• Plate IV.

ية

Vol.I. facing p.107.

Let Wreaths of Triumph now my Temples twine, The Victor cry'd, the glorious Prize is mine. Rape Lod

T

THE

RAPE of the LOCK.

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

W

CANTΟ Ι.

HAT dire offence from am'rous causes springs,
What mighty contests rise from trivial things,

I fing-This verse to CARYL, Muse! is due:
This, ev'n Belinda may vouchsafe to view:
Slight is the subject, but not so the praise,
If She inspire, and He approve my lays.

5

a It appears by this Motto, that the following Poem was written or published at the Lady's request. But there are some further 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 feveral 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 occafion of his having cut off a lock of her hair. The Author fent it to the Lady, with whom he was acquainted; and she took it fo 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 1717, 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 confiderable 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 feem not to be added, but to grow out of the Poem. See Notes, Canto I. ver. 19.

etc.

This insertion he always esteemed, and justly, the greatest effort of his kill and art as a Poet.

Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel A well-bred Lord t' assault a gentle Belle ? O fay what stranger cause, yet unexplor'd, Could make a gentle Belle reject a Lord? In tasks fo bold, can little men engage, And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty rage?

10

Sol thro' white curtains shot a tim'rous ray, And ope'd those eyes that must eclipse the day: Now lap-dogs gave themselves the rouzing shake, 15 And fleepless lovers, just at twelve, awake: Thrice rung the bell, the flipper knock'd the ground, And the press'd watch return'd a filver sound.

Belinda still her downy pillow prest,

Her guardian SYLPH prolong'd the balmy rest:

+

VARIATIONS.

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

And dwells such rage in softeft bosoms then,
And lodge such daring souls in little men?

VER. 13. etc. Stood thus in the first edition,

Sol thro' white curtains did his beams display,
And ope'd those eyes which brighter shone than they;
Shock just had giv'n himself the rousing shake,
And Nymphs prepar'd their Chocolate to take;
"Thrice the wrought flipper knock'd against the ground,
And ftriking watches the tenth hour refound.

NOTE S.

20

VER. 19. Behnda ftill, etc.] All the verses from hence to the end of this Canto were added afterwards.

VER. 20. Her guardian Sylph] When Mr. Pope had projected to give this Poem its prefent form, he was obliged to find it with its Machinery. For as the subject of the Epic Poem confifts of two parts, the metaphysical and the civil, so this mock-epic, which is of the fatiric kind, and receives its grace from a ludicrous imi tation of the other's pomp and folemnity, was to have the fame divifion of the subject, And, as the civil part is intentionally debased by the choice of an infignificant action; so should the metaphysical, by the use of fome very extravagant system. A rule which, though neither Boileau nor Garth have been carefulenough

'Twas He had fummon'd to her filent 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,
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 thy infant thought,
Of all the Nurse and all the Priest have taught;

25

by

30

to attend to, our Author's good sense would not suffer him to overlook. And that fort of Machinery which his judgment taught him was only fit for his use, his admirable invention fupplied. There was but one system in all nature which was to his purpose, the Roficrufian Philofop by and this, by the well-directed effort of his imagination, he presently seized upon. The fanatic Alchemifts, in their search after the great fecret, had invented a means altogether proportioned to their end. It was a kind of Theological Philofophy, made up of almost equal mixtures of Pagan Platonism, Chriftian Quietism, and the Jewish Cabbala; a composition enough to fright reason from human commerce. This general system, he tells us, he took as he found it in a little French tract, called Le Comte de Gabalis. This book is written in dialogue, and is a delicate and very ingenious piece of raillery of the Abbé Villiers, upon that invisible fect, of which the stories that went about at that time made a great deal of noise at Paris. But as, in this fatirical Dialogue, Mr. P. found several whimfies, of a very high mysterious kind, told of the nature of these elementary beings, which were very unfit to come into the machinery of fuch a fort of poem, he has with great judgment omitted them: and in their stead, made use of the Legendary stories of Guardian Angels, and the Nursery Tales of the Fairies; which he has artfully accommodated to the reft of the Roficrufian System. And to this, (unless we will be fo uncharitable to believe he intended to give a needless scandal) we must suppose he referred, in these two lines:

If e'er one Vision touch'd thy infant thought,
Of all the nurse and all the priest have taught.

Thus, by the most beautiful invention imaginable, he has contrived, that, as in the ferious Epic, the popular belief fupports the Machinery; fo, in his mock-epic, the Machinery should be con trived to difmount philofophic pride and arrogance.

35

Of airy Elves by moonlight shadows feen,
The filver token, and the circled green,
Or virgins visited by Angel-powers,
With golden crowns and wreaths of heav'nly flow'rs;
Hear and believe! they 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.
Think what an equipage thou hast in air,
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;

40

45

Thence, by a soft tranfition, we repair

From earthly vehicles to these of air.
Think not, when Woman's tranfient breath is fled,

50

That all her vanities at once are dead;

Succeeding vanities she still regards,

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

Her joy in gilded Chariots, when alive,

And love of Ombre, after death survive.

55

VER. 47. As now your own, etc.] He here forsakes the Roficrufian system; which, in this part, is too extravagant even for Poetry; and gives a beautiful fiction of his own, on the Platonic Theology of the continuance of the paffions in another state, when the mind, before its leaving this, has not been purged and purified by philosophy, which furnishes an occafion for much useful fatire,

VER. 54, 55.

IMITATIONS.

Quæ gratia currûm

A morumque fuit vivis, quæ cura nitentes

Pascere equos, eadem sequiturtel ure repostos, Virg. Æn. vi,