whom anyone would choose as the companion of his best hours. There is no inspiration in it, no trumpet-call, but for pure entertainment it is unmatched. There are two kinds of genius. The first and highest may be said to speak out of the eternal to the present, and must compel its age to understand it; the second understands its age, and tells it what it wishes to be told. Let us find strength and inspiration in the one, amusement and instruction in the other, and be honestly thankful for both.-James Russell Lowell. In two directions, in that of condensing and pointing his meaning, and in that of drawing the utmost harmony of sound out of the couplet, Pope carried versification far beyond the point at which it was when he took it up. Because, after Pope, his trick of versification became common property, we are apt to overlook the merit of the first invention. But epigrammatic force and musical flow are not the sole elements of Pope's reputation. The matter which he worked up into his verse has a permanent value, and is indeed one of the most precious heirlooms which the eighteenth century has bequeathed us. And here we must distinguish between Pope when he attempts general themes, and Pope when he draws that which he knew-the social life of his own day. When in the "Pastorals" he writes of natural beauty, in the "Essay on Criticism" he lays down the rules of writing, in the "Essay on Man " he versifies Leibnitzian optimism, he does not rise above the herd of eighteenth-century writers, except in so far as his skill of language is more accomplished than theirs. It is where he comes to describe the one thing which he knew and about which he felt sympathy and antipathy-the court and town of his time, in the Moral Essays," and the "Satires" and "Epistles," that Pope found the proper material on which to lay out his elaborate workmanship. Where he moralizes or deduces general principles, he is superficial, second-hand, and one-sided as the veriest scribbler. Wherever he recedes from what was immediately close to him, the manners, passions, prejudices, sentiments of his own day, Pope has only such merit-little 66 enough-as wit divorced from truth can have. He is at his best only where the delicacies and subtle felicities of his diction are employed to embody some transient phase of contemporary feeling. The complex web of society, with its indefinable shades, its minute personal affinities and repulsions, is the world in which Pope lived and moved, and which he has drawn in a few vivid lines, with a keenness and intensity with which there is nothing in our literature that can compare. The "Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot," or Prologue to the Satires" may be singled out as Pope's most characteristic piece. It contains the two famous portraits-that of Lord Hervey (Sporus) and that of Addison (Atticus). The libel, for such it is, on Lord Hervey cannot be excused even by the rancor of political party. This accomplished nobleman was Vice-Chamberlain in the court of George II., a position easy enough to a mere fribble, but which was sure to mark out a man of parts and wit such as Lord Hervey, as the object of hatred to the Tory and Jacobite opposition. Even as art, Pope must be considered in this sketch to have failed from overcharging his canvas with odious and disgusting images. Yet "it is impossible not to admire, however we may condemn, the art by which acknowledged wit, beauty and gentle manners, the Queen's favor, and even a valetudinary diet are travestied into the most odious defects and offenses" (Croker). The satire on Addison, in a more refined style, but not less unjust in fact, had been written twenty years before, during Addison's lifetime. Pope regarded the piece with the affection with which an author regards the product of much time and labor; and he had meditated each stab in this finished lampoon for years. Having printed it separately in 1727, he now finally adapted it into this "Prologue to the Satires," only suppressing the real name, but not concealing it under the thin disguise of "Atticus." The art of these malignant lines is much greater than that of those on Lord Hervey.-Mark Pattison. THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. INTRODUCTION.-A quarrel had arisen between the family of Miss Arabella Fermor and that of Lord Petre "on the trifling occasion of his having cut off a lock of her hair." One of their and of Pope's friends, a Mr. Caryl, laid the matter before the poet, that his wit might laugh away the clouds that had gathered. The result was a poem of two cantos, describing in a mock-heroic manner the circumstances of the robbery and the battle which ensued. This was published in a Miscellany of Bernard Lintot's in 1711. 1 "that "It was received so well," says Pope, in his note to the poem, he [the author] made it more considerable the next year by the addition of the machinery of the Sylphs, and extended it to five cantos." The game at Ombre was also inserted, as also the picture of the Cave of Spleen. The piece grew, in fact, from an amusing sketch into an epic on a small scale. Pope's models for this work were Tassoni's Rage of the Bucket, and Boileau's Lectern; but indeed there is no work of his that belongs more truly to his age than this one. The exquisite raillery with which the poem perpetually sparkles, the familiarity which it exhibits with the epics of antiquity, and the use to which that familiarity is turned, the finished ease of its style, all at once connect it with the age which produced it. is, "pure wit," in its earlier form. they do in some degree impair its prive it of that happy title. Addison called it merum sal, that Certainly the additions made, if unity, must not be allowed to de The spirit of that age found its most complete embodiment in burlesque poetry. It was then in perfect accordance with that spirit that Pcpe developed and expanded his jeu d'esprit into its fuller form. It was thought that supernatural agents were essential to an epic poem. Pope was particularly happy in his selection of such beings. He made use, with certain modifications, of the spiritual system of the Rosicrucians, a sect well known throughout Western Europe in the seventeenth century. This, too, he used with the characteristic light mockery of his age. The idea of the game at Ombre was suggested by Vida's Scacchia Ludus. Vida was a Latin-writing poet who flourished under the smile of Leo X. Pope's age, in the somewhat indiscriminate ardor of its Ro 5 man classicism, embraced even the Latin poets of the Renaissance. The game Ombre was introduced into England about the middle of the seventeenth century from Spain, as its name and the names of its cards show. In Queen Anne's time it was the favorite ladies' game, as Piquet was the gentlemen's, Whist or Whisk that of clergymen and country squires. When it fell into disuse Quadrilie, which was a species of it, "obtained vogue, which It maintained till Whisk was introduced, which now," says Barrington, writing in 1787 (quoted in Chatto's Facts and Speculations on the Origin and History of Playing Cards), "prevails not only in England, but in most of the civilized parts of Europe." CANTO I. WHAT dire offence from am'rous causes springs, 5 Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel A well-bred lord t' assault a gentle belle? O say what stranger cause, yet unexplor'd, And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty rage? 1. Comp. beginning of Pope's translation of the Iliad. 3. This verse, etc. See Introduction. 4. [What is the force of ev'n here? What part of speech is it?] IC 15 6. [Would there be any difference in the sense if he had written in spires and apa 8. Belle. (1. 23, etc.) is almost fallen out of use. 13. Sol. The tendency to classical names and titles was beginning to be excessive in the early part of the eighteenth century. Phoebus, Titan, Sol, were superseding the simple sun; Chloe, Mary, etc. Cowper may be said to have commenced for us that deliverance from such classicism which Wordsworth completed. 14. Must are ordained. See Lycidas, 38. English Classics No. 46. 15. Lap-dogs. There are many references in our literature to these pets of the ladies, from Chaucer's Prologue downwards. [What is the force of the here?! And sleepless lovers, just at twelve awake; Thrice rung the bell, the slipper knock'd the ground, Her guardian sylph prolong'd the balmy rest. 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- Or virgins visited by angel pow'rs, 20 30 35 With golden crowns and wreaths of heav'nly flow'rs- 16. [What part of speech is just here? How can he say they awake, if they were sleepless ?] 17. It would seem that three rings of the bell with a tap on the floor were the signal that the sleeper had arisen. Rung. See note on blow, Hymn Nativity, 130. English Classics No. 46. 18. The watch was what we should call "a repeater." 19. Prest, In the preceding line the past participle is spelt pressed. 20. Sylph. See Introduction. 22. Comp. It Penseroso, 147. English Classics No. 2. 23. A Birth-night beau, i. e., a fine gentleman, such as were to be seen at the state ball given on the anniversary of the royal birthday. 27. He is parodying Paradise Lost, v. 35, et seq. Care. See note on sorrow, in Lycidas, 166. 30. The nurse, etc., the priest, etc. This conjunction is not insignifi cant of the age. [What is the force of the here?] 31. Comp. Paradise Lost, i. 781-8 [What is the force of by here?] 36. Narrow is used here anticipatingly. [What is the force of bound here ?1 37. He does not shrink from parodying the New Testament. See S. Matthews Gospel, xi. 25. |