Straight for her favour to her court repair, Important embassies ask wings of air.

Each wondering stood, but Horoscope's great soul That dangers ne'er alarm, nor doubts control; Raised on the pinions of the bounding wind, Out-flew the rack, and left the hours behind.

The mock-heroic then follows the flight of Horoscope across the world to the Fortunate Isles, where Fortune dwells.

The dame by divination knew that soon The Magus would appear—and then begun, "Hail, sacred seer! thy embassy I know, Wars must ensue, the Fates will have it so. Dread feats shall follow, and disasters great, Pills charge on pills, and bolus bolus meet."

In the Fifth Canto Mirmillo soliloquises in the night, resolves to save his interests, his character, and person, by endeavouring for Peace; but he is overheard by Discord, who approaches Mirmillo's bed in the meagre shape of Querpo. There is a night of boding dreams before the day of battle. The rest of the canto is a mock-heroic battle-song of doctors and apothecaries.

As bold Mirmillo the grey dawn descries,
Armed cap-a-pie, where honour calls, he flies,
And finds the legions planted at their post;
Where mighty Querpo filled the eye the most.
His arms were made, if we may credit fame,
By Mulciber, the Mayor of Bromingham.
Of tempered stibium the bright shield was cast,
And yet the work the metal far surpassed.

A foliage of the vulnerary leaves,

Graved round the brim, the wondering sight deceives.
Around the centre Fate's bright trophies lay,
Probes, saws, incision knives, and tools to slay.
Embossed upon the field a battle stood

Of leeches spouting hemorrhoidal blood.
The artist too expressed the solemn state
Of grave physicians at a consult met;
About each symptom how they disagree,
But how unanimous in case of fee.
Whilst each assassin his learned colleague tires
With learned impertinence, the sick expires.

Beneath this blazing orb bright Querpo shone, Himself an Atlas, and his shield a moon. A pestle for his truncheon led the van, And his high helmet was a close-stool pan. His crest an ibis, brandishing her beak, And winding in loose folds her spiral neck. This, when the young Querpoides beheld His face in nurse's breast the boy concealed; Then peeped, and with the effulgent helm would play, And as the monster gaped would shrink away. Thus sometimes joy prevailed, and sometimes fear; And tears and smiles alternate passions were.

As Querpo towering stood in martial might,
Pacific Carus sparkled on the right.
An orang-outang o'er his shoulders hung,

His plume confessed the capon whence it sprung.

His motley mail scarce could the hero bear, Haranguing thus the tribunes of the war.

But in the Sixth Canto, while the clang of battle is still ringing, auspicious Health appears on Zephyr's wings, and bids the combatants

"Haste to the Elysian fields, those blessed abodes Where Harvey sits among the demi-gods."

They are to go in the person of Celsus, who shall be their delegate. So Celsus is taken to the shades, and sees there, near the abode of Night, the realm of Death.

Nigh this recess with terror they survey Where Death maintains his dread tyrannic sway. In the close covert of a cypress grove, Where goblins frisk, and airy spectres rove, Yawns a dark cave, with awful horror wide, And there the monarch's triumphs are descried. Confused, and wildly huddled to the eye, The beggar's pouch, and prince's purple lie. Dim lamps with sickly rays scarce seem to glow; Sighs heave in mournful moans, and tears o'erflow. Restless anxiety, forlorn despair, And all the faded family of Care,

Old mouldering urns, racks, daggers, and distress Make up the frightful horror o' the place.

Within its dreadful jaws those Furies wait, Which execute the harsh decrees of Fate. Febris is first: the hag relentless hears The virgin's sighs; and sees the infant's tears. In her parched eye-balls fiery meteors reign; And restless ferments revel in each vein.

Then Hydrops next appears among the throng; Bloated, and big, she slowly sails along. But, like a miser, in excess she's poor; And pines for thirst amidst her watery store.

Now loathsome Lepra, that offensive sprite, With foul eruptions stained offends the sight. Still deaf to Beauty's soft persuading power: Nor can bright Hebe's charms her blooms secure.

Whilst meagre Phthisis gives a silent blow; Her strokes are sure; but her advances slow. No loud alarms, nor fierce assaults are shown: She starves the fortress first; then takes the town. Behind stood crowds of much inferior name, Too numerous to repeat, too foul to name; The vassals of their monarch's tyranny: Who, at his nod, on fatal errands fly.

Now Celsus, with his glorious guide, invades The silent region of the fleeting shades; Where rocks and rueful deserts are descried; And sullen Styx rolls down his lazy tide. Then shows the ferry-man the plant he bore, And claims his passage to the further shore. To whom the Stygian pilot smiling, said, "You need no passport to demand our aid. Physicians never linger on this strand: Old Charon's present still at their command.

Our awful monarch and his consort owe

To them the peopling of their realms below." Then in his swarthy hand he grasped his oar, Received his guests aboard, and shoved from shore.

After more experiences Hygeia brings the delegate before the shade of Harvey, who welcomes Health, condemns divisions among the Faculty, and shows supreme interest in King William III., whom he rapturously hopes that the doctors will make it their glorious aim to keep alive. The poem ends when—

No more the Sage his raptures could pursue :
He paused; and Celsus with his guide withdrew.

It is a long fall from Milton's "Paradise Lost" down to Garth's "Dispensary;" and though a fall within the empyrean of true literature, we are brought by it within earshot of confused sounds of the neighbouring chaos, without form and void, into which the poem, with its misplaced literary compliments and its inartistic close in flattery of king and ininister, was in some danger of falling.

John Philips, who has been represented in another volume of this Library' by his mock-heroic of "The Splendid Shilling," published in 1706 one of the best of the group of poems produced by various imitators of the Georgics of Virgil, when in his "Cyder, a Poem, in Two Books," he set forth as his theme:

What soil the apple loves, what care is due
To orchards, timeliest when to press the fruits,
Thy gift, Pomona, in Miltonian verse
Adventurous I presume to sing; of verse
Not skilled, nor studious: but my native soil
Invites me, and the theme as yet unsung.

The sheltered spot, the fit soils, the unfit soil fitted by art, the fit neighbourhood of other plants-for plants have loves and enmities-are sung in turn. The apple

Caresses freely the contiguous peach,

Hazel, and weight-resisting palm, and likes

To approach the quince, and the alder's pithy stem;
Uneasy, seated by funereal yew,

Or walnut (whose malignant touch impairs
All generous fruits), or near the bitter dews
Of cherries. Therefore weigh the habits well
Of plants, how they associate best, nor let
Ill neighbourhood corrupt thy hopeful grafts.

Then follow mysteries of grafting:

Let sage experience teach thee all the arts
Of grafting, and in-eyeing;

which counsel suggests praise of Experience, who taught men the use of tobacco and magnifying glasses; tobacco is praised in passing as

The Indian weed, unknown to ancient times; Nature's choice gift, whose acrimonious fume

1 See "Shorter English Poems," pages 360-361.

Let every tree in every garden own

The Red-streak as supreme, whose pulpous fruit With gold irradiate and vermilion shines Tempting, not fatal, as the birth of that

Primeval, interdicted plant, that won

Fond Eve, in hapless hour to taste, and die.
This, of more bounteous influence, inspires
Poetic rapture, and the lowly muse

Kindles to loftier strains; even I perceive

Her sacred virtue. See! the numbers flow

Easy, whilst, cheered with her nectareous juice, Hers and my country's praises I exalt.

Apples and patriotism end the song when, the cyder being made and ready for the glass, due bounds are set to its enjoyment. Beyond those bounds,

If thou wilt prolong

Dire compotation, forthwith reason quits
Her empire to confusion, and misrule,

And vain debates; then twenty tongues at once
Conspire in senseless jargon, naught is heard
But din, and various clamour, and mad rant:
Distrust and jealousy to these succeed,
And anger-kindling taunt, the certain bane
Of well-knit fellowship. Now horrid frays
Commence.

And from the social discord the poet finds a transition to the civil discord that once rent our isle. "Now we exult, by mighty Anna's care," and in this way the poem is brought to the due patriotic close, which extends over seven pages, with this happy recollection at the end, that cyder is the subject of the poem:

Where'er the British spread
Triumphant banners, or their fame has reached
Diffusive, to the utmost bounds of this
Wide universe, Silurian cyder borne

Shall please the tastes, and triumph o'er the vine.

It is the climax to a closing picture of prosperity and plenty, in which Bellona goes abroad, and Pomona is established as an English house-wife, pleased to deck the elder year with ruby-tinctured births

-whose liquid store

Abundant, flowing in well-blended streams, The natives shall applaud.

FRONTISPIECE TO "THE RAPE OF THE LOCK."

From the Illustrations by L. Du Guernier to the Edition of 1714.

Pope's "Rape of the Lock" is the daintiest of all mock-heroics. He calls it, what Boileau called his "Lutrin," "an heroi-comical poem." Lord Petre, aged twenty-the Baron of the poem-had cut off a lock of the hair of Miss Arabella Fermor, daughter of Mr. Fermor of Tusmore, the Belinda whose distress the poem sings. The liberty thus taken led to a small but sharp quarrel. The gentleman and lady were Roman Catholics, known only by name to Pope, who was also a Roman Catholic. Mr. Caryll, a friend of Pope's, who was a Sussex squire and nephew to Mr. Secretary Caryll, suggested to Pope that he might write upon this theme a playful poem, and so possibly allay the strife. A poem in two cantos-"The Rape of the Lock" in its first form-was written in a fortnight, and printed in 1712, without its author's name, in a Miscellany published by Bernard Lintot. Afterwards Pope developed its mock-heroic form by the addition of "machinery," taking for that purpose, not gods and goddesses, but the sylphs and gnomes that were suggested to him one day by the reading of a small fanciful book, "Le Comte de Gabalis," by the Abbé Villars. The poem thus recast was expanded to five cantos, and published as a separate volume in the spring of 1714. Polite readers were delighted with an airy satire that played over their own airy vanities. The heroic form given to trifles, as befits a mock-heroic poem, has here the merit of

being itself essential to the purpose of a satire which ridicules the false emphasis, the confounding of all sense of the relative worth of accidents and essentials of life, that runs through the sayings and doings of mere fashionable society. In its playful way "The Rape of the Lock" sounds depths; and it was not likely that the ladies and gentlemen who were supposed to be represented by the persons of the poemMiss Fermor by Belinda, Mrs. Morley by Thalestris, and her brother, Sir George Brown, by Sir Plume— would find it pleasant to have been used as artist's models in a picture satirising the inanity of "persons of quality." Lord Petre was beyond reach of all fashionable strife or satire. He married Miss Warmsley, a great heiress, in March, 1712, and died in March, 1713, a year before "The Rape of the Lock" appeared in its second form.

thus opens:

THE RAPE OF THE LOCK

What dire offence from amorous causes springs,
What mighty contests rise from trivial things,
I sing This verse to Caryll, Muse! is due:
This, even 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 modest belle ?
Oh, say what stranger cause, yet unexplored,
Could make a gentle belle reject a lord?
In tasks so bold, can little men engage,
And in soft bosoms dwell 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 knocked the ground,
And the pressed watch returned a silver sound.
Belinda still her downy pillow pressed,
Her guardian Sylph prolonged the balmy rest:
"Twas he had summoned to her silent bed
The morning-dream that hovered o'er her head,
A youth more glittering than a birth-night beau,
(That even in slumber caused her cheek to glow,)
Seemed to her ear his willing lips to lay,
And thus in whispers said, or seemed to say:
"Fairest of mortals, thou distinguished care

Of thousand bright inhabitants of air!
If e'er one vision touch thy infant thought,
Of all the nurse and all the priest have taught:
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,
Nor bound thy narrow views to things below.
Some secret truths, from learnéd pride concealed,
To maids alone and children are revealed:
What though no credit doubting wits may give?
The fair and innocent shall still believe.
Now then, unnumbered spirits round thee fly,
The light militia of the lower sky:
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 enclosed in woman's beauteous mould;
Thence, by a soft transition, we repair
From earthly vehicles to these of air.
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.
The graver prude sinks downward to a Gnome,
In search of mischief still on earth to roam.
The light coquettes in Sylphs aloft repair,
And sport and flutter in the fields of air."

The dream-youth tells how the sylphs watch over women, and help them with one vanity to drive

another out.

"With varying vanities, from every part, They shift the moving toyshop of their heart,

Where wigs with wigs, with sword-knots sword-knots

strive,

Beaux banish beaux, and coaches coaches drive.
This erring mortals levity may call,

Oh, blind to truth! the Sylphs contrive it all.
Of these am I, who thy protection claim,
A watchful sprite, and Ariel is my name.
Late, as I ranged the crystal wilds of air,
In the clear mirror of thy ruling star

I saw, alas! some dread event impend,

Ere to the main this morning sun descend,
But heaven reveals not what, or how, or where;
Warned by the Sylph, oh, pious maid, beware!
This to disclose is all thy guardian can:
Beware of all, but most beware of man!"

He said; when Shock, who thought she slept too long,
Leaped up, and waked his mistress with his tongue.
'Twas then, Belinda, if report say true,
Thy eyes first opened on a billet-doux;
Wounds, charms, and ardours, were no sooner read,
But all the vision vanished from thy head.

And now, unveiled, the toilet stands displayed,
Each silver vase in mystic order laid.
First, robed in white, the nymph intent adores,
With head uncovered, the cosmetic powers.
A heavenly image in the glass appears,
To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears;
The inferior priestess, at her altar's side,
Trembling, begins the sacred rites of pride.
Unnumbered treasures ope at once, and here
The various offerings of the world appear;
From each she nicely culls with curious toil,
And decks the goddess with the glittering spoil.
This casket India's glowing gems unlocks,
And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.
The tortoise here, and elephant unite,
Transformed to combs, the speckled and the white.
Here files of pins extend their shining rows,
Puffs, powders, patches, Bibles, billets-doux.

Now awful beauty puts on all its arms;
The fair each moment rises in her charms,
Repairs her smiles, awakens every grace,
And calls forth all the wonders of her face;
Sees by degrees a purer blush arise,
And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes.
The busy Sylphs surround their darling care,
These set the head, and those divide the hair,
Some fold the sleeve, whilst others plait the gown;
And Betty's praised for labours not her own.

The Second Canto opens with the lady on the Thames, going to Hampton Court:

Not with more glories, in the ethereal plain,

The sun first rises o'er the purpled main,

Than, issuing forth, the rival of his beams

Launched on the bosom of the silver Thames.

Fair nymphs and well-dressed youths around her shone,
But every eye was fixed on her alone.

On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore,
Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.
Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose,
Quick as her eyes, and as unfixed as those:
Favours to none, to all she smiles extends;
Oft she rejects, but never once offends.
Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike,
And, like the sun, they shine on all alike.
Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride
Might hide her faults, if belles had faults to hide :

If to her share some female errors fall,

Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all.

This nymph, to the destruction of mankind,
Nourished two locks, which graceful hung behind
In equal curls, and well conspired to deck
With shining ringlets the smooth ivory neck.
Love in these labyrinths his slaves detains,
And mighty hearts are held in slender chains.
With hairy springes we the birds betray,
Slight lines of hair surprise the finny prey,
Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare,
And beauty draws us with a single hair.

Th' adventurous Baron the bright locks admired:
He saw,
he wished, and to the prize aspired.
Resolved to win, he meditates the way,
By force to ravish, or by fraud betray;
For when success a lover's toil attends,
Few ask if fraud or force attained his ends.

For this, ere Phoebus rose, he had implored
Propitious Heaven, and every power adored,
But chiefly Love-to Love an altar built,

Of twelve vast French romances, neatly gilt.
There lay three garters, half a pair of gloves,
And all the trophies of his former loves;
With tender billets-doux he lights the pyre,
And breathes three amorous sighs to raise the fire.
Then prostrate falls, and begs with ardent eyes
Soon to obtain, and long possess the prize:
The powers gave ear, and granted half his prayer,
The rest, the winds dispersed in empty air.

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.

This day, black omens threat the brightest fair
That e'er deserved a watchful spirit's care;
Some dire disaster, or by force, or flight;

But what, or where, the Fates have wrapt in night.
Whether the nymph shall break Diana's law,
Or some frail China jar receive a flaw;
Or stain her honour, or her new brocade;
Forget her prayers, or miss a masquerade;
Or lose her heart, or necklace, at a ball;

Or whether Heaven has doomed that Shock must fall.
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 her favourite lock;
Ariel himself shall be the guard of Shock."
The spirit who neglects his charge

"Shall feel sharp vengeance soon o'ertake his sins,
Be stopped in vials, or transfixed with pins;
Or plunged in lakes of bitter washes lie,