and many others. The mottos prefixed to the papers in the Rambler and Adventurer, were not so happy. The attempt to translate them was absurd. The one prefixed to Philips's Cyder was elegant.

"Honos erit huic quoque pomo?"

Atterbury suggested the interrogation point. Warburton was commended for despising common antagonists, and saying,

"Optat aprum, aut fulvum descendere monte leonem."

But Harrington had said this, in his Oceana, of an adversary. Mr. Walpole, to intimate his high and just opinion of Gray's Ode on Eton College as a first production, wrote on it this line of Lucan;

"Nec licuit populis parvum te Nile videre."

I dare believe the learned and amiable author did not know that Fontenelle had applied the very same line to Newton. A motto to Mr. Gray's few, but exquisite, poems might be, from Lucretius, lib. 4.

"Suavidicis potius quàm multis versibus edam,
Parvus ut est cycni melior canor."-

THE

RAPE OF THE LOCK.

'Nolueram, Belinda, tuos violare capillos;
Sed juvat, hoc precibus me tribuisse tuis.-MART.

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:

NOTES.

'It appears by this motto, that the following Poem was written or published at the Lady's request. But there are some farther circumstances not unworthy relating. Mr. Caryl (a Gentleman who was Secretary to Queen Mary, wife of James II. whose fortunes he followed into France, Author of the comedy of Sir Solomon Single, and of several translations in Dryden's Miscellanies) originally proposed the subject to him, in a view of putting an end, by this piece of ridicule, to a quarrel that was risen between two noble Families, those of Lord Petre and of Mrs. Fermor, on the trifling occasion of his having cut off a lock of her hair. The Author sent it to the Lady, with whom he was acquainted; and she took it so well as to give about copies of it. That first sketch (we learn from one of his letters) was written in less than a fortnight, in 1711, in two Cantos only, and it was so printed; first, in a Miscellany of Bern. Lintot's, without the name of the Author. But it was received so well, that he made it more considerable the next year by the addition of the machinery of the Sylphs, and extended it to five Cantos. We shall give the reader the pleasure of seeing in what manner these additions were inserted, so as to seem not to be added, but to grow out of the Poem. See Notes, Cant. I. ver. 19, &c. P.

Slight is the subject, but not so the praise,
If She inspire, and He approve my lays.

5

Say, what strange motive, Goddess! could compel A well-bred Lord t' assault a gentle Belle?

say what stranger cause, yet unexplor❜d,
Could make a gentle Belle reject a Lord?
In tasks so bold, can little men engage,
And in soft bosoms, dwell such mighty Rage?

Sol through white curtains shot a tim'rous ray, And ope'd those eyes that must eclipse the day : Now lap-dogs give themselves the rousing shake, And sleepless lovers, just at twelve, awake:

10

16

Thrice rung the bell, the slipper knock'd the ground, And the press'd watch return'd the silver sound.

VARIATIONS.

Ver. 11, 12. It was in the first editions,

And dwells such rage in softest bosoms then,

And lodge such daring Souls in little Men ?

P.

Ver. 13, &c. stood thus in the first edition,

Sol through white curtains did his beams display,
And ope'd those eyes which brighter shone than they:
Shock just had given himself the rousing shake,
And Nymphs prepar'd their Chocolate to take;
Thrice the wrought slipper knock'd against the ground,
And striking watches the tenth hour resound.

NOTES.

P.

Ver. 10. Could make a gentle Belle] "The characters introduced in this poem were Mr. Caryl, just before mentioned; Belinda was Mrs. Arabella Fermor; the Baron was Lord Petre, of small stature, who soon after married a great heiress, Mrs. Warmsley, and died leaving a posthumous son; Thalestris was Mrs. Morly; Sir Plume was her brother, Sir George Brown, of Berkshire." Copied from a MS. in a book presented by R. Lord Burlington, to Mr. William Sherwin.

Ver. 18. silver sound.] Boileau, at an entertainment given by

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 e'en in slumber caus'd her cheek to glow),
Seem'd to her ear his winning lips to lay,
And thus in whispers said, or seem'd to say-.
Fairest of mortals, thou distinguish'd care
Of thousand bright Inhabitants of Air!

NOTES.

25

Segrais, was engaged to read his Lutrin; when he came to this passage in the first canto,

"Les cloches dans les airs de leur voix argentines," Chapelle, who was one of the company, and who, as usual, had drank freely, stopt him, and objected strongly to the expression, silver sounds. Boileau disregarded his objections and continued to read; but Chapelle again interrupting him; "You are drunk," said Boileau; "I am not so much intoxicated with wine (returned Chapelle) as you are with your own verses." It is a singular circumstance, that Boileau was buried in the very spot on which the Lutrin stood.

Ver. 19. Belinda still, &c.] All the verses from hence to the end of this Canto were added afterward.

P.

Ver. 20. Her guardian Sylph] When Mr. Pope had projected to give The Rape of the Lock its present form of a mock-heroic poem, he was obliged to find it with its machinery. For as the subject of the epic consists of two parts, the metaphysical and the civil; so this mock epic, which is of the satiric kind, and receives its grace from a ludicrous mimicry of the other's pomp and solemnity, was to have the like compounded nature. W.

It was reserved to Dr. Warburton to say, that the epic consists of two parts, the metaphysical and the civil. It is hard to say what is the metaphysical part of Homer and Virgil.

Ver. 27. Fairest of mortals,] These machines are vastly superior to the allegorical personages of Boileau and Garth; not only on account of their novelty, but for the exquisite poetry, and oblique satire, which they have given the poet an oppor

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

35

With golden crowns and wreaths of heav'nly flow'rs;
Hear and believe! thy own importance know,
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.
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.

NOTES.

40

tunity to display. The business and petty concerns of a fine lady, receive an air of importance from the notion of their being perpetually overlooked and conducted, by the interposition of celestial agents. The first time these beings were mentioned by any writer in our language was by Sir W. Temple, Essays, 4. p. 255. "I should (says he) as soon fall into the study of the Rosycrusian philosophy, and expect to meet a Nymph or a Sylph for a wife or a mistress." They are also mentioned in a letter of Dryden to Mrs. Thomas, 1699; "Whether Sylph or Nymph I know not; those fine creatures, as your author Count Gabalis assures us, have a mind to be christened, and since you desire a name from me, take that of Corinna, if you please." Sylphs are mentioned, as invisible attendants, and as interested in the affairs of the ladies, in the 101st, 104th, and 195th, of Madame de Sevigné's celebrated Letters; as they are also in the second chapter of Le Sage's Diable Boiteaux. M. De Sevigné says, remarkably enough, letter 90, "If we had a few Sylphs at our command now, one might furnish out a story to divert you with."