Thrice rung the bell, the flipper knock'd the ground, And the press'd watch return'd a silver found. Belinda still her downy pillow prest,

Her guardian SYLPH prolong'd the balmy rest: 20 'Twas He had fummon'd to her filent bed The morning-dream that hover'd o'er her head, A Youth more glitt'ring than a Birth-night Beau, (That e'en in slumber caus'd her cheek to glow)

NOTES.

Seem'd

VER. 18. filver found.] Boileau, at an entertainment given by Segrais, was engaged to read his Lutrin; when he came to this passage in the first canto,

" Les cloches dans les airs de leur voix argentines," Chapelle, who was one of the company, and who, as usual, had drank freely, stopt him, and objected strongly to the expression, filver founds. Boileau disregarded his objections, and continued to read; but Chapelle again interrupting him, "You are drunk," faid Boileau; "I am not so much intoxicated with wine (returned Chapelle) as you are with your own verses." It is a fingular circumstance, that Boileau was buried in the very spot on which the Lutrin stood. WARTON.

"Silver found," is a combination often used by the early English Poets. Spenfer uses it, Shakespear, Dryden, and our Author very frequently. Hence Shakespear's humourous dialogue in Romeo and Juliet :

Peter. Why music with her filver found? - What say you, Simon Catling?

I Muf. Marry, Sir; because silver hath a sweet found.

Peter. Pretty!-What say you, Hugh Rebeck?

1

2 Muf. I fay, Silver found; because Musicians found for filver.

Peter. Pretty too! - What say you, James Sound-post?

3 Mus. Faith, I know not what to say."

(Act 4th.)

VER. 19. Belinda ftill, &c.] All the verses from hence to the

end of this Canto were added afterwards.

POPE.

VER. 20. Her guardian SYLPH] When Mr. Pope had projected to give The Rape of the Lock its present form of a mock-heroic poem, he was obliged to find it with its machinery. WARBURTON,

1

25

Seem'd to her ear his winning lips to lay,
And thus in whispers said, or feem'd to say.
Fairest of mortals, thou diftinguish'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; 30
Of airy Elves by moonlight shadows feen,

The filver token, and the circled green,

Or virgins visited by Angel-pow'rs

With golden crowns and wreaths of heav'nly flow'rs;

Hear and believe! thy own importance know,

Nor bound thy narrow views to things below.

35

Some

NOTES.

VER. 27. Fairest of mortals,] These machines are vastly fuperior to the allegorical personages of Boileau and Garth; not only on account of their novelty, but for the exquifite poetry, and oblique fatire, which they have given the poet an opportunity to display. The business and petty concerns of a fine lady, receive an air of importance from the notion of their being perpetually overlooked and conducted by the interpofition of celestial agents. The first time these beings were mentioned by any writer in our language was by Sir W. Temple, Effays, 4. p. 255. "1 fhould (fays he) as foon fall into the study of the Rosycrufian philosophy, and expect to meet a Nymph or a Sylph for a wife or a mistress." They are alfo mentioned in a letter of Dryden to Mrs. Thomas, 1699; Whether Sylph or Nymph I know not; those fine creatures, as your author Count Gabalis assures us, have a mind to be christened, and fince you defire a name from me, take that of Corinna, if you please." Sylphs are mentioned, as invisible attendants, and as interested in the affairs of the ladies, in the 101st, 104th, and 195th, of Madame de Sevigné's celebrated Letters; as they are alfo in the second chapter of Le Sage's Diable Boiteaux. M. De Sevigné says, remarkably enough, letter 90, "If we had a few Sylphs at our command now, one might furnish out a story to divert you with." WARTON.

Some fecret truths, from learned pride conceal'd,
To Maids alone and Children are reveal'd:
What tho 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:

40

These, tho' unseen, are ever on the wing,
Hang o'er the Box, and hover round the Ring.

Think what an equipage thou hast in Air,

45

And view with scorn two Pages and a Chair.

As now your own, our beings were of old,
And once inclos'd in Woman's beauteous mould;

Thence, by a foft tranfition, we repair

From earthly Vehicles to these of air.

50

Think not, when Woman's tranfient breath is fled,

That all her vanities at once are dead;

Succeeding vanities she still regards,

And tho' she plays no more, o'erlooks the cards.

Her joy in gilded Chariots, when alive,

55

And love of Ombre, after death survive.

For

PARALLEL PASSAGES.

VER. 51. Think not, &c.] Epilogue to Dryden's Tyrannic Love:

" For after death we fprites are just such creatures."

NOTES.

STEVENS.

VER. 47. As now your own, &c.] The Poet here forsakes the Roficrufian system; which, in this part, is too extravagant even for ludicrous Poetry; and gives a beautiful fiction of his own, on the Platonic Theology, of the continuance of the passions in another ftate, when the mind, before its leaving this, has not been well purged and purified by philosophy; which furnishes an occafion for much useful fatire. WARBURTON.

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 fip, with Nymphs, their elemental Tea.
The graver Prude finks downward to a Gnome,
In fearch of mischief still on Earth to roam.
The light Coquettes in Sylphs aloft repair,
And sport and flutter in the fields of Air.

60

65

Know further yet; whoever fair and chafte Rejects mankind, is by fome Sylph embrac'd: For Spirits, freed from mortal laws, with ease Afsfume what sexes and what shapes they please. 70 What

NOTES.

VER. 67. Know further yet;] Marmontel has, on this idea, framed one of his most popular Tales. I must again and again repeat, that it is on account of the exquisite skill, and humour and pleasantry of the ufe made of the machinery of the Sylphs, that this poem has excelled all the heroi-comic poems in all languages. The Ver-vert of Greffet, in point of delicate fatire, is perhaps next to it, but far inferior for the want of fuch machinery.

WARTON.

VER. 68. Is by fome Sylph embrac'd:] Here again the Author refumes the Roficrufian system. But this tenet, peculiar to that wild philofophy, was founded on a principle very unfit to be employed in fuch a fort of poem, and therefore fuppressed, though a lefs judicious writer would have been tempted to expatiate upon it. WARBURTON.

VER. 54, 55.

IMITATIONS.

"Quæ gratia currûm

Armorumque fuit vivis, quæ cura nitentes

Pafcere equos, eadem sequitur tellure repostos."

VIRG. Æneid. vi. POPE,

What guards the purity of melting Maids,
In courtly balls, and midnight masquerades,
Safe from the treach'rous friend, the daring spark,
The glance by day, the whisper in the dark,
When kind occasion prompts their warm desires, 75
When music softens, and when dancing fires?
'Tis but their Sylph, the wife Celestials know,
Though Honour is the word with Men below.

80

Some nymphs there are, too confcious of their face, For life predeftin'd to the Gnomes embrace. These swell their prospects and exalt their pride, When offers are difdain'd, and love deny'd :

Then gay Ideas croud the vacant brain,

While Peers, and Dukes, and all their sweeping train, And Garters, Stars, and Coronets appear,

85

And in foft founds, YOUR GRACE falutes their ear.
'Tis these that early taint the female foul,
Instruct the eyes of young Coquettes to roll,
Teach Infant-cheeks a bidden 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 expell by new.
What tender maid but must a victim fall
To one man's treat, but for another's ball?

90

95

NOTES.

When

VER. 78. Though Honour is the word with Men below.] Parody of Homer. WARBURTON.

x 3