amusing poem to laugh them out of it': this Pope undertook to do, and The Rape of the Lock was the result.

'The first sketch of this poem was written in less than a fortnight in 1711, in two cantos, and so printed in a Miscellany, without the name of the author. The machines were not inserted till a year after, when he published it and annexed the dedication." 1

The above are Pope's own words, written in 1736. The Miscellany to which he refers was a volume of Miscellaneous Poems by various writers published by Lintot in May, 1712. The poem was probably written originally in July, 1711, for there seems to be little doubt that Pope was referring to it when he wrote to Caryll on August 2 in that year: 'I have a little poetical present to make you, which I dare not trust by the post, and could be glad you would please to direct me a way to send it to you; for I am a little apprehensive of putting it into Lewis's [hands], who is too much a bookseller

1 In its first form, the poem consisted of two cantos, of 142 and 192 lines respectively. The first 18 lines of the first canto were substantially the same as in the enlarged version which was published a year later, and is the poem as we know it; then came what are now the first 46 lines of the second canto; then, the description of Hampton Court, much the same as at the beginning of what is now the third canto, as far as line 24; then, the description of the coffee-drinking and the incident which gave rise to the poem, very much as in the subsequent version, without the machinery' of the Sylphs. The first 10 lines of canto ii were almost the same as the opening lines of what is now the fourth canto; then came what is now line 94, The fierce Thalestris,' &c.; and the remainder is the same as in the later version, except for Clarissa's speech (canto v. 7-36), and the allusions to the Sylphs and Gnomes. It will thus be seen that, in effect, the portions added by Pope for the enlarged version consist of the machinery' of the Sylphs and Gnomes, and the incidents connected with it; the account of Belinda's toilette; the short voyage on the Thames; the game of Ombre; and the pedigree of the bodkin. The speech of Clarissa (canto v. 7-36) was added for the first time in the collected edition of Pope's works published in 1717.

to be trusted with rhyme or reputation.' (The Lewis mentioned was W. Lewis, a bookseller of Russell Street, Covent Garden, who had published Pope's Essay on Criticism earlier in the same year.) Part of the leaf at the bottom of the sheet is worn away, so that we do not know what followed after the word 'reputation'; but that it was The Rape of the Lock in its original form is more than probable, for in the following May (1712) Pope says, in another letter to Caryll: 'But where hangs the Lock now? Though I know that, rather than draw any just reflection upon yourself of the least shadow of ill-nature, you would freely have suppressed one of the best of poems. I hear no more of it: will it come out in Lintot's Miscellany or not? I wrote to Lord Petre on the subject of the Lock some time since, but have as yet had no answer.'

The date assigned by Pope himself to the last-mentioned letter is May 23, 1712. Lintot's Miscellany was certainly published at the latest within two days from that date, for Mr. Edward Bedingfield wrote acknowledging the receipt of copies to be given to Lord Petre and to Arabella Fermor on May 26, and on May 28 Pope himself writes again to Caryll, I hope Lewis has conveyed you by this time The Rape of the Lock, with what other things of mine are in Lintot's collection.... Mr. Bedingfield... has done me the favour to send some books of the Rape to my Lord Petre and Mrs. Fermor.' It would seem to be fairly clear that Pope was not then personally acquainted with either Miss Fermor or with Lord Petre, and that Warburton, who was what we should nowadays call Pope's 'literary executor', was mistaken in his statement that he was acquainted with the lady and that she took it so well as to give about copies of it'. Warburton goes on to point

to the motto, adapted from an epigram of Martial,1 which Pope had prefixed to the poem, as implying that it was written or published at the lady's request'. But Elwin shows that this was not so. It was not written at her request, for she could not have suggested to any one to write a poem to laugh her out of her own very natural resentment against Lord Petre, and we have moreover Pope's own words (canto i. 3) that this verse' was due to Caryll'. Neither can it have been published at her request; for, in his introductory letter to Miss Fermor prefixed to the enlarged version, Pope, speaking of the first edition, says, 'an imperfect copy having been offered to a bookseller, you had the good nature for my sake to consent to the publication of one more correct.' There is, however, a piece of evidence still stronger, contained in the poem itself. In canto iv. 169, Pope speaks of Arabella's hair as 'sable ringlets'. Now, there are three more or less authenticated portraits of the lady in existence (to which we shall refer presently), and in each of them the long curling locks are shown, and in all three she has fair auburn hair. This would seem to prove that Pope was not personally acquainted, at all events, with Miss Fermor, when The Rape of the Lock was originally written.

With regard to the motto from Martial, Pope substituted for this in the enlarged edition (1714) part of a line from Ovid's Metamorphoses (see note to canto iii. 122) which could convey no such implication as that suggested by Warburton: though, it is true, the original motto was replaced when the poem was reprinted in the 'Collected Works' (1717).

1 Mr. Courthope, in his Life of Pope (p. 93), says that Martial's epigram also suggested the name of the heroine; but the epigram (xii. 84) is addressed to one Polytimus.

And now it is time to give some account of the various people above mentioned; and first of the poet himself.

1. Alexander Pope was a Roman Catholic, as were all the persons with whom we shall be concerned. There is authority for supposing that his grandfather was a clergyman of the Church of England, the Rev. Alexander Pope, Rector of Thruxton in Hampshire. His son (also called Alexander), the father of the poet, was placed by his father in a merchant's house of business at Lisbon, and there became a Roman Catholic. When he was over forty years of age, he married, for his second wife, Edith Turner, the daughter of a Yorkshire gentleman; his first wife, 'Magdelen,' having died in 1679, in Broad Street in the city of London, where he was in business as a linendraper. After his second marriage he moved into Lombard Street, and there the poet was born on May 21, 1688.

On the authority of the poet's half-sister, Mrs. Rackett, we are told of an accident that happened to her brother when he was about three years old. He was filling a little cart with stones, a cow struck at him, carried off his hat and feather with her horns, and flung him down on the heap of stones he had been playing with. In the fall he cut himself against one of them, in his neck, near the throat.'

In those days Roman Catholics had some difficulty in getting their sons educated in England, for they were forbidden by law to keep a school, and the two Universities were of course closed to them. Young Pope's first teacher seems to have been an old aunt', who taught him to read, and he taught himself to write by copying printed books.

When he was about eight years old he was entrusted to the care of the family priest, a Jesuit of the name of Banister, who began to teach him Latin and Greek simultaneously, after the fashion of the time. His first school, according to the most recent authority,1 seems to have been that set up by Thomas Deane in Marylebone, and afterwards removed to Hyde Park Corner. This Thomas Deane, alias Thomas Franks, S.J., alias Father Francis, had been deprived of his fellowship at University College, Oxford, in February, 1688, and coming to London had been imprisoned on account of his religion, and in 1691 had (under the above aliases) stood in the pillory at Charing Cross. The school eventually collapsed, and poor Deane fell upon evil times. He was confined in the Fleet prison for debt in 1727, when his old pupil, Pope, came forward to help him, and gave him a small pension which was continued till his death in 1735. It was while at Deane's school that young Pope composed a little tragedy made up of speeches out of Ogilby's translation of Homer and lines written by himself. The play was acted by Pope and his schoolfellows, and Mr. Deane's gardener was 'pressed' to perform the part of Ajax. According to the authority above referred to, it was here, too, that the lad composed a satire upon his master, for which he was flogged, and this led to his being removed from the school and sent to Twyford near Winchester. This last-named school had originally been founded at Silksteed by the Rev. Augustine Taylor, and was removed to Twyford at his death in 1692. It was the

2

Mrs. Bryan Stapleton, whose account of Pope's schooldays is considerably at variance with that given in Mr. Courthope's Life, and in Spence's Anecdotes and other authorities. (See her History of the PostReformation Catholic Missions in Oxfordshire. London, 1906.)

According to Pope's half-sister, Mrs. Rackett, this occurred at Twyford and not at Mr. Deane's school.