which I published the first draught of it (without the machinery) in a Miscellany of Tonson's. 1 The machinery was added afterwards, to make it look a little more considerable, and the scheme of adding it was much liked and approved of by several of my friends, and particularly by Dr. Garth: who, as he was one of the best natured men in the world, was very fond of it."2 The

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common acquaintance and well-wisher to both," mentioned in the foregoing quotation, was Mr. Caryll, who had been Secretary to Mary, the Queen of James the Second, and was author of a comedy called Sir Solomon Single, and of some translations in Dryden's Miscellanies.

The circle of Pope's intimacies, as may be supposed, was by this time considerably enlarged: he was now introduced to Addison by Steele. "My acquaintance with Addison," said he to Spence, "began in 1712: I liked him then as well as I liked any man, and was very fond of his conversation." For some time they continued to live on friendly terms, but, according to Warburton, their kindly feelings towards each other were of no long duration. "Mr. Pope's growing reputation and superior genius in poetry gave umbrage to his friend's false delicacy: and then it was he encouraged Phillips and others (see his Letters) in their clamours against him as a Tory and

A mistake of Spence for Lintot's.

2 Spence's Anecdotes, ed. Singer, p. 194.
3 Ibid. P. 195.

Jacobite, who had assisted in writing the Examiners; and, under an affected care for the government, would have hid, even from himself, the true grounds of his disgust. But his jealousy soon broke out, and discovered itself, first to Mr. Pope, and not long after, to all the world. The

Rape of the Lock had been written in a very hasty manner, and printed in a collection of miscellanies. The success it met with encouraged the author to revise and enlarge it, and give it a more important air; which was done by advancing it into a mock epic poem. In order to this it was to have its machinery; which, by the happiest invention, he took from the Rosicrucian system. Full of this noble conception, he communicated his scheme to Mr. Addison; who, he imagined, would have been equally delighted with the improvement. On the contrary, he had the mortification to see his friend receive it coldly; and even to advise him against any alteration; for that the poem, in its original state, was a delicious little thing, and, as he expressed it, merum sal. Mr. Pope was shocked for his friend; and then first began to open his eyes to his character."1 But surely the advice given by Addison concerning The Rape of the Lock is no proof of his jealousy and insincerity. He might justly suppose that the alteration of a piece already so excellent would injure its effect; nor could he foresee

1 Note by Warburton on the Epistle to Arbuthnot, v. 193.

that Pope was to interweave the new matter with the old in a manner so marvellously felicitous. It has not unfrequently happened that a poem has been spoiled by being re-written of this (not to cite earlier examples) Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination affords a memorable instance; and it may be doubted if the repeated variations made by Thomson in his Seasons were always for the better. Mr. Roscoe has well observed; that Pope discovered in this opinion the envy and malignity of Addison, is wholly inconsistent with the kindness and interchange of good offices that for some time afterwards continued to subsist between them."1

When The Rape of the Lock appeared in 1714, amplified with the machinery of the Sylphs, Dennis again dipped his pen in gall, and wrote Remarks on Mr. Pope's Rape of the Lock, in several Letters to a Friend. These letters, though dated 1714, were not given to the press till 1728; and Dennis, in his preface, thus states his reason for keeping them so long in manuscript. "At the same time that I ordered three of them [remarks on other pieces of Pope] to be published, I took care to keep back the ensuing Treatise purposely in terrorem; which had so good an effect, that he endeavoured for a time to counterfeit humility and a sincere repentance: and about that time I received a letter from him, which I

1 Life of Pope, p. 77.

have still by me, in which he acknowledged his offences past, and expressed an hypocritical sorrow for them. But no sooner did he believe that time had caused these things to be forgot, than he relapsed into ten times the folly and the madness that ever he had shewn before. He not only attacked several persons of far greater merit than himself, but like a mad Indian that runs a muck, struck at every thing that came in his way," &c. Dennis concludes his remarks by declaring, that like Pope's other productions, The Rape of the Lock is below criticism.

So high did party feeling at this time run, that readers were apt to discover a political meaning in the most innocent productions of the press. To ridicule this popular propensity, Pope wrote A Key to the Lock, or a Treatise proving beyond all contradiction the dangerous tendency of a late Poem, intitled the Rape of the Lock, to Religion and Government. By Esdras Barnivelt, Apoth. 1715. He shews that Belinda means Great Britain; the Baron, who cuts off the Lock, or barrier treaty, the Earl of Oxford; Clarissa, Lady Masham; Thalestris, the Duchess of Marlborough; and Sir Plume, Prince Eugene.

The Messiah, that splendid imitation of Virgil's Pollio, The Dying Christian to his Soul,1 and The Temple of Fame, were first printed in

1 Mr. Roscoe (Life of Pope, p. 84.) observes that "for some parts of this poem Pope undoubtedly stands indebted to his predecessor, Crashaw"'—a slip of the pen for Flatman.