbald's_ door, 370

Has drunk with _Cibber_, nay has rhym'd for _Moore_.

Full ten years slander'd, did he once reply?

Three thousand suns went down on _Welsted's_ lie.

To please a Mistress one aspers'd his life;

He lash'd him not, but let her be his wife. 375

Let _Budgel_ charge low _Grubstreet_ on his quill,

And write whate'er he pleas'd, except his Will;

Let the two _Curlls_ of Town and Court, abuse

His father, mother, body, soul, and muse.

Yet why? that Father held it for a rule, 380

It was a sin to call our neighbour fool:

That harmless Mother thought no wife a whore:

Hear this, and spare his family, _James Moore!_

Unspotted names, and memorable long!

If there be force in Virtue, or in Song. 385

Of gentle blood (part shed in Honour's cause.

While yet in _Britain_ Honour had applause)

Each parent sprung--A. What fortune, pray?--P. Their own,

And better got, than _Bestia's_ from the throne.

Born to no Pride, inheriting no Strife, 390

Nor marrying Discord in a noble wife,

Stranger to civil and religious rage,

The good man walk'd innoxious thro' his age.

Nor Courts he saw, no suits would ever try,

Nor dar'd an Oath, nor hazarded a Lie. 395

Un-learn'd, he knew no schoolman's subtle art,

No language, but the language of the heart.

By Nature honest, by Experience wise,

Healthy by temp'rance, and by exercise;

His life, tho' long, to sickness past unknown, 400

His death was instant, and without a groan.

O grant me, thus to live, and thus to die!

Who sprung from Kings shall know less joy than I.

O Friend! may each domestic bliss be thine!

Be no unpleasing Melancholy mine: 405

Me, let the tender office long engage,

To rock the cradle of reposing Age,

With lenient arts extend a Mother's breath,

Make Languor smile, and smooth the bed of Death,

Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, 410

And keep a while one parent from the sky!

On cares like these if length of days attend,

May Heav'n, to bless those days, preserve my friend,

Preserve him social, cheerful, and serene,

And just as rich as when he serv'd a QUEEN. 415

A. Whether that blessing be deny'd or giv'n,

Thus far was right, the rest belongs to Heav'n.

* * * * *

ODE ON SOLITUDE

Happy the man whose wish and care

A few paternal acres bound,

Content to breathe his native air,

In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread, 5

Whose flocks supply him with attire,

Whose trees in summer yield him shade,

In winter fire.

Blest, who can unconcern'dly find

Hours, days, and years slide soft away, 10

In health of body, peace of mind,

Quiet by day,

Sound sleep by night; study and ease,

Together mixt; sweet recreation;

And Innocence, which most does please 15

With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown,

Thus unlamented let me die,

Steal from the world, and not a stone

Tell where I lie. 20

* * * * *

THE DESCENT OF DULLNESS

[From the 'Dunciad', Book IV]

In vain, in vain--the all-composing Hour

Resistless falls: the Muse obeys the Pow'r.

She comes! she comes! the sable Throne behold

Of _Night_ primæval and of _Chaos_ old!

Before her, _Fancy's_ gilded clouds decay, 5

And all its varying Rain-bows die away.

_Wit_ shoots in vain its momentary fires,

The meteor drops, and in a flash expires.

As one by one, at dread Medea's strain,

The sick'ning stars fade off th' ethereal plain; 10

As Argus' eyes by Hermes' wand opprest,

Clos'd one by one to everlasting rest;

Thus at her felt approach, and secret might,

_Art_ after _Art_ goes out, and all is Night.

See skulking _Truth_ to her old cavern fled, 15

Mountains of Casuistry heap'd o'er her head!

_Philosophy_, that lean'd on Heav'n before,

Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more.

_Physic_ of _Metaphysic_ begs defence,

And _Metaphysic_ calls for aid on _Sense_! 20

See _Mystery_ to _Mathematics_ fly!

In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die.

_Religion_ blushing veils her sacred fires,

And unawares _Morality_ expires.

For _public_ Flame, nor _private_, dares to shine; 25

Nor _human_ Spark is left, nor Glimpse _divine_!

Lo! thy dread Empire, CHAOS! is restor'd;

Light dies before thy uncreating word;

Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall,

And universal Darkness buries All. 30

* * * * *

ON MR. GAY

IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 1732

Of Manners gentle, of Affections mild;

In Wit, a Man; Simplicity, a Child:

With native Humour temp'ring virtuous Rage,

Form'd to delight at once and lash the age:

Above Temptation, in a low Estate, 5

And uncorrupted, ev'n among the Great:

A safe Companion, and an easy Friend,

Unblam'd thro' Life, lamented in thy End.

These are Thy Honours! not that here thy Bust

Is mix'd with Heroes, or with Kings thy dust; 10

But that the Worthy and the Good shall say,

Striking their pensive bosoms--_Here_ lies GAY.

* * * * *

NOTES

THE RAPE OF THE LOCK

INTRODUCTION

In 1711 Pope, who had just published his 'Essay on Criticism', was

looking about for new worlds to conquer. A fortunate chance threw in his

way a subject exactly suited to his tastes and powers. He seized upon

it, dashed off his first sketch in less than a fortnight, and published

it anonymously in a 'Miscellany' issued by Lintot in 1712. But the theme

had taken firm root in his mind. Dissatisfied with his first treatment

of it, he determined, against the advice of the best critic of the day,

to recast the work, and lift it from a mere society 'jeu d'esprit' into

an elaborate mock-heroic poem. He did so and won a complete success.

Even yet, however, he was not completely satisfied and from time to time

he added a touch to his work until he finally produced the finished

picture which we know as 'The Rape of the Lock'. As it stands, it is an

almost flawless masterpiece, a brilliant picture and light-hearted

mockery of the gay society of Queen Anne's day, on the whole the most

satisfactory creation of Pope's genius, and, perhaps, the best example

of the mock-heroic in any literature.

The occasion which gave rise to 'The Rape of the Lock' has been so often

related that it requires only a brief restatement. Among the Catholic

families of Queen Anne's day, who formed a little society of their own,

Miss Arabella Fermor was a reigning belle. In a youthful frolic which

overstepped the bounds of propriety Lord Petre, a young nobleman of her

acquaintance, cut off a lock of her hair. The lady was offended, the two

families took up the quarrel, a lasting estrangement, possibly even a

duel, was threatened. At this juncture a common friend of the two

families, a Mr. Caryll, nephew of a well-known Jacobite exile for whom

he is sometimes mistaken, suggested to Pope "to write a poem to make a

jest of it," and so kill the quarrel with laughter. Pope consented,

wrote his first draft of 'The Rape of the Lock', and passed it about in

manuscript. Pope says himself that it had its effect in the two

families; certainly nothing more is heard of the feud. How Miss Fermor

received the poem is a little uncertain. Pope complains in a letter

written some months after the poem had appeared in print that "the

celebrated lady is offended." According to Johnson she liked the verses

well enough to show them to her friends, and a niece of hers said years

afterward that Mr. Pope's praise had made her aunt "very troublesome and

conceited." It is not improbable that Belinda was both flattered and

offended. Delighted with the praise of her beauty she may none the less

have felt called upon to play the part of the offended lady when the

poem got about and the ribald wits of the day began to read into it

double meanings which reflected upon her reputation. To soothe her

ruffled feelings Pope dedicated the second edition of the poem to her in

a delightful letter in which he thanked her for having permitted the

publication of the first edition to forestall an imperfect copy offered

to a bookseller, declared that the character of Belinda resembled her in

nothing but in beauty, and affirmed that he could never hope that his

poem should pass through the world half so uncensured as she had done.

It would seem that the modern critics who have undertaken to champion

Miss Fermor against what they are pleased to term the revolting behavior

of the poet are fighting a needless battle. A pretty girl who would long

since have been forgotten sat as an unconscious model to a great poet;

he made her the central figure in a brilliant picture and rendered her

name immortal. That is the whole story, and when carping critics begin

to search the poem for the improprieties of conduct to which they say

Pope alluded, one has but to answer in Pope's own words.

If to her share some female errors fall,

Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all.

Pope's statement in the dedication that he had been forced into

publishing the first draft of the poem before his design of enlarging it

was half executed is probably to be taken, like many of his statements,

with a sufficient grain of salt. Pope had a curious habit of protesting

that he was forced into publishing his letters, poems, and other

trifles, merely to forestall the appearance of unauthorized editions. It

is more likely that it was the undoubted success of 'The Rape of the

Lock' in its first form which gave him the idea of working up the sketch

into a complete mock-heroic poem.

Examples of such a poem were familiar enough to Pope. Not to go back to

the pseudo-Homeric mock epic which relates the battle of the frogs and

mice, Vida in Italy and Boileau in France, with both of whom Pope, as

the 'Essay on Criticism' shows, was well acquainted, had done work of

this kind. Vida's description of the game of chess in his 'Scacchia

Ludus' certainly gave him the model for the game of ombre in the third

canto of 'The Rape of the Lock'; Boileau's 'Lutrin' probably suggested

to him the idea of using the mock-heroic for the purposes of satire.

Now it was a dogma of the critical creed of the day, which Pope devoutly

accepted, that every epic must have a well-recognized "machinery."

Machinery, as he kindly explained to Miss Fermor, was a "term invented

by the critics to signify that part which the deities, angels, or demons

are made to act in a poem," in short for the whole supernatural element.

Such machinery was quite wanting in the first draft of the Rape; it must

be supplied if the poem was to be a true epic, even of the comic kind.

And the machinery must be of a nature which would lend itself to the

light satiric tone of the poem. What was it to be? The employment of

what we may call Christian machinery, the angels and devils of Tasso and

Milton, was, of course, out of the question. The employment of the

classic machinery was almost as impossible. It would have been hard for

such an admirer of the classics as Pope to have taken the deities of

Olympus otherwise than seriously. And even if he had been able to treat

them humorously, the humor would have been a form of burlesque quite at

variance with what he had set out to accomplish. For Pope's purpose,

springing naturally from the occasion which set him to writing the

'Rape', was not to burlesque what was naturally lofty by exhibiting it

in a degraded light, but to show the true littleness of the trivial by

treating it in a grandiose and mock-heroic fashion, to make the quarrel

over the stolen lock ridiculous by raising it to the plane of the epic

contest before the walls of Troy.

In his perplexity a happy thought, little less in fact than an

inspiration of genius, came to Pope. He had been reading a book by a

clever French abbé treating in a satiric fashion of the doctrines of the

so-called Rosicrucians, in particular of their ideas of elemental

spirits and the influence of these spirits upon human affairs. Here was

the machinery he was looking for made to his hand. There would be no

burlesque in introducing the Rosicrucian sylphs and gnomes into a

mock-heroic poem, for few people, certainly not the author of the 'Comte

de Gabalis', took them seriously. Yet the widespread popularity of this

book, to say nothing of the existence of certain Rosicrucian societies,

had rendered their names familiar to the society for which Pope wrote.

He had but to weave them into the action of his poem, and the brilliant

little sketch of society was transformed into a true mock-epic.

The manner in which this interweaving was accomplished is one of the

most satisfactory evidences of Pope's artistic genius. He was proud of

it himself. "The making the machinery, and what was published before,

hit so well together, is," he told Spencer, "I think, one of the

greatest proofs of judgment of anything I ever did." And he might well

be proud. Macaulay, in a well-known passage, has pointed out how seldom

in the history of literature such a recasting of a poem has been

successfully accomplished. But Pope's revision of 'The Rape of the Lock'

was so successful that the original form was practically done away with.

No one reads it now but professed students of the literature of Queen

Anne's time. And so artfully has the new matter been woven into the old

that if the recasting of 'The Rape of the Lock' were not a commonplace

even in school histories of English literature, not one reader in a

hundred would suspect that the original sketch had been revised and

enlarged to more than twice its length. It would be an interesting task

for the student to compare the two forms printed in this edition, to

note exactly what has been added, and the reasons for its addition, and

to mark how Pope has smoothed the junctures and blended the old and the

new. Nothing that he could do would admit him more intimately to the

secrets of Pope's mastery of his art.

A word must be said in closing as to the merits of 'The Rape of the

Lock' and its position in English literature. In the first place it is

an inimitable picture of one phase, at least, of the life of the time,

of the gay, witty, heartless society of Queen Anne's day. Slowly

recovering from the licentious excesses of the Restoration, society at

this time was perhaps unmoral rather than immoral. It was quite without

ideals, unless indeed the conventions of "good form" may be dignified by

that name. It lacked the brilliant enthusiasm of Elizabethan times as

well as the religious earnestness of the Puritans and the devotion to

patriotic and social ideals which marked a later age. Nothing, perhaps,

is more characteristic of the age than its attitude toward women. It

affected indeed a tone of high-flown adoration which thinly veiled a

cynical contempt. It styled woman a goddess and really regarded her as

little better than a doll. The passion of love had fallen from the high

estate it once possessed and become the mere relaxation of the idle

moments of a man of fashion.

In the comedies of Congreve, for example, a lover even if honestly in

love thinks it as incumbent upon him to make light of his passion before

his friends as to exaggerate it in all the forms of affected compliment

before his mistress.

In 'The Rape of the Lock' Pope has caught and fixed forever the

atmosphere of this age. It is not the mere outward form and

circumstance, the manners and customs, the patching, powdering, ogling,

gambling, of the day that he has reproduced, though his account of these

would alone suffice to secure the poem immortality as a contribution to

the history of society. The essential spirit of the age breathes from

every line. No great English poem is at once so brilliant and so empty,

so artistic, and yet so devoid of the ideals on which all high art

rests. It is incorrect, I think, to consider Pope in 'The Rape of the

Lock' as the satirist of his age. He was indeed clever enough to

perceive its follies, and witty enough to make sport of them, but it is

much to be doubted whether he was wise enough at this time to raise his

eyes to anything better. In the social satires of Pope's great admirer,

Byron, we are at no loss to perceive the ideal of personal liberty which

the poet opposes to the conventions he tears to shreds. Is it possible

to discover in 'The Rape of the Lock' any substitute for Belinda's

fancies and the Baron's freaks? The speech of Clarissa which Pope

inserted as an afterthought to point the moral of the poem recommends

Belinda to trust to merit rather than to charms. But "merit" is

explicitly identified with good humor, a very amiable quality, but

hardly of the highest rank among the moral virtues. And the avowed end

and purpose of "merit" is merely to preserve what beauty gains, the

flattering attentions of the other sex,--surely the lowest ideal ever

set before womankind. The truth is, I think, that 'The Rape of the Lock'

represents Pope's attitude toward the social life of his time in the

period of his brilliant youth. He was at once dazzled, amused, and

delighted by the gay world in which he found himself. The apples of

pleasure had not yet turned to ashes on his lips, and it is the poet's

sympathy with the world he paints which gives to the poem the air, most

characteristic of the age itself, of easy, idle, unthinking gayety. We

would not have it otherwise. There are sermons and satires in abundance

in English literature, but there is only one 'Rape of the Lock'.

The form of the poem is in perfect correspondence with its spirit. There

is an immense advance over the 'Essay on Criticism' in ease, polish, and

balance of matter and manner. And it is not merely in matters of detail

that the supremacy of the latter poem is apparent. 'The Rape of the

Lock' is remarkable among all Pope's longer poems as the one complete

and perfect whole. It is no mosaic of brilliant epigrams, but an organic

creation. It is impossible to detach any one of its witty paragraphs and

read it with the same pleasure it arouses when read in its proper

connection. Thalestris' call to arms and Clarissa's moral reproof are

integral parts of the poem. And as a result, perhaps, of its essential

unity 'The Rape of the Lock' bears witness to the presence of a power in

Pope that we should hardly have suspected from his other works, the

power of dramatic characterization. Elsewhere he has shown himself a

master of brilliant portraiture, but Belinda, the Baron, and Thalestris

are something more than portraits. They are living people, acting and

speaking with admirable consistency. Even the little sketch of Sir Plume

is instinct with life.

Finally 'The Rape of the Lock', in its limitations and defects, no less

than in its excellencies, represents a whole period of English poetry,

the period which reaches with but few exceptions from Dryden to

Wordsworth. The creed which dominated poetic composition during this

period is discussed in the introduction to the Essay on Criticism, (see

p. 103) and is admirably illustrated in that poem itself. Its repression

of individuality, its insistence upon the necessity of following in the

footsteps of the classic poets, and of checking the outbursts of

imagination by the rules of common sense, simply incapacitated the poets

of the period from producing works of the highest order. And its

insistence upon man as he appeared in the conventional, urban society of

the day as the one true theme of poetry, its belief that the end of

poetry was to instruct and improve either by positive teaching or by

negative satire, still further limited its field. One must remember in

attempting an estimate of 'The Rape of the Lock' that it was composed

with an undoubting acceptance of this creed and within all these

narrowing limitations. And when this is borne in mind, it is hardly too

much to say that the poem attains the highest point possible. In its

treatment of the supernatural it is as original as a poem could be at

that day. The brilliancy of its picture of contemporary society could

not be heightened by a single stroke. Its satire is swift and keen, but

never ill natured. And the personality of Pope himself shines through

every line. Johnson advised authors who wished to attain a perfect style

to give their days and nights to a study of Addison. With equal justice

one might advise students who wish to catch the spirit of our so-called

Augustan age, and to realize at once the limitations and possibilities

of its poetry, to devote themselves to the study of 'The Rape of the

Lock'.

DEDICATION

'Mrs. Arabella':

the title of Mrs. was still given in Pope's time to unmarried ladies as

soon as they were old enough to enter society.

'the Rosicrucian doctrine':

the first mention of the Rosicrucians is in a book published in Germany

in 1614, inviting all scholars to join the ranks of a secret society

said to have been founded two centuries before by a certain Christian

Rosenkreuz who had mastered the hidden wisdom of the East. It seems

probable that this book was an elaborate hoax, but it was taken

seriously at the time, and the seventeenth century saw the formation of

numerous groups of "Brothers of the Rosy Cross." They dabbled in

alchemy, spiritualism, and magic, and mingled modern science with

superstitions handed down from ancient times. Pope probably knew nothing

more of them than what he had read in 'Le Comte de Gabalis'.

This was the work of a French abbé, de Montfaucon Villars (1635-1673),

who was well known in his day both as a preacher and a man of letters.

It is really a satire upon the fashionable mystical studies, but treats

in a tone of pretended seriousness of secret sciences, of elemental

spirits, and of their intercourse with men. It was translated into

English in 1680 and again in 1714.

CANTO I

Lines '1-2'

Pope opens his mock-epic with the usual epic formula, the statement of

the subject. Compare the first lines of the 'Iliad', the 'Æneid', and

'Paradise Lost'. In l. 7 he goes on to call upon the "goddess," i.e. the

muse, to relate the cause of the rape. This, too, is an epic formula.

Compare 'Æneid', I, 8, and 'Paradise Lost', I, 27-33.

'3 Caryl':

see Introduction, p. 83. In accordance with his wish his name was not

printed in the editions of the poem that came out in Pope's lifetime,

appearing there only as C----or C----l.

'4 Belinda':

a name used by Pope to denote Miss Fermor, the heroine of 'The Rape of

the Lock'.

'12'

This line is almost a translation of a line in the 'Æneid' (I, 11),

where Virgil asks if it be possible that such fierce passions (as

Juno's) should exist in the minds of gods.

'13 Sol':

a good instance of the fondness which Pope shared with most poets of his

time for giving classical names to objects of nature. This trick was

supposed to adorn and elevate poetic diction. Try to find other

instances of this in 'The Rape of the Lock'.

Why is the sun's ray called "tim'rous"?

'16'

It was an old convention that lovers were so troubled by their passion

that they could not sleep. In the 'Prologue to the Canterbury Tales'

(ll. 97-98), Chaucer says of the young squire:

So hote he lovede, that by nightertale

He sleep namore than dooth a nightingale.

Pope, of course, is laughing at the easy-going lovers of his day who in

spite of their troubles sleep very comfortably till noon.

'17'

The lady on awaking rang a little hand-bell that stood on a table by her

bed to call her maid. Then as the maid did not appear at once she tapped

impatiently on the floor with the heel of her slipper. The watch in the

next line was a repeater.

'19'

All the rest of this canto was added in the second edition of the poem.

See pp. 84-86. Pope did not notice that he describes Belinda as waking

in I. 14 and still asleep and dreaming in ll. 19-116.

'20 guardian Sylph':

compare ll. 67-78.

'23 a Birth-night Beau':

a fine gentleman in his best clothes, such as he would wear at a ball on

the occasion of a royal birthday.

'30'

The nurse would have told Belinda the old tales of fairies who danced by

moonlight on rings in the greensward, and dropped silver coins into the

shoes of tidy little maids. The priest, on the other hand, would have

repeated to her the legend of St. Cecilia and her guardian angel who

once appeared in bodily form to her husband holding two rose garlands

gathered in Paradise, or of St. Dorothea, who sent an angel messenger

with a basket of heavenly fruits and flowers to convert the pagan

Theophilus.

'42 militia':

used here in the general sense of "soldiery."

'44 the box':

in the theater.

'the ring':

the drive in Hyde Park, where the ladies of society took the air.

'46 a chair':

a sedan chair in which ladies used to be carried about. Why is Belinda

told to scorn it?

'50'

What is the meaning of "vehicles" in this line?

'56 Ombre':

the fashionable game of cards in Pope's day. See his account of a game

in Canto III and the notes on that passage.

'57-67'

See 'Introduction', p. 85.

'69-70'

Compare 'Paradise Lost', I, 423-431.

'79'

conscious of their face: proud of their beauty.

'81 These':

the gnomes who urge the vain beauties to disdain all offers of love and

play the part of prudes.

'85 garters, stars, and coronets':

the garter is the badge of the Knights of the Garter, an order founded

by Edward III, to which only noble princes and noblemen of the highest

rank were admitted. "Stars" are the jeweled decorations worn by members

of other noble orders. "Coronets" are the inferior crowns worn by

princes and nobles, not by sovereigns.

'86 "Your Grace"':

the title bestowed in England on a duchess--The idea in this passage,

ll. 83-86, is that the gnomes fill the girls' minds with hopes of a

splendid marriage and so induce them to "deny love."

'94 impertinence':

purposeless flirtation.

'97-98 Florio ... Damon':

poetic names for fine gentlemen; no special individuals are meant.

'100' Why is a woman's heart called a "toy-shop"?

'101 Sword-knots':

tassels worn at the hilts of swords. In Pope's day every gentleman

carried a sword, and these sword-knots were often very gay.

'105 who thy protection claim':

what is the exact meaning of his phrase?

'108 thy ruling Star':

the star that controls thy destinies, a reference to the old belief in

astrology.

'115 Shock':

Belinda's pet dog. His name would seem to show that he was a

rough-haired terrier.

'118'

Does this line mean that Belinda had never seen a billet-doux before?

'119 Wounds, Charms, and Ardors':

the usual language of a love-letter at this time.

'124 the Cosmetic pow'rs':

the deities that preside over a lady's toilet. Note the playful satire

with which Pope describes Belinda's toilet as if it were a religious

ceremony. Who is "th' inferior priestess" in l. 127?

'131 nicely':

carefully.

'134 Arabia':

famous for its perfumes.

'145 set the head':

arrange the head-dress.

'147 Betty':

Belinda's maid.