TO MRS. ARABELLA FERMOR.

MADAM, 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 humor enough to laugh not only at their sex's little unguarded follies, but at their own but as it was communicated with the air of a secret, it soon found its way into the world. An imperfect copy having been offered to a bookseller, you had the good nature, for my sake, 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 intirely wanting to complete it.

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 Rosicrucian 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 Comte 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 elements 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 mortals may enjoy the most intimate familiarities with these gentle spirits on a condition very easy to all true adepts, an inviolate preservation of chastity.

As to the following cantos, all the passages of them 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 it is now managed, resembles you in nothing but in beauty.

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, ev'n Belinda may vouchsafe to view:
Slight is the subject, but not so the praise,
If she inspire, and he approve my lays.

Say what strange motive, goddess! could compel

A well-bred lord to assault a gentle belle?
O, say what stranger cause, yet unexplored,
Could make a gentle belle reject a lord?

10

3 This verse to Caryl. Caryl had proposed the subject: the characters introduced in the poem were, Miss Arabella Fermor, as Belinda lord Petre, the baron, who afterwards married a great heiress, Mrs. Warmsley, and died, leaving a posthumous son: Mrs. Morly, Thalestris: sir George Brown, of Berkshire, her brother, sir Plume.

In tasks so bold can little men engage?
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,

16

25

Her guardian sylph prolong'd the balmy rest: 20
"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 ev'n 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; 30
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, 35
Nor bound thy narrow views to things below.
Some secret truths, from learned pride con-
ceal'd,

To maids alone and children are reveal'd:
What though no credit doubting wits may give?
The fair and innocent shall still believe.

40

Know then, unnumber'd spirits round thee fly,
The light militia of the lower sky :

45

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 inclosed in woman's beauteous mould;
Thence, by a soft transition, we repair
From earthly vehicles to these of air.

50

Think not, when woman's transient breath is fled, That all her vanities at once are dead;

Succeeding vanities she still regards,

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

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.

55

60

42 The light militia. The Rosicrucian theories, a fanciful compound of romance and the old doctrines of alchymy, were frequently alluded to in the correspondence of the later part of the seventeenth century. Warton refers to sir William Temple, Essay iv. :-'I should as soon expect to meet a nymph or a sylph for a wife or mistress.' Dryden, in a letter to Mrs. Thomas, 1699, says, 'Whether sylph or nymph, I know not those fine creatures, as your author, count Gabalis, assures us, have a mind to be christened,' &c. De Sévigné, in her 104th and 195th letters, mentions them as 'interested in the service of the fair :' and they are alluded to in the second chapter of Le Diable Boiteux,' &c.

POPE.

I.

G