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THE LOCK' MADE INTO A CONSTELLATION.

Thrice from my trembling hand the patch-box fell;
The tottering china shook without a wind.'

Still worse:

'Nay, Poll sat mute, and Shock was most unkind!'

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The Lock itself is made a constellation with the hairs of Berenice.

The sylphs behold it kindling as it flies,

And pleas'd, pursue its progress through the skies.'

Finally, after it becomes a constellation, these are its

uses:

This the beau monde shall from the Mall survey,
And hail with music its propitious ray;

This the blest lover shall for Venus take,

And send up vows from Rosamonda's lake;

This Partridge soon shall view in cloudless skies,
When next he looks through Galileo's eyes.
And hence the egregious wizard shall foredoom
The fate of Louis, and the fall of Rome.'

The offended Arabella was married shortly afterwards; and Pope's letters to her on that occasion are esteemed a model of courtesy and delicate adulation. But nothing can be more elegant, as a tribute to the charms on which Arabella Fermor had set so much store, than the concluding lines of the Rape of the Lock.'

'Not all the tresses that fair head can boast
Shall draw such envy as the lock you lost;
For, after all the murders of your eye,
When, after millions slain, yourself shall die;
When those fair suns shall set, as set they must,
And all those tresses shall be laid in dust;
This lock the Muse shall consecrate to fame,
And 'midst the stars inscribe Belinda's name.'

VOL. II.

Q

CHAPTER IX.

THE LETTER-WRITERS OF SOCIETY: LORD CHESTERFIELD; HIS LETTERS.-THOSE OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU; OF MRS. ELIZABETH MONTAGU; OF HORACE WALPOLE.-SAMUEL RICHARDSON; MAKES LETTERS THE VEHICLE OF FICTION; HIS TEA TABLE; HIS PAMELA, CLARISSA, AND SIR CHARLES GRANDISON. RICHARDSON'S DEATH.

FIELDING, SMOLLETT, AND STERNE.-THEIR

CHARACTERS AND WORKS.

LETTERS CONFINED TO THE HIGHER CLASSES. 229

CHAPTER IX.

THE age succeeding that of the Augustan period may be distinguished as that of the 'Letter-writers of Society.' Literature, properly so styled, languished; the court was all in all; and the court was not literary. Poetry fled the region of those Hanoverian princes who could not appreciate her charms; Art, the progress of which has been so often identified with that of poetry in our annals, was almost suppressed; and the larger ambition of a literary field being thus curbed, the most energetic spirits devoted themselves to correspondence. Every work of instruction, and many of amusement, took the form of letters. Now letters were the refined occupation of the rich only. The poor, if even they could write, never afforded the extravagance and luxury of doing so the middle-classes regarded a letter as a severe labour; and, when completed, how was it to be transmitted? In some fortunate towns the post went out twice a week; in the generality of country places only once. All epistles of pressing importance were obliged to be sent by couriers, in royal fashion; and men were always attached to the great houses of England to render that service. A letter, therefore, was written with care, and contained every possible description of intelligence, from a recipe for gooseberry-wine, to the birth or death of an heir apparent.

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