ADVERTISEMENT.

THE HE Rape of the Lock was first published in the year 1711, and was written in less than a fortnight. It was occasioned by a frolic, carried rather beyond the bounds of good breeding, in which Lord Petre cut off a lock of Mrs. Arabella Fermor's hair: the

poem was undertaken at the request of Mr. Caryl, in order to reconcile the two families, this frolic

having occasioned a serious rupture between them.

It was received with such universal applause as to induce Pope to extend it the following year from two Cantos to five, by the addition of the machinery of the Sylphs and Gnomes. This improvement, which may be considered as one of the happiest efforts of art, did not, however, receive the approbation of Addison, who, possibly, might not conceive the propriety with which the introduction of this new machinery could be effected. Addison's opinion in this instance was so far from being confirmed by the voice of his cotemporaries, or by the decision of posterity, that it was attributed to jealousy, though it contains no proof of his being actuated by so base a motive: yet, when we consider the imperfections of human nature, and Addison's

conduct in regard to Pope and Tickell's translations of the first book of the Iliad, it must be confessed that the accusation is not entirely devoid of probability.

Before the Rape of the Lock appeared, our writers were distinguished in the eyes of foreigners by vigorous thought, and powerful expression. Mr. Pope has shewn that we were equally qualified to sacrifice at the shrine of the Graces.

It would be unnecessary, and almost impertinent, to point out the particular beauties of a poem so universally read and admired, and upon which so much has been already written. Pope's writings are perhaps a greater accession to our literature than those of any other poet; and, amongst them, the Rape of

the Lock stands pre-eminent, at least in that first characteristic of a poet, invention.

It is a curious circumstance that Parnell, hearing Pope repeat the description of Belinda's toilet, immediately translated it into monkish Latin verses, and accused Pope of plagiarism, who did not discover the stratagem till undeceived by Parnell.

Dr. Johnson has made a few observations

upon the Rape of the Lock, which we shall here transcribe.

"To the praises," says he, "which have

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been accumulated on the Rape of the Lock' by readers of every class, from the critic to the waiting-maid, it is difficult to make any addition. Of that which is universally allowed to be the most attractive of all ludicrous

compositions, let it rather be now enquired from what sources the power of pleasing is derived.

"Dr. Warburton, who excelled in critical perspicacity, has remarked that the preternatural agents are very happily adapted to the purposes of the poem. The heathen deities can no longer gain attention: we should have turned away from a contest between Venus and Diana. The employment of allegorical persons always excites conviction of its own

a

absurdity; they may produce effects, but

cannot conduct actions: when the phantom is put in motion it dissolves: thus Discord may

a This remark of Dr. Johnson's seems rather shallow, and it is certainly ill applied; for what are Spleen and her attendants but allegorical actors?