Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;
Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes;
Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,
With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries.
The honey-bags steal from the humble bees,
And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs,
And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes,
To have my love to bed, and to arise :

And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,
To fan the moon-beams from his sleeping eyes.

If it should be thought, that Shakespeare has the merit of being the first who assigned proper employments to imaginary persons in the foregoing lines, yet it must be granted, that by the addition of the most delicate satire to the most lively fancy, POPE, in the following passage, has excelled any thing in Shakespeare, or perhaps in any other author.

Our humbler province is to tend the fair;
Not a less pleasing, though less glorious care;
To save the powder from too rough a gale,
Nor let th' imprison'd essences exhale;

To draw fresh colours from the vernal flow'rs,
To steal from rainbows, ere they drop in show'rs,
A brighter wash; to curl their waving hairs,
Assist their blushes, and inspire their airs;
Nay, oft in dreams invention we bestow,
To change a flounce, or add a furbelow.*

* Cant. ii. ver. 91.

The

The seeming importance given to every part of female dress, each of which is committed to the care and protection of a different sylph, with all the solemnity of a general appointing the several posts in his army, renders the following passage admirable, on account of its politeness, poignancy, and poetry.

Haste then, ye spirits, to your charge repair;
The fluttering fan be Zephyretta's care;
The drops to thee, Brillante, we consign;
And, Momentilla, let the watch be thine:
Do thou, Crispissa, tend the fav'rite lock:
Ariel himself shall be the guard of Shock.*

The celebrated raillery of Addison on the hooppetticoat, has nothing equal to the following circumstance; which marks the difficulty of guarding a part of dress of such high consequence.

To fifty chosen sylphs, of special note,

We trust th' important charge, the PETTICOAT:
Oft have we known that sevenfold fence to fail,
Tho' stiff with hoops, and arm'd with ribs of whale :
Form a strong line about the silver bound,

And guard the wide circumference around.+

VOL. I.

*Cant. ii. ver. 111.

+ Cant. ver. 117.

RIDET

RIDET HOC, INQUAM, VENUS IPSA; RIDENT
SIMPLICES NYMPHÆ, FERUS ET CUPIDO.

Our poet still rises in the delicacy of his satire, where he employs, with the utmost judgment and elegance, all the implements and furniture of the toilette, as instruments of punishment to those spirits who shall be careless of their charge: of punishment such as sylphs alone could undergo. Each of the delinquents

Shall feel sharp vengeance soon o'ertake his sins;
Be stopp'd in vials, or transfix'd with pins;

Or plung'd in lakes of bitter washes lie ;
Or wedg'd whole ages in a bodkin's eye;
Gums and pomatums shall his flight restrain,
While clogg'd he beats his silken wings in vain ;
Or allum-styptics, with contracting pow'r,
Shrink his thin essence like a shrivel'd flow'r ;
Or, as Ixion fix'd, the wretch shall feel
The giddy motion of the whirling mill;
In fumes of burning chocolate shall glow,
And tremble at the sea that froths below.*

If Virgil has merited such perpetual commendadation for exalting his bees by the majesty and magnificence

*Cant. ii. ver. 125.

magnificence of his diction, does not POPE deserve equal praises for the pomp and lustre of his language on so trivial a subject?

The same mastery of language appears in the lively and elegant description of the game at Ombre, which is certainly imitated from the Scacchia of Vida, and as certainly equal to it, if not superior. Both of them have elevated and enlivened their subjects, by such similies as the epic poets use; but as Chess is a play of a far higher order than Ombre, POPE had a more difficult task than Vida, to raise this his inferior subject into equal dignity and gracefulness. Here again our poet artfully introduces his machinery :

Soon as she spreads her hand, th' aërial guard
Descend, and sit on each important card;
First Ariel perch'd upon a mattadore.*

The majesty with which the kings of spades and clubs, and the knaves of diamonds and clubs, are spoken of, is very amusing to the imaginaQ 2 tion :

* Cant. iii. ver. 31.

tion and the whole game is conducted with

:

great art and judgment. I question whether Hoyle could have played it better than Belinda. It is finely contrived that she should be victorious; as it occasions a change of fortune in the dreadful loss she was speedily to undergo, and gives occasion to the poet to introduce a moral reflection from Virgil, which adds to the pleasantry of the story. In one of the passages where POPE has copied Vida, he has lost the propriety of the original, which arises from the different colours of the men at Chess.

Thus, when dispers'd a routed army runs, &c.*

Non aliter, campis legio se buxea utrinque
Composuit, duplici digestis ordine turmis,
Adversisque ambæ fulsere coloribus alæ ;
Quam Gallorum acies, Alpino frigore lactea
Corpora, si tendant albis in prælia signis,
Auroræ populos contra, et Phaethonte perustos
Insano Æthiopas, et nigri Memnonis alas.†

To this scene succeeds the tea-table. It is, doubtless, as hard to make a coffee-pot shine in poetry as a plough yet POPE has succeeded in

giving

* Cant. iii. ver. 81. † Vida Scacchia Ludus, ver. 74, &c.