450

If faith itself has different dresses worn,
What wonder modes in wit should take their turn?
Oft, leaving what is natural and fit,
The current folly proves the ready wit;
And authors think their reputation safe,
Which lives as long as fools are pleased to laugh.
Some, valuing those of their own side or mind,
Still make themselves the measure of mankind:
Fondly we think we honour merit then,
When we but praise ourselves in other men.
Parties in wit attend on those of state,
And public faction doubles private hate.
Pride, malice, folly, against Dryden rose,
In various shapes of parsons, critics, beaux :

Now they who reach Parnassus' lofty crown,
Employ their pains to spurn some others down;
And while self-love each jealous writer rules,
Contending wits become the sport of fools:
But still the worst with most regret commend,
For each ill author is as bad a friend.

To what base ends, and by what abject ways,
Are mortals urged through sacred lust of praise!
Ah, ne'er so dire a thirst of glory boast,

Nor in the critic let the man be lost.

Good nature and good sense must ever join;

To err, is human; to forgive, divine.

But if in noble minds some dregs remain, Not yet purged off, of spleen and sour disdain;

But sense survived, when merry jests were past; 460 Discharge that rage on more provoking crimes, For rising merit will buoy up at last.

Might he return and bless once more our eyes,

New Blackmores and new Milbourns must arise;
Nay, should great Homer lift his awful head,
Zoilus again would start up from the dead.
Envy will merit, as its shade, pursue;

But, like a shadow, proves the substance true :
For envied wit, like Sol eclipsed, makes known

The opposing body's grossness, not its own.

Nor fear a dearth in these flagitious times.
No pardon vile obscenity should find,

Though wit and art conspire to move your mind;
But dulness with obscenity must prove

As shameful sure as impotence in love.

In the fat age of pleasure, wealth, and ease,

520

530

Sprang the rank weed, and thrived with large increase:
When love was all an easy monarch's care;
Seldom at council, never in a war:

When first that sun too powerful beams displays, 470 Jilts rul'd the state, and statesmen farces writ:

It draws up vapours which obscure its rays;
But e'en those clouds at last adorn its way,
Reflect new glories, and augment the day.
Be thou the first true merit to befriend;
His praise is lost who stays till all commend.
Short is the date, alas! of modern rhymes,
And 'tis but just to let them live betimes.
No longer now that golden age appears,
When patriarch-wits survived a thousand years:
Now length of fame (our second life) is lost,
And bare threescore is all e'en that can boast;
Our sons their fathers' failing language see,
And such as Chancer is, shall Dryden be.
So when the faithful pencil has design'd
Some bright idea of the master's mind,
Where a new world leaps out at his command,
And ready nature waits upon his hand;
When the ripe colours soften and unite,
And sweetly melt into just shade and light;

480

540

Nay, wits had pensions, and young lords had wit:
The fair sat panting at a courtier's play,
And not a mask went unimproved away;
The modest fan was lifted up no more,
And virgins smiled at what they blush'd before.
The following licence of a foreign reign,
Did all the dregs of bold Socinus drain;
Then unbelieving priests reform'd the nation,
And taught more pleasant methods of salvation;
Where Heaven's free subjects might their rights dis-

pute,

Lest God himself should seem too absolute;
Pulpits their sacred satire learn'd to spare,
And vice admired to find a flatterer there!
Encouraged thus, wit's Titans braved the skies,
And the press groan'd with licensed blasphemies
These monsters, critics! with your darts engage,
Here point your thunder, and exhaust your rage!
Yet shun their fault, who scandalously nice

When mellowing years their full perfection give, 490 Will needs mistake an author into vice;

And each bold figure just begins to live;
The treacherons colours the fair art betray,
And all the bright creation fades away!

Unhappy wit, like most mistaken things,
Atones not for that envy which it brings;
In youth alone its empty praise we boast,
But soon the short-lived vanity is lost;
Like some fair flower the early spring supplies,
That gaily blooms, but e'en in blooming dies.
What is this wit, which must our cares employ? 500
The owner's wife that other men enjoy;
Then most our trouble still when most admired,
And still the more we give, the more required:
Whose fame with pains we guard, but lose with ease,
Sure some to vex, but never all to please;
"Tis what the vicious fear, the virtuous shun;
By fools 'tis hated, and by knaves undone!
If wit so much from ignorance undergo,
Ah, let not learning too commence its foc!
Of old, those met rewards who could excel,
And such were praised who but endeavour'd well;
Though triumphs were to generals only due,
Crowns were reserved to grace the soldiers too.

All seems infected, that the infected spy,
As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.

PART III.

550

Rules for the conduct of manners in a critic. 1. Can-
dour, ver. 563. Modesty, ver. 566. Good-breeding,
ver 572. Sincerity and freedom of advice, ver 578.
2. When one's counsel is to be restrained, ver. 584.
Character of an incorrigible poet, ver. 400; and of an
impertinent critic, ver 610, &c. Character of a good
critic, ver. 629. The history of criticism, and charac-
ters of the best critics: Aristotle, ver. 645. Horace,
653. Dionysius, ver 665 Petronius, ver. 667. Quin-
tilian, ver. 670. Longinus, ver. 675. Of the decay of
criticism, and its revival: Erasmus, ver. 693. Vida,
ver. 705. Boileau, ver. 7:4. Lord Roscommon, &c.
ver. 7.5. Conclusion.

510 LEARN then what moral critics ought to show, 5f
For 'tis but half a judge's task to know.
'Tis not enough, taste, judgment, learning join;
In all you speak, let truth and candour shine;

With mean complacence, ne'er betray your trust, 580 Spread all his sails, and durst the deeps explore:
Nor be so civil as to prove unjust.

Fear not the anger of the wise to raise ;
Those best can bear reproof, who merit praise.
"Twere well might critics still this freedom take:
But Appius reddens at each word you speak,
And stares tremendous, with a threatening eye,
Like some fierce tyrant in old tapestry.
Fear most to tax an honourable fool,
Whose right it is, uncensured, to be dull:
Such, without wit, are poets when they please,
As without learning they can take degrees.
Leave dangerous truths to unsuccessful satires,
And flattery to fulsome dedicators,

He steer'd securely, and discover'd far,
Led by the light of the Mronian star.
Poets, a race long unconfin'd and free,
Still fond and proud of savage liberty,
Received his laws, and stood convinc'd 'twas fit,
Who conquer'd nature, should preside o'er wit.

Horace still charms with graceful negligence,
And without method talks us into sense:
Will, like a friend, familiarly convey
590 The truest notions in the easiest way.

Whom, when they praise, the world believes no more
Than when they promise to give scribbling o'er.
"Tis best sometimes your censure to restrain,

And charitably let the dull be vain;
Your silence there is better than your spite:
For who can rail so long as they can write?
Still humming on, their drowsy course they keep, 600
And lash'd so long, like tops, are lash'd asleep.
False steps but help them to renew the race,
As, after stumbling, jades will mend their pace.
What crowds of these, impenitently bold,
In sounds and jingling syllables grown old,
Still run on poets, in a raging vein,

E'en to the dregs, and squeezings of the brain;
Strain out the last dull droppings of their sense,
And rhyme with all the rage of impotence!

Such shameless bards we have: and yet 'tis true, 610
There are as mad, abandon'd critics too.
The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,
With loads of learned lumber in his head,
With his own tongue still edifies his ears,
And always listening to himself appears.
All books he reads, and all he reads assails,
From Dryden's Fables down to Durfey's Tales:
With him most authors steal their works, or buy;
Garth did not write his own Dispensary.
Name a new play, and he's the poet's friend,

He who, supreme in judgment as in wit,
Might boldly censure, as he boldly writ;

640

650

Yet judged with coolness, though he sung with
fire:

His precepts teach but what his works inspire. 660
Our critics take a contrary extreme,

They judge with fury, but they write with phlegm
Nor suffers Horace more in wrong translations
By wits, than critics in as wrong quotations.
See Dionysius Homer's thoughts refine,
And call new beauties forth from every line!
Fancy and art in gay Petronius please,
The scholar's learning with the courtier's ease.

In grave Quintilian's copious work we find
The justest rules and clearest method join'd :
Thus useful arms in magazines we place,
All ranged with order, and dispos'd with grace,
But less to please the eye than arm the hand,
Still fit for use, and ready at command.

Thee, bold Longinus! all the Nine inspire,
And bless their critic with a poet's fire:
An ardent judge, who, zealous in his trust,
With warmth gives sentence, yet is always just;
Whose own example strengthens all his laws,
And is himself that great sublime he draws.

Thus long succeeding critics justly reign'd, Licence repress'd and useful laws ordain'd: Learning and Rome alike in empire grew, And arts still follow'd where her eagles flew; 620 From the same foes, at last, both felt their doom, Nay, show'd his faults-but when would poets mend? And the same age saw learning fall, and Rome.

No place so sacred from such fops is barr'd, Nor is Paul's church more safe than Paul's yard:

With tyranny then superstition join'd,
church-As that the body, this enslaved the mind;
Much was believed but little understood,
And to be dull was construed to be good:
A second deluge learning thus o'erran
And the monks finish'd what the Goths began.

Nay, fly to altars, there they'll talk you dead;
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Distrustful sense with modest caution speaks,
It still looks home, and short excursions makes;
But rattling nonsense in full volleys breaks,
And, never shock'd, and never turn'd aside,
Bursts out, resistless, with a thundering tide.

At length Erasmus, that great injured name, (The glory of the priesthood, and the shame!) Stemm'd the wild torrent of a barbarous age, 630 And drove those holy Vandals off the stage.

670

630

690

But see! each muse, in Leo's golden days,
Starts from her trance, and trims her wither'd bays;
Rome's ancient genius, o'er its ruins spread,

Isake to consent to the publication of one more correct. This I was forced to, before I had executed half my design; for the machinery was entirely want

Shakes off the dust, and rears his reverend head. 700 ing to complete it.
Then sculpture and her sister-arts revive;

Stones leap'd to form, and rocks began to live:
With sweeter notes each rising temple rung;
A Raphael painted, and a Vida sung.
Immortal Vida! on whose honour'd brow
The poet's bays and critic's ivy grow:
Cremona now shall ever boast thy name,
As next in place to Mantua, next in fame.

But soon by impious arms from Latium chased,
Their ancient bounds the banish'd muses pass'd: 710
Thence arts o'er all the northern world advance,
But critic-learning flourish'd most in France:
The rules a nation born to serve obeys,
And Boileau still in right of Horace sways.
Bat we, brave Britons, foreign laws despis'd,
And kept unconquer'd and unciviliz'd;
Fierce for the liberties of wit, and bold,
We still defied the Romans, as of old.
Yet some there were among the sounder few
Of those who less presum'd, and better knew,
Who durst assert the juster ancient cause,
And here restor'd wit's fundamental laws.
Such was the muse, whose rule and practice tell,
'Nature's chief master-piece is writing well.'
Such was Roscommon, not more learn'd than good,
With manners generous as his noble blood;

To him the wit of Greece and Rome was known,
And every author's merit but his own.

The machinery, madam, is a term invented by the critics, to signify that part which the deities, angels, or demons, are made to act in a poem: for the ancient poets are, in one respect, like many modern ladies: let an action be never so trivial in itself, they always make it appear of the utmost importance. These machines I determined to raise on a very new and odd foundation, the Rosicrusian doctrine of spirits.

I know how disagreeable it is to make use of hard words before a lady; but it is so much the concern of a poet to have his works understood, and particularly by your sex, that you must give me leave to explain two or three difficult terms.

The Rosicrucians are a people I must bring you acquainted with. The best account I know of them is in a French book called Le Compte de Gabalis, which, both in its title and size, is so like a novel, that many of the fair sex have read it for one by mistake. According to these gentlemen, the four ele720 ments are inhabited by spirits, which they call Sylphs, Gnomes, Nymphs, and Salamanders. The Gnomes, or demons of earth, delight in mischief; but the Sylphs, whose habitation is in the air, are the best conditioned creatures imaginable; for they say, any mortal may enjoy the most intimate familiarities with these gentle spirits, upon a condition very easy to all true adepts-an inviolate preservation of chastity.

As to the following cantos, all the passages of them 730 are as fabulous as the vision at the beginning, or the transformation at the end (except the loss of your hair, which I always mention with reverence.) The human persons are as fictitious as the airy ones; and the character of Belinda, as is now managed, resembles you in nothing but in beauty.

Such late was Walsh, the muse's judge and friend,
Who justly knew to blame or to commend;
To failings mild, but zealous for desert;
The clearest head, and the sincerest heart.
This humble praise, lamented shade! receive,
This praise at least a grateful muse may give:
The muse, whose early voice you taught to sing,
Prescrib'd her heights, and prun'd her tender wing.
Her guide now lost,) no more attempts to rise,
But in low numbers short excursions tries;
Content, if hence th' unlearn'd their wants may view,
The learn'd reflect on what before they knew: 740
Careless of censure, nor too fond of fame;
Still pleas'd to praise, yet not afraid to blame :
Averse alike to flatter or offend;

Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend.

THE

RAPE OF THE LOCK.
AN HEROI-COMICAL POEM.
Written in the Year 1712.

If this poem had as many graces as there are in your person or in your mind, yet I could never hope it should pass through the world half so uncensured as you have done. But let its fortune be what it will, mine is happy enough to have given me this occasion of assuring you that I am, with the truest esteem,

Madam,

Your most obedient humble servant,
A. POPE.

THE RAPE OF THE LOCK.
Nolueram, Belinda, tuos violare capillos;
Sed juvat, hoc precibus me tribuisse tuis. MART.

CANTO I.
WHAT dire offence from amorous causes springs,
What mighty contests rise from trivial things,
I sing;-this verse to Caryl, Muse! is due:
This e'en Belinda may vouchsafe to view:
Slight is the subject, but not so the praise,
If she inspire, and he approve my lays.

TO MRS. ARABELLA FERMOR. JADAM, It will be in vain to deny that I have some regard for this piece, since I dedicate it to you; yet you may bear me witness, it was intended only to divert a few young ladies, who have good sense and good humour Say what strange motive, goddess! could compel enough to laugh not only at their sex's little unguard-A well-bred lord to assault a gentle belle? ed follies, but at their own. But as it was commu-O say what stranger cause, yet unexplored, nicated with the air of a secret, it soon found its way Could make a gentle belle reject a lord? into the world. An imperfect copy having been of- In tasks so bold, can little men engage? fered to a bookseller, you had the good nature for my And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty rage?

Sol through white curtains shot a timorous ray,
And oped those eyes that must eclipse the day:
Now lap-dogs give themselves the rousing shake,
And sleepless lovers, just at twelve, awake:
Thrice rung the bell, the slipper knock'd the ground'
And the press'd watch return'd a silver sound.
Belinda still her downy pillow press'd,
Her guardian Sylph prolong'd the balmy rest:
"Twas he had summon'd to her silent bed
The morning dream that hover'd o'er her head.
A youth more glittering than a birth-night beau
(That e'en in slumber caused her cheek to glow)
Seem'd to her ear his winning lips to lay,
And thus in whispers said, or seem'd to say:
'Fairest of mortals, thou distinguish'd care
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:
Of airy elves by moonlight shadows seen,
The silver token, and the circled green,
Or virgins visited by angel-powers,

With golden crowns and wreaths of heavenly flowers;
Hear, and believe! thy own importance know,
Nor bound thy narrow views to things below.
Some secret truths, from learned pride conceal'd,
To maids alone and children are reveal'd.
What, though no credit doubting wits may give,
The fair and innocent shall still believe.
Know then, unnumber'd spirits round thee fly,
The light militia of the lower sky:
These, though unseen, are ever on the wing,
Hang o'er the box, and hover round the ring.
Think what an equipage thou hast in air,
And view with scorn two pages and a chair.
As now your own, our beings were of old,
And once enclosed in woman's beauteous mould;
Thence, by a soft transition we repair,
From earthly vehicles to those of air.

Think not, when woman's transient breath is fled,
That all her vanities at once are dead:
Succeeding vanities she still regards,

These swell their prospects, and exalt their pride,
When offers are disdain'd, and love denied:
Then gay ideas crowd the vacant brain,
While peers, and dukes, and all their sweeping train,
And garters, stars, and coronets appear,
And in soft sounds, your grace' salutes their ear
'Tis these that early taint the female soul,
Instruct the eyes of young coquettes to roll,
Teach infant cheeks a hidden blush to know,
And little hearts to flutter at a beau.

'Oft when the world imagine women stray,
The Sylphs through mystic mazes guide their way,
Through all the giddy circle they pursue,
And old impertinence expel by new;
What tender maid but must a victim fall
To one man's treat, but for another's ball?
When Florio speaks, what virgin could withstand,
If gentle Damon did not squeeze her hand?
With varying vanities, from every part,
They shift the moving toy-shop of their heart;
Where wigs with wigs, with sword-knots sword-knots
strive,

Beaux banish beaux, and coaches coaches drive.
This erring mortals levity may call ;
Oh, blind to truth! the Sylphs contrive it all.

'Of these am I, who thy protection claim,
A watchful sprite, and Ariel is my name.
Late, as I ranged the crystal wilds of air,
In the clear mirror of thy ruling star

I saw, alas! some dread event impend,
Ere to the main this morning sun descend;
But Heaven reveals not what, or how, or where
Warn'd by thy Sylph, oh pious maid, beware'
This to disclose is all thy guardian can:
Beware of all, but most beware of man!"

He said; when Shock, who thought she slept too
long,

Leap'd up, and waked his mistress with his tongue.
'Twas then, Belinda, if report say true,
Thy eyes first open'd on a billet-doux ;
Wounds, charms, and ardour, were no sooner read,

And though she plays no more, o'erlooks the cards. But all the vision vanish'd from thy head.

Her joy in gilded chariots, when alive,
And love of ombre, after death survive.
For when the fair in all their pride expire,
To their first elements their souls retire:
The sprites of fiery termagants in flame
Mount up, and take a Salamander's name.
Soft yielding minds to water glide away,
And sip, with nymphs, their elemental tea.
The graver prude sinks downward to a Gnome,
In search of mischief still on earth to roam.
The light coquettes in Sylphs aloft repair,
And sport and flutter in the fields of air.

'Know farther yet; whoever fair and chaste
Rejects mankind, is by some Sylph embraced :
For, spirits, freed from mortai laws, with ease
Assume what sexes and what shapes they please.
What guards the purity of melting maids,
In courtly balls, and midnight masquerades,
Safe from the treacherous friend, the daring spark,
The glance by day, the whisper in the dark,
When kind occasion prompts their warm desires,
When music softens, and when dancing fires?
"Tis but their Sylph, the wise celestials know,
Though honour is the word with men below.

And now unveil'd the toilet stands display'd,
Each silver vase in mystic order laid.
First robed in white, the nymph intent adores,
With head uncover'd, the cosmetic powers.
A heavenly image in the glass appears,
To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears;
The inferior priestess, at her altar's side,
Trembling, begins the sacred rites of pride.
Unnumber'd treasures ope at once, and here
The various offerings of the world appear;
From each she nicely culls with curious toil,
And decks the goddess with the glittering spoil.
This casket India's glowing gems unlocks,
And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.
The tortoise here and elephant unite,
Transform'd to combs, the speckled and the white.
Here files of pins extend their shining rows,
Puffs, powders, patches, Bibles, billet-doux.
Now awful Beauty puts on all its arms;
The fair each moment rises in her charms,
Repairs her smiles, awakens every grace,
And calls forth all the wonders of her face:
Sees by degrees a purer blush arise,
And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes.

"Some nymphs there are, too conscious of their face, The busy sylphs surround their darling care: Fpredestined to the Gnomes' embrace,

These set the head, and those divide the hair;