He has a few double rhymes; and always, I think, unsuccessfully, except once in the Rape of the Lock.

Expletives he very early ejected from his verses; but he now and then admits an epithet rather commodious than important. Each of the first six lines of the Iliad might lose two syllables with very little diminution of the meaning; and sometimes, after all his art and labour, one verse seems to be made for the sake of another. In his latter productions the diction is sometimes vitiated by French idioms, with which Bolingbroke had perhaps infected him.

I have been told that the couplet by which he declared his own ear to be most gratified was this:

Lo, where Mæotis sleeps, and hardly flows

The freezing Tanais through a waste of snows.

But the reason of this preference I cannot discover.

It is remarked by Watts, that there is scarcely a happy combination of words, or a phrase poetically elegant in the English language, which Pope has not inserted into his version of Homer. How he obtained possession of so many beauties of speech, it were desirable to know. That he gleaned from authors, obscure as well as eminent, what he thought brilliant or useful, and preserved it all in a regular collection, is not unlikely. When, in his last years, Hall's satires were shewn him, he wished that he had

seen them sooner.

New sentiments and new images others may produce; but to at tempt any farther improvement of versification will be dangerous. Art and diligence have now done their best, and what shall be added will be the effort of tedious toil and needless curiosity.

After all this, it is surely superfluous to answer the question that has once been asked, Whether Pope was a poet? otherwise than by asking in return, If Pope be not a poet, where is poetry to be found? To circumscribe poetry by a definition will only shew the narrowness of the definer, though a definition which shall exclude Pope will not easily be made. Let us look round upon the present time, and back upon the past; Let us inquire to whom the voice of mankind has decreed the wreath of poetry; let their productions be examined, and their claims stated, and the pretentions of Pope will be no more disputed. Had he given the world only his version, the name of poet must have been allowed him: if the writer of the Iliad, were to class his successors, he would assign a very high place to his translator, without requiring any other evidence of genius.

THE

RAPE OF THE LOCK.

A HEROI-COMIC POEM.

CANTO I.

WHAT dire offence from amorous causes springs,
What mighty contests rise from trivial things,
I sing. 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.

Say what strange motive, goddess! could compel
A well-bred lord to assault a gentle belle?
O, say what stranger cause, yet unexplored,
Could make a gentle belle reject a lord?
In tasks so bold can little men engage?
And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty rage?

Sol through white curtains shot a timorous ray,
And oped those eyes that must eclipse the day:
Now lap-dogs give themselves the rousing shake,
And sleepless lovers, just at twelve awake;
Thrice rung the bell, the slipper knock'd the ground
And the press'd watch returned a silver sound.
Belinda still her downy pillow press'd,

Her guardian sylph prolong'd the balmy rest;
'Twas he had summon'd to her silent bed
The morning-dream that hover'd o'er her head;
A youth more glittering than a birth-night beau,
That ev'n in slumber caused 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 touched thy infant thought,
Of all the nurse and all the priest have taught;
Of airy elves by moonlight shadows seen,
The silver token, and the circled green,

Or virgins visited by angel-powers

With golden crowns and wreaths of heavenly flowers;
Hear and believe; thy 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 revealed;
What though no credit doubting wits may give;
The fair and innocent shall still believe:
Know then, unnumber'd spirits round thee fiy,
The light militia of the lower sky;

These, though 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 enclosed in woman's beauteous mould;
Thence, by a soft transition, we repair
From earthly vehicles to these of air.

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

Succeeding vanities she still regards,

And though she plays no more, o'erlooks the cards.
Her joy in gilded chariots, when alive,
And love of ombre, after death survive.
For when the fair in all their pride expire,
To their first elements their souls retire;
The sprites of fiery termagants in flame
Mount up, and take a salamander's name.
Soft yielding minds to water glide away,
And sip, with nymphs, their elemental tea.
The graver prude sinks downward to a gnome,
In search of mischief still on earth to roam.
The light coquettes in sylphs aloft repair,
And sport and flutter in the fields of air.

'Know farther yet; whoever fair and chaste
Rejects mankind, is by some sylph embraced:
For spirits, freed from mortal laws, with ease
Assume what sexes and what shapes they please.
What guards the purity of melting maids,
In courtly balls, and midnight masquerades,
Safe from the treacherous friend, the daring spark,
The glance by day, the whisper in the dark,
When kind occasion prompts their warm desires,
When music softens, and when dancing fires?
"Tis but their sylph, the wise celestials know,
Though honour the word with men below.

'Some nymphs there are, too conscious of their face, For life predestined to the gnomes' embrace.

These swell their prospects and exalt their pride,
When offers are disdain'd and love denied:

Then gay ideas crowd the vacant brain,

While peers, and dukes, and all their sweeping train,
And garters, stars, and coronets appear,

And in soft sounds, 'your grace' salutes their ear.
'Tis these that early taint the female soul,
Instruct the eyes of young coquettes to roll,
Teach infant cheeks a hidden blush to know,
And little hearts to flutter at a beau.

Oft, when the world imagine women stray,
The sylphs through mystic mazes guide their way,
Through all the giddy circle they pursue,
And old impertinence expel by new.

What tender maid but must a victim fall

To one man's treat, but for another's ball?

When Florio speaks, what virgin could withstand,
If gentle Damon did not squeeze her hand?

With varying vanities, from every part,

They shift the moving toyshop of their heart; [strive,
Where wigs with wigs, with sword knots sword knots
Beaux banish beaux, and coaches coaches drive.
This erring mortals levity may call:

O, blind to truth! the sylphs contrive it all.

6

Of these am I, who thy protection claim,

A watchful sprite, and Ariel is my name.
Late, as I ranged the crystal wilds of air,
In the clear mirror of thy ruling star
I saw, alas! some dread event impend
Ere to the main this morning sun descend,
But Heaven reveals not what, or how, or where:
Warn'd by the sylph, O pious maid, beware!
This to disclose is all thy guardian can:

Beware of all, but most beware of man!

He said; when Shock, who thought she slept too long, Leap'd up, and waked his mistress with his tongue; 'Twas then, Belinda, if report say true,

Thy eyes first open'd on a billet-doux:

Wounds, charms, and ardors were no sooner read,
But all the vision vanish'd from thy head.

And now, unveil'd, the toilet stands display'd

Each silver vase in mystic order laid.
First, robed in white, the nymph intent adores,
With head uncover'd, the cosmetic powers.
A heavenly image in the glass appears,
To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears;
The inferior priestess, at her altar's side,
Trembling begins the sacred rites of pride.
Unnumber'd treasures ope at once, and here
The various offerings of the world appear;
From each she nicely culls with curious toil,
And decks the goddess with the glittering spoil.