Slight is the fubject, but not fo the praise,
If She infpire, and He approve my lays.

Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel
A well-bred Lord t' affault 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 foft bofoms, dwell fuch mighty Rage?

Sol through white curtains fhot a tim❜rous ray, And ope'd thofe eyes that must eclipse the day: Now lap-dogs give themselves the rousing shake, And fleepless lovers, juft at twelve, awake:

5

ΙΟ

16

Thrice

VARIATIONS.

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

And dwells fuch rage in softest bosoms then,
And lodge fuch daring Souls in little Men?

VER. 13, &c. ftood thus in the first edition,

Sol through white curtains did his beams difplay,
And ope'd thofe eyes which brighter fhone than they :
Shock juft had given himself the rousing shake,
And Nymphs prepar'd their Chocolate to take;

P.

Thrice the wrought flipper knock'd against the ground,
And striking watches the tenth hour refound.

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 fmall ftature, who foon after married a great heiress, Mrs. Warmfley, and died leaving a pofthumous fon; Thaleftris 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.

Thrice
rung the bell, the flipper knock'd the ground,
And the prefs'd watch return'd the filver found.
Belinda ftill her downy pillow prest,

Her guardian SYLPH prolong'd the balmy reft:
'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 e'en in flumber caus'd her cheek to glow)
Seem'd to her ear his winning lips to lay,
And thus in whifpers faid, or feem'd to say.

NOTES.

19

25

Faireft

VER. 18. Silver found.] Boileau, at an entertainment given by Segrais, was engaged to read his Lutrin; when he came to this paffage 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, ftopt him, and objected strongly to the expreffion, filver founds. Boileau difregarded his objections and continued to read; but Chapelle again interrupting him; "You are drunk," faid Boileau; "I am not fo much intoxicated with wine (returned Chapelle) as you are with your own verfes." It is a fingular circumstance, that Boileau was buried in the very fpot on which the Lutrin ftood.

VER. 19. Belinda fill, &c.] All the verfes from hence to the end of this Canto were added afterwards.

P.

VER. 20. Her guardian Sylph] When Mr. Pope had projected to give The Rape of the Lock its prefent form of a mock-heroic poem, he was obliged to find it with its machinery. For as the subject of the epic confifts of two parts, the metaphyfical and the civil; fo this mock epic, which is of the fatiric kind, and receives its grace from a ludicrous mimickry of the other's pomp and folemnity, was to have the like compounded nature. W.

It was referved to Dr. Warburton to fay, that the epic confifts of two parts, the metaphyfical and the civil. It is hard to fay what is the metaphyfical part of Homer and Virgil.

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 fhadows seen,

The filver token, and the circled green,

Or virgins vifited by Angel pow'rs

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 fecret truths, from learned pride conceal'd,
To Maids alone and Children are reveal'd:

NOTES.

35

What

VER. 27. Fairest of mortals,] Thefe machines are vaftly superior to the allegorical perfonages of Boileau and Garth; not only on account of their novelty, but for the exquifite poetry, and oblique fatire, which they have given the poet an opportunity 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 interpofition of celeftial agents. The first time these beings were mentioned by any writer in our language was by Sir W. Temple, Effays, 4. p. 255. "I fhould (fays he) as foon fall into the ftudy of the Rofycrufian philofophy, 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 affures us, have a mind to be chriftened, and fince you defire a name from me, take that of Corinna, if you pleafe." Sylphs are mentioned, as invifible attendants, and as interested in the affairs of the ladies, in the 101ft, 104th, and 195th, of Madame de Sevigné's celebrated Letters; as they are alfo in the fecond chapter of Le Sage's Diable Boiteaux. M. De Sevigné fays, remarkably enough, letter 90," If we had a few Sylphs at our command now, one might furnish out a story to divert you with."

What tho' no credit doubting Wits may give?
The Fair and Innocent fhall ftill believe.
Know then, unnumber'd Spirits round thee fly,
The light Militia of the lower fky:

These, tho' unseen, are ever on the wing,
Hang o'er the Box, and hover round the Ring.
Think what an equipage thou haft in Air,
And view with fcorn 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 foft tranfition, we repair

40

45

From earthly Vehicles to these of air.

50

Think not, when Woman's tranfient breath is fled, That all her vanities at once are dead;

Succeeding vanities fhe ftill regards,

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

Her joy in gilded Chariots, when alive,

55

And love of Ombre, after death survive.

NOTES.

For

VER. 47. As now your own, &c.] The Poet here forfakes the Roficrucian fyftem; which, in this part, is too extravagant even for ludicrous 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 well purged and purified by philofophy; which furnishes an occafion for much useful fatire.

VER. 54, 55.

IMITATIONS.

"Quae gratia currûm

Armorumque fuit vivis, quae cura nitentes

Pafcere equos, eadem fequitur tellure repoftos."

W.

For when the Fair in all their pride expire,
To their firft elements their fouls retire:
The Sprites of fiery Termagants in Flame
Mount up, and take a Salamander's name.
Soft yielding minds to Water glide away,
And fip, with Nymphs, their elemental Tea.
The
graver Prude finks downward to a Gnome,
In fearch of mischief still on Earth to roam.
The light Coquettes in Sylphs aloft repair,
And sport and flutter in the fields of Air.

бо

65

Know further yet; whoever fair and chafte Rejects mankind, is by fome Sylph embrac'd: For Spirits, freed from mortal laws, with ease Affume what fexes and what fhapes they please. 70 What guards the purity of melting Maids, In courtly balls, and midnight masquerades, Safe from the treach'rous friend, the daring fpark, The glance by day, the whisper in the dark,

NOTES.

When

VER. 67. Know further yet;] Marmontel has, on this idea, framed one of his molt popular Tales. I muft again and again repeat, that it is on account of the exquifite fkill, and humour and pleafantry of the use made of the machinery of the Sylphs, that this poem has excelled all the heroi-comic poems in all languages. "The Ver-vert of Greffet, in point of delicate fatire, is perhaps next to it, but far inferior for the want of fuch machinery.

VER. 68. Is by fome Sylph embrac'd:] Here again the Author `refumes the Roficrufian fyftem. But this tenet, peculiar to that wild philofophy, was founded on a principle very unfit to be employed in fuch a fort of poem, and therefore fuppreffed, though a lefs judicious writer would have been tempted to expatiate upon it.

W.