Thus on Mæander's flow'ry margin lies Th' expiring Swan, and as he sings he dies. When bold Sir Plume had drawn Clarissa down, Now Jove suspends his golden scales in air, Now meet thy fate, incens'd Belinda cry'd, "Boast not my fall" (he cry'd) "insulting foe! Thou by some other shalt be laid as low, Roar'd for the handkerchief that caus'd his pain. 1 Since all things lost] Vid. Ariosto. Canto xxxiv. P. 70 80 90 100 IIO There Hero's wits are kept in pond'rous vases, But trust the Muse-she saw it upward rise, The heav'ns bespangling with dishevell'd light. 120 130 And pleas'd pursue its progress thro' the skies. This the Beau monde shall from the Mall survey1, 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 thro' Galileo's eyes; And hence th' egregious wizard shall 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 shining sphere! Not all the tresses that fair head can boast, Shall draw such envy as the Lock you lost. [The evening was the time for walking in the Mall, on the north side of St James' Park.] 2 This Partridge soon] John Partridge was a ridiculous Star-gazer, who in his Almanacks every year never fail'd to predict the downfall of the Pope, and the King of France, then at war 150 with the English. P. [Partridge was the butt of the entire côterie of Swift's friends, since the publication of Swift's immortal prediction of the prophet's own death, put forth under the name of Bickerstaff in 1707.] xi. And tho' it be a two-foot Trout, 'Tis with a single hair pull'd out.' Warburton. Semper honos, nomenque tuum laudesque manebunt.' Virg. Warburton [Ecl. v. 76, 8.j Ver. 177. 'Ille quoque aversus mons est, etc. Quid faciant crines, cum ferro talia cedant?' Ver. 1. Virg. Æn. iv. [v. 1.] Ver. 51. Homer's Tripod walks;] See Hom. Iliad xviii. of Vulcan's walking Tripods. Warburton. Ver. 133. But by this Lock,] In allusion to Achilles's oath in Homer, Il. i. P. CANTO V. Ver. 35. So spoke the Dame.] It is a verse Ver. 45. The pow'rs gave ear.] Virg. Æn. frequently repeated in Homer after any speech, P. [vv. 794-5.] Ver. 53. 'So spoke-and all the Heroes applauded.' P. Triumphant Umbriel] Minerva in like manner, during the battle of Ulysses with the Suitors in Odyss. perches on a beam of the roof to behold it. P. Ver. 64. Those eyes are made so killing.] The words of a Song in the Opera of Camilla. P. Ver. 65. Thus on Mæander's flow'ry mar gin lies] 'Sic ubi fata vocant, udis abjectus in herbis, Ov. Ep. P. [Heroid. Ep. vii. v. 2.] xii. P. Ver. 83. The Gnomes direct,] These two lines added for the above reason. P. Ver. 89. The same, his ancient personage to deck,] In imitation of the progress of Agamemnon's sceptre in Homer, 77. ii. P. Ver. 128. 'Flammiferumque trahens spatioso limite crinem Ovid. P. [Metam. lib. xv. vv. 849-50.] Dum juga montis aper, fluvios dum piscis ama- Stella micat.' bit, ELEGY TO THE MEMORY OF AN UNFORTUNATE LADY1 [This Elegy was first published in 1717, but doubtless written earlier. After endless enquiries and conjectures as to the 'Unfortunate Lady' had failed in fixing her identity, it was pointed out that in certain letters of Pope, described by him in the table of contents as relating to an Unfortunate Lady,' we are introduced to a Mrs W. who had endured a series of hardships and misfortunes. This Mrs W. has been proved to have been a Mrs Weston (by birth a Miss Gage, the sister of the first Viscount Gage and of the 'modest Gage' of Moral Essays, Ep. III. v. 128), who was soon after her marriage separated from her husband. Her case was warmly taken up by Pope, by whose aid the quarrel was adjusted, though with small thanks to him for interposing. 'Buckingham's lines,' says Carruthers, who discusses the question at length in his Life of Pope, Ch. II., suggested the outline of the picture, Mrs Weston's misfortunes and the poet's admiration of her gave it life and warmth, and imagination did the rest. But even if the situation upon which the poem is based were real instead of fictitious, Dr Johnson's accusation against it as attempting a defence of suicide would remain unwarranted. In execution this elegy ranks with Pope's most consummate efforts, in pathetic power it stands almost alone among his works.] WHAT beck'ning ghost, along the moon-light shade 'Tis she!-but why that bleeding bosom gor'd, Oh ever beauteous, ever friendly! tell, Is it, in heav'n, a crime to love too well? To act a Lover's or a Roman's part? Why bade ye else, ye Pow'rs! her soul aspire 1 See the Duke of Buckingham's verses to a Lady designing to retire into a Monastery compared with Mr Pope's Letters to several Ladies, p. 206. She seems to be the same person whose unfortunate death is the subject of this poem. P. If this note was written by Pope (of which we have strong doubts, it must have been written purely for mystification and deception. The 10 Duke's verses were first published in Tonson's Miscellany for 1709, when he was in his sixtieth year and married to his third wife! They were, most likely, a much earlier production, and this renders it in the highest degree improbable that the same lady should have also been commemorated by Pope, who was thirty-seven years younger than his friend. Carruthers. Dim lights of life, that burn a length of years And sep'rate from their kindred dregs below; But thou, false guardian of a charge too good, Thus shall your wives, and thus your children fall; Lo these were they, whose souls the Furies steel'd, The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day! So perish all, whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow Thy fate unpity'd, and thy rites unpaid? To midnight dances, and the public show? 20 30 40 50 бо 1[Compare Byron's Childe Harold, canto iv. stanza cii.] 2 [It has been fairly asked whether the poet is not in these lines guilty of an anticlimax.] |