Arnauld, cet hérétique ardent à nos détruire,
Par ce ministre adroit tente de le séduire :
Sans doute il aura lu, dans son saint Augustin,1
Q'autrefois saint Louis érigea ce Lutrin.

Il va nous inonder des torrents de sa plume :
Il faut, pour lui répondre, ouvrir plus d'un volume.
Consultons sur ce point quelque auteur signalé ;
Voyons si des lutrins Bauny n'a point parlé.
Etudions enfin, il en est temps encore;

Et pour ce grand projet, tantôt dès que l'Aurore
Rallumera le jour dans l'onde enseveli,

Que chacun prenne en main le moelleux Abéli.
Ce conseil imprévu de nouveau les étonne :
Sur-tout le gros Évrard d'épouvante en frissonne.
Moi! dit-il, qu'à mon âge, écolier tout nouveau,
J'aille pour un un lutrin me troubler le cerveau !
O le plaisant conseil! Non, non, songeons à vivre :
Va maigrir, si tu veux, et sécher sur un livre.
Pour moi, je lis la Bible autant que l'Alcoran :
Je sais ce qu'un fermier nous doit rendre par an ;
Sur quelle vigne à Reims nous avons hypothèque ;
Vingt muids rangés chez moi font ma bibliothèque.
En placant un pupitre on croit nous rabaisser ;
Mon bras seul sans latin saura le renverser.

Que m'importe qu'Arnauld me condamne ou m'approuve?
J'abats ce que me nuit par-tout où je le trouve :

C'est là mon sentiment. A quoi bon tant d'apprêts?
Du reste, dejeunons, messieurs, et buvons frais."

Ce discours que soutient l'embonpoint du visage,
Retablit l'appétit, réchauffe le courage;

Mais le chantre sur-tout en paroit rassuré.
"Oui, dit-il, le pupitre a deja trop duré.

Allons sur sa ruine assurer ma vengeance.

Donnons à ce grand œuvre une heure d'abstinence ;
Et qu'au retour tantôt un ample déjeuner

Long-temps nous tienne à table, et s'unisse au diner." 2

In satiric irony Boileau is probably unequalled; and if the comparison between the two poems turned on this point, the advantage would lie with him. In truth, however, the just comparison is not a moral but an artistic one, viz. which poem is to be preferred as a heroic-comic composition? And here there can be no question as to the vast superiority of Pope. The true 1 This grave confusion of dates by the learned canonist is delightfully characteristic of the irony running through Le Lutrin.

2 Le Lutrin, Chant iv.

genius of mock-heroic lies in travestying the serious epic, in bringing all the leading features of the epic-machinery, lofty incident, character, and style-to the exaltation of a trivial subject. The subject must no doubt have a moral bearing; but the satire ought not to be too apparent. Now in the construction of his poem Boileau, compared with Pope, works with a heavy hand. The abstractions-Discord, Sloth, etc. who serve for his machines, are obvious puppets of the poet; on the other hand, Pope's Sylphs are as life-like and credible as the gods of Homer. The episodes in Le Lutrin are too often invented merely for the sake of introducing parodies from the classics, as in the case of the Barber and his Wife ; but every incident in The Rape of the Lock leads up to the epic climax, and each of them prepares the way for a new and brilliant passage of description. Finally, while the serious conclusion of Le Lutrin is entirely out of keeping with its comic action, nothing can be more exquisite than the propriety with which The Rape of the Lock ends in the stellification of Belinda's hair. Pope showed his supreme judgment in the added touch of morality contributed by Clarissa's speech, which gives a suggestion of seriousness to the poem without destroying its lightness. Everything is of a piece in the structure, and the atmosphere of the whole composition seems to dance and sparkle with the rainbow-colours of the brilliant society it reflects, as in the truly beautiful lines describing the passage of Belinda on the Thames :

But now secure the painted vessel glides,

The sun-beams trembling on the floating tides;

While melting music steals upon the sky,

And softened sounds along the water die ;

Smooth flow the waves, the zephyrs gently play,

Belinda smiled, and all the world was gay:

All but the Sylph -with careful thoughts oppressed,
Th' impending woe sat heavy on his breast.
He summons straight his denizens of air ;
The lucid squadron round the sails repair;
Soft o'er the shrouds aerial whispers breathe,
That seemed but zephyrs to the train beneath.
Some to the sun their insect wings unfold,

Waft on the breeze, or sink in clouds of gold;
Transparent forms too fine for mortal sight,
Their fluid bodies half dissolved in light.
Loose to the wind their airy garments flew,
Thin glittering textures of the filmy dew,
Dipped in the richest tincture of the skies,
Where light disports in ever mingling dyes;
While every beam new transient colour flings,

Colours that change where'er they wave their wings.1

The position of Pope was now so strongly established by the fame of his Pastorals, Windsor Forest, Essay on . Criticism, and Rape of the Lock that he felt himself able to advance from a firm base towards the great goal of his ambition, namely, securing for himself a position of honour and independence by means of literature. Since the year 1708 he had meditated a translation of Homer's Iliad. He had then sent, as a specimen of his capacity for the task, a translation of the episode of Glaucus and Sarpedon to his old friend Sir William Trumbull, who was delighted with it. Lord Lansdown, to whom he mentioned his design in 1713, was no less pleased with the sample of translation and promised him his zealous support in the undertaking. A subscription was accordingly set on foot, in which all parties, Whig and Tory, Protestant and Papist, so eagerly joined that Pope in 1714 had a list of 575 subscribers, among whom were the new King and the Prince of Wales. Fortunately for him the greater part of the names were collected before the convulsion of political and social life in England caused by the death of Queen Anne. Swift, whose attention to Pope's genius seems to have been first attracted by Windsor Forest, was more active than any one in promoting the subscription, thus establishing a lasting claim on the poet's gratitude, and laying the foundation of their long friendship and literary alliance. The subscription list, on the calculation that each volume was delivered and paid for, must have produced about £4000; and £2000 more was obtained as the result of a negotiation with Lintot the publisher, a total sum quite sufficient to satisfy Pope's most brilliant dreams of independence and distinction.

1 The Rape of the Lock, canto xi. 47-68.

The effect of this great work on his character and fortune was striking. His translation was to be contained in six volumes, and, by dint of steady industry, the full task was completed in 1720, the event being celebrated in verse by Gay's Welcome to Mr. Pope on his Return from Greece. Yet the stages on the road to this goal of glory witnessed much suffering in the sensitive and self-conscious spirit, so long nourished on solitary musings in Windsor Forest. All that was irritable and suspicious in his nature was roused in 1715, when Tickell's rival translation of the first book of the Iliad appeared, almost contemporaneously with his own first volume. The rumour that Tickell's translation was in reality the work of Addison doubtless brought into being the first draft of the satire afterwards perfected in the character of Atticus. On all sides inhabitants of Grub Street, some envious of his success, others provoked by his sarcasms, the Dennises, the Oldmixons, the Gildons, and the Burnets, began to shoot at him with their poisoned arrows. His family left the retirement of the Forest and settled at Chiswick, where the poet, with his weak digestion and his perpetual headaches, was a more easy prey to the whirl and distraction of London society. Women helped to torture his imagination and self-love. The mocking wit of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, the haughty temper of Teresa Blount, the more tender sentiment excited by her sister Martha, all acted dramatically on his fancy, and combined to produce in him that tone of romantic, half-artificial passion and suffering which makes itself audible, through the mask of fiction, in the Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady, and the Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard.

After the completion of the Translation of the Iliad, a more sordid tendency towards the mere increase of fortune seems to have mingled with his nobler efforts. A readiness to undertake "hack-work" is apparent, alike. in his edition of Shakespeare and in the mystification of the public over the translation of the Odyssey, for which he himself obtained nearly £4000. Such transactions exposed him to fresh libels from those who were moved

by envy of his unprecedented literary success. Theobald severely criticised his Shakespeare; anonymous complaints constantly appeared in the journals about the mean appearance of the Odyssey and Pope's supposed shabby treatment of his co-translators, Fenton and Broome. He was also charged with want of loyalty in consequence of a passage in the works of Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, which he had consented to edit out of friendship, and had probably read so perfunctorily as not to notice certain words in favour of the Pretender.

All these experiences changed the current of Pope's ambition, and changed it consciously to himself. When in later years he wrote his autobiographical Epistle to Arbuthnot, he looked, in retrospect, on the romantic period of his poetical history, and presented the public with a portrait of his old self, which he doubtless conceived to be true:

Soft were my numbers; who could take offence,
While pure description held the place of sense?
Like gentle Fanny's was my flowery theme,

A painted mistress or a purling stream.
Yet then did Gildon draw his venal quill;

I wished the man a dinner, and sate still.

Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret ;

I never answered-I was not in debt.

If want provoked, or madness made them print,
I waged no war with Bedlam or the Mint.

Now, however, in the midst of libels and accusations, he resolved to take up arms against his enemies; hence the success with which fortune had crowned his efforts may be said in a sense to have been the cause of his Wars with the Dunces. But he was determined that the public. should regard him less as the avenger of his own personal injuries than as a moral champion, destined by Providence to rid society of the plague of envious scribblers by which it was infested. And to do this in an artistic fashion was no easy task.

Swift was the inspirer of The Dunciad. In 1726 the Dean of St. Patrick's had come over from Dublin, and had been for some time Pope's guest at Twickenham.