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This Partridge soon shall view in cloudless skies,14
When next he looks through Galileo's eyes;
And hence th' egregious wizard shall foredoom
The fate of Louis, and the fall of Rome.

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14 John Partridge was a ridiculous star-gazer, who in his almanacks every year never failed to predict the downfall of the Pope, and the King of France, then at war with the English.

[Partridge had, a few years previous to the publication of the Rape of the Lock, been made the subject of Swift's immortal satire. Swift, in ridicule of the whole class of impostors, and of this man in particular, published his celebrated "Predictions for the year 1708, by Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.,” which, amongst other prognostications, announced, with the most happy assumption of the mixture of caution and precision affected by these annual soothsayers, an event of no less importance than the death of John Partridge himself, which he fixed to the 29th of March, about eleven at night. The wrath of the astrologer was, of course, extreme, and in his almanack for 1709 he was at great pains to inform his loving countrymen that Squire Bickerstaff was a sham name, assumed by a lying, impudent fellow, and that, "Blessed be God, John Partridge was still living, and in health, and all were knaves who reported otherwise." This round denial did not save him from further persecution. The Vindication of Isaac Bickerstaff appeared, with several other treatises upon a subject which seems greatly to have amused the public. At length, poor Partridge, despairing by mere dint of his own assertions to maintain the fact of his own identity, had recourse, in an evil hour, to his neighbour, Dr. Yalden, who stated his grievances to the public in a pamphlet, called, "Bickerstaff Detected, or the Astrological Impostor Convicted," in which, under Partridge's name, he gave such a burlesque account of his sufferings, through the prediction of Bickerstaff, as makes one of the most humorous tracts in this memorable controversy. In 1710, Swift published a famous prediction of Merlin, the British wizard, giving, in a happy imitation of the style of Lily, a commentary on some black-letter verses, most ingeniously composed in enigmatical reference to the occurrences of the time. There were two instances worthy of notice in this ludicrous debate:1st. The Inquisition of the kingdom of Portugal took the matter as seriously as John Partridge, and gravely condemned to the flames the predictions of the imaginary Isaac Bickerstaff. 2ndly. By an odd coincidence, the Company of Stationers obtained, in 1709, an injunction against any almanack published under the name of John Partridge, as if the poor man had been dead in sad earnest. Swift appears to have been the inventor of the jest, and the soul of the confederacy under whose attacks Partridge suffered for about two years; but Prior, Rowe, Steele, Yalden, and other wits of the time, were concerned in the conspiracy, which might well have overwhelmed a brighter genius than the ill-fated Philomath."-Scott's Life of Swift.]

Then cease, bright nymph! to mourn thy ravish'd hair, Which adds new glory to the shining sphere !

Not all the tresses that fair head can boast
Shall draw such envy as the lock you lost.
For, after all the murders of your eye,
When, after millions slain, yourself shall die;

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When those fair suns shall set, as set they must,
And all those tresses shall be laid in dust;
This lock, the muse shall consecrate to fame,

And 'midst the stars inscribe Belinda's name.

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ABELARD and Eloisa flourished in the twelfth century; they were two of the most distinguished persons of their age in learning and beauty, but for nothing more famous than for their unfortunate passion. After a long course of calamities, they retired each to a several convent, and consecrated the remainder of their days to religion. It was many years after this separation that a letter of Abelard's to a friend, which contained the history of his misfortune, fell into the hands of Eloisa. This, awakening all her tenderness, occasioned those celebrated letters (out of which the following is partly extracted) which give so lively a picture of the struggles of grace and nature, virtue and passion.

[Abelard was about forty years of age ere he met Eloisa. His fame as a teacher of logic and philosophy was greater than that of any of his contempo

raries, and had filled the university of Paris with students and admirers. The heretical boldness of his doctrines and his personal vanity and ambition subjected him to envy, malice, and persecution, but he combated bravely with every adversary and every obstacle; and even after his disastrous marriage he was followed to his retreat by bands of attached friends and disciples. In the year 1122, Abelard erected a small oratory at Nogent, in the valley of Champagne, which was subsequently enlarged and consecrated to the Holy Ghost, the Comforter or Paraclete. He was forced to quit the convent when it was rising into celebrity, but Eloisa, with some pious sisters, obtained it, and it was from this sacred retreat that Eloisa wrote her memorable letters. In depth of affection she far surpassed Abelard. Pope has not exaggerated the passion of Eloisa, but he has in some passages forgot its purity and disinterested nobleness of character. Abelard died at the priory of St. Marcellus (A.D. 1142), but Eloisa, by the help of the Abbot of Cluni, had the body disinterred and conveyed to the monastery of the Paraclete, where as widow and abbess, she prayed daily over his tomb. The good abbot, in virtue of his office, absolved Abelard from all his sins-a most plenary absolution, and Eloisa received it with transport. She would seem to have enjoyed a comparative calm after this period. Her learning was extensive. "She established a Greek mass for Whitsunday in the Paraclete convent, which was sung as late as the fifteenth century, and a Greek missal in Latin characters was still preserved there." (Hallam's Lit. of Euro pe.) She survived Abelard twenty-one years, and was interred by his

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side.

Six centuries afterwards, the Abbess Marie de la Rochefoucault had the bones of the lovers taken up and re-interred under the altar, where a

marble monument, suitably inscribed, was erected to their memory. In the fury of the French revolution, in the year 1792, the Paraclete, like many other convents, was destroyed and reduced to a heap of ruins. The inhabitants of Nogent, however, preserved the mouldering remains of Abelard and Eloisa, and carried them to the vaults of their own church. They were afterwards removed to Paris, and now lie in the burying-ground of Père la Chaise, in a small chapel formed from the ruins of the Paraclete. They would have been better in their former locality-their original resting-place on the quiet banks of the Seine-hallowing, like Petrarch's remains in the vale of Arqua, a spot sacred to tender and immortal associations.

Of these Latin epistles of Abelard and Eloisa, especially those of the latter, Mr. Hallam has said, " They are, as far as I know, the first book which gives any pleasure in reading, which had been produced in Europe for 600 years, since the Consolation of Boethius. But I do not press my negative judgment. We may at least say that the writers of the dark ages, if they have left anything intrinsically very good, have been ill treated by the learned, who have failed to extract it."]

IN these deep solitudes and awful cells,

Where heavenly-pensive Contemplation dwells,

And ever-musing Melancholy reigns,

What means this tumult in a Vestal's veins ?

Why rove my thoughts beyond this last retreat?

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Why feels my heart its long-forgotten heat?
Yet, yet I love! From Abelard it came,
And Eloisa yet must kiss the name.

Dear fatal name! rest ever unreveal'd,

Nor pass these lips in holy silence seal'd:
Hide it, my heart, within that close disguise,
Where, mix'd with God's, his loved idea lies:
Oh, write it not, my hand-the name appears
Already written-wash it out, my tears!
In vain lost Eloisa weeps and prays,
Her heart still dictates, and her hand obeys.

Relentless walls! whose darksome round contains

Repentant sighs, and voluntary pains:

Ye rugged rocks! which holy knees have worn;
Ye grots and caverns shagg'd with horrid thorn !1

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1 [The expression "shagg'd with horrid thorn," ("horrid shades" in Milton,) is from Comus. Other epithets in this poem, as "pale-eyed," "low-thoughted care," "forget myself to stone," &c., are also from Milton's minor poems. Warton pointed out these; and there are numerous imitations of Dryden, Crashaw, Congreve, and other poets. In some respects the

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