TO MRS. ARABELLA FERMOR. MADAM, Yet It will be in vain to deny that I have some regard for this piece, since I dedicate it to you. 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 offered to a bookseller, you had the good-nature, for my sake, to consent to the publication of one more correct: this I was forced to, before I had executed half my design, for the machinery was entirely wanting to complete it. The machinery, Madam, is a term invented by the critics, to signify that part which the deities, angels, or demons, 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 70 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 it 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 called "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 demons of earth, delight in mischief; but the sylphs, whose habitation is in the air, are the best-conditioned creatures imaginable; for, they say, any mortal 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 cantos, all the passages of them are as fabulous as the vision at the beginning, or the transformation at the end (except the loss THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. Nolueram, Belinda, tuos violare capillos; CANTO I. WHAT dire offence from amorous causes springs, Say what strange motive, goddess! could compel Sol through white curtains shot a timorous ray, And op'd those eyes that must eclipse the day: 1 Secretary to Queen Mary, wife of James II.; and author of Sir Solomon Single, a comedy, and of several translations in Dryden's Miscellanies. He first suggested the subject of this poem to the author. 2 Mrs. Arabella Fermor. Now lapdogs give themselves the rousing shake, Her guardian sylph prolong'd the balmy rest: |