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With fuch a prize no mortal must be blest,

So heav'n decrees! with heav'n who can contest?

Some thought it mounted to the Lunar sphere, Since all things loft on earth are treasur'd there. There Heros' wits are kept in pond'rous vases, 115 And Beaux in fnuff-boxes and tweezer-cafes. There broken vows, and death-bed alms are found, And lovers hearts with ends of ribband bound, The courtier's promises, and fick men's pray'rs, The fmiles of harlots, and the tears of heirs, Cages for gnats, and chains to yoak a flea, Dry'd butterflies, and tomes of casuistry.

120

But truft the Mufe-fhe faw it upward rise, Tho' mark'd by none but quick, poetic eyes: (So Rome's great founder to the heav'ns withdrew, To Proculus alone confefs'd in view)

NOTES.

126

A fudden

In this repofitory in the lunar fphere, fays the sprightly Italian, were to be found,

"Cio che in fomma quà giù perdefti mai,

Là fu faltendo ritrovar potrai."

It is very remarkable, that the poet had the boldness to place among these imaginary treasures, the famous deed of Constantine to Pope Silvefter; "if (fays he) I may be allowed to say this," "Questo era il dono (se pero dir lece)

Che Conftantino al buon Silveftro fece."

It may be obferved in general, to the honour of the poets, both ancient and modern, that they have ever been some of the first, who have detected and oppofed the falfe claims and mischievous ufurpations of fuperftition and flavery. Nor can this be wondered at, fince these two are the greatest enemies, not only to all true happiness, but to all true genius.

VER. 114. Since all things loft] Vide Ariofto, Canto xxxiv. P.

A fudden Star, it shot through liquid air,

And drew behind a radiant trail of hair.

Not Berenice's Locks first rose so bright,

The heav'ns bespangling with dishevel'd light. 130 The Sylphs behold it kindling as it flies,

And pleas'd pursue its progress through the skies. This the Beau monde fhall from the Mall furvey, And hail with mufic its propitious ray;

This the bleft Lover fhall for Venus take,

And send up vows from Rofamonda's lake;

This Partridge foon fhall view in cloudless skies,
When next he looks through Galilaeo's eyes;

VARIATIONS.

135

And

VER. 131. The Sylphs behold] These two lines added for the fame reafon, to keep in view the machinery of the poem.

NOTES.

P.

VER. 132. Through the fkies.] One cannot fufficiently applaud the art of the poet, in constantly keeping in the reader's view, the machinery of the poem, to the very last: even when the Lock is transformed, the Sylphs, who had fo carefully guarded it, are here once again artfully mentioned, as finally rejoicing in its honourable transformation.

In reading the Lutrin, I have always been ftruck with the impropriety of fo ferious a conclufion as Boileau has given to fo ludicrous a poem. Piety and Justice are beings rather too awful to have any concern in the celebrated Desk. They appear as much out of place and season, as would the Archbishop of Paris, in his pontifical robes, in an harlequin entertainment.

VER. 137. This Partridge foon] John Partridge was a ridiculous Star-gazer, who in his Almanacks every year never failed to predict the downfal of the Pope, and the King of France, then at war with the English.

IMITATIONS.

W.

VER. 128. "Flammiferumque trahens fpatiofo limite crinem

Stella micat."

OVID. P.

And hence th' egregious wizard fhall foredoom
The fate of Louis, and the fall of Rome.

140

Then cease, bright nymph! to mourn thy ravish'd hair,

Which adds new glory to the fhining sphere!
Not all the treffes that fair head can boast,
Shall draw fuch envy as the Lock you loft.
For after all the murders of your eye,
When, after millions flain, yourself shall die;
When those fair funs fhall fet, as set they must,
And all those treffes fhall be laid in dust,
This Lock, the Muse shall confecrate to fame,
And 'midst the stars inscribe Belinda's name.

145

150

UPON the whole, I hope it will not be thought an exaggerated panegyric to say, that the Rape of the Lock is the best Satire extant; that it contains the trueft and liveliest picture of modern life; and that the subject is of a more elegant nature, as well as more artfully conducted, than any other heroi-comic poem. Pope here appears in the light of a man of gallantry, and of a thorough knowledge of the world; and indeed he had nothing, in his carriage and deportment, of that affected fingularity, which has induced fome men of genius to defpife, and depart from, the eftablished rules of politenefs and civil life. For all poets have not practised the fober and rational advice of Boileau; "Que les vers ne foient pas votre eternel emploi ; Cultivez vos amis, foyez homme de foi.

C'eft peu d'etre agréeable et charmant dans un livre ;
Il fait favoir encore et converfer, et vivre."

L'Art Poetique, chant. iv.

Our nation can boaft alfo, of having produced fome other poems of the burlesque kind, that are excellent; particularly the Splendid Shilling, that admirable copy of the folemn irony of

Cervantes,

Cervantes, who is the father and unrivalled model of the true mock-heroic; and the Mufcipula, written with the purity of Virgil, whom the author fo perfectly understood, and with the pleasantry of Lucian; to which I cannot forbear adding, the Scribleriad of Mr. Cambridge, the Machine Gefticulantes of Addifon, the Hobbinol of Somerville, and the Trivia of Gay; the Battle of the Wigs of Thornton, and the Triumph of Temper of Hayley.

If fome of the most candid among the French critics begin to acknowledge, that they have produced nothing in point of fublimity and majefty equal to the Paradife Loft, we may also venture to affirm, that in point of delicacy, elegance, and fine-turned raillery, on which they have fo much valued themselves, they have produced nothing equal to the Rape of the Lock. What comes neareft to it, is the pleafing and elegant Ver-vert of Greffet, in which the foibles of the Nuns are touched with fo delicate a hand, and such nice ridicule, that it cannot disgust the moft religious prude. I dare not even mention La Pucelle of Voltaire, except to lament that fuch a rich vein of sterling and uncommon wit, fhould be debased by the grofs alloy of fo much abominable obfcenity.

The learned and ingenious Mr. Cambridge has, in the Preface to his Scribleriad, made a remark so new and fo folid, as to deferve examination and attention.

He fays, that in first reading the four celebrated mock-heroic poems, he perceived they had all fome radical defect. That at laft he found, by a diligent perusal of Don Quixote, that propriety was the fundamental excellence of that work. That all the marvellous was reconcileable to probability, as the author leads his hero into that species of abfurdity only, which it was natural for an imagination, heated with the continual reading of books of chivalry, to fall into. That the want of attention to this was the fundamental error of thofe poems. For with what propriety do Churchmen, Phyficians, Beaux, and Belles, or Bookfellers, in the Lutrin, Difpenfary, Rape of the Lock, and Dunciad, addrefs themselves to heathen gods, offer facrifices, confult oracles, or talk the language of Homer, and of the heroes of antiquity?

This acute obfervation bears hard on the conduct of more than one of the heroi-comic poems above-mentioned.

Nothing is here faid of Hudibras; because its unrivalled excellence could not be difcuffed in a note. It is one of the poems that gives peculiar luftre to our nation and language. One circumstance only I will here mention, that the ancients had

no

no notion of fuch fort of Poems. The cruel wars between Pompey and Cæfar, and the execrable profcriptions of Auguftus, were never treated in a burlefque ftyle, as the horrors of the league in France, and the bloody civil war in England, were defcribed in the Satyre Menippée, and in Hudibras. One of the most accurate Greek scholars, of our time and nation, is of opinion, that the Batracomachia is not by Homer, but a burlesque poem in imitation of his manner, by fome ancient poet, who, though he adopted the words and expreffions of the Greek Bard, formed his metre according to the pronunciation of his own country. With equal confidence we may pronounce the Margites to have been a forgery, though there are only four lines of it extant, three of which are quoted by Plato and Ariftotle; but in thefe we have a compound verb, with the augment upon the prepofition (T), which Homer's grammar did not admit. Knight's Analytical Effay on the Greek Alphabet, page 30.

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