When awful love seems melting in his eyes! 90
With eager beats his Mechlin cravat moves:
‘He loves’ — I whisper to myself, ‘He loves!’
Such unfeign’d passion in his looks appears,
I lose all mem’ry of my former fears;
My panting heart confesses all his charms, 95
I yield at once, and sink into his arms.
Think of that moment, you who Prudence boast;
For such a moment Prudence well were lost.
CARD. At the Groom-Porter’s batter’d bullies play,
Some dukes at Mary-bone bowl time away; 100
But who the Bowl or rattling Dice compares
To Basset’s heav’nly joys and pleasing cares?
SMIL. Soft Simplicetta dotes upon a beau;
Prudina likes a man, and laughs at show:
Their several graces in my Sharper meet, 105
Strong as the footman, as the master sweet.
LOV. Cease your contention, which has been too long;
I grow impatient, and the tea’s too strong.
Attend, and yield to what I now decide;
The equipage shall grace Smilinda’s side; 110
The snuffbox to Cardelia I decree;
Now leave complaining, and begin your tea.
Epigram on the Toasts of the Kit-Cat Club
Anno 1716
WHENCE deathless ‘Kit-cat’ took its name,
Few critics can unriddle:
Some say from ‘Pastrycook’ it came,
And some, from ‘cat’ and ‘fiddle.’
From no trim Beaux its name it boasts, 5
Gray Statesmen, or green wits;
But from this pellmell pack of Toasts
Of old ‘cats’ and young ‘kits.’
The Challenge
A Court Ballad
To the Tune of ‘To All You Ladies Now at Land,’ etc.
This lively ballad, written in 1717, belongs to the period of Pope’s intimacy with court society. The three ladies here addressed were attached to the court of the Prince and Princess of Wales.
I
TO one fair lady out of Court,
And two fair ladies in,
Who think the Turk and Pope a sport,
And wit and love no sin;
Come these soft lines, with nothing stiff in, 5
To Bellenden, Lepell, and Griffin.
With a fa, la, la.
II
What passes in the dark third row,
And what behind the scene,
Couches and crippled chairs I know, 10
And garrets hung with green;
I know the swing of sinful hack,
Where many damsels cry alack.
With a fa, la, la.
III
Then why to Courts should I repair, 15
Where ‘s such ado with Townshend?
To hear each mortal stamp and swear,
And every speech with Zounds end;
To hear ‘em rail at honest Sunderland,
And rashly blame the realm of Blunderland, 20
With a fa, la, la.
IV
Alas! like Schutz, I cannot pun,
Like Grafton court the Germans;
Tell Pickenbourg how slim she ‘s grown,
Like Meadows run to sermons; 25
To Court ambitious men may roam,
But I and Marlbro’ stay at home.
With a fa, la, la.
V
In truth, by what I can discern,
Of courtiers ‘twixt you three, 30
Some wit you have, and more may learn
From Court, than Gay or me;
Perhaps, in time, you ‘ll leave high diet,
To sup with us on milk and quiet.
With a fa, la, la. 35
VI
At Leicester-Fields, a house full high,
With door all painted green,
Where ribbons wave upon the tie
(A milliner I mean),
There may you meet us three to three, 40
For Gay can well make two of me.
With a fa, la, la.
VII
But should you catch the prudish itch
And each become a coward,
Bring sometimes with you lady Rich, 45
And sometimes mistress Howard;
For virgins to keep chaste must go
Abroad with such as are not so.
With a fa, la, la.
VIII
And thus, fair maids, my ballad ends: 50
God send the King safe landing;
And make all honest ladies friends
To armies that are standing;
Preserve the limits of those nations,
And take off ladies’ limitations. 55
With a fa, la, la.
The Looking-Glass
On Mrs. Pulteney
Mrs. Pulteney was a daughter of one John Gumley, who had made a fortune by a glass manufactory.
WITH scornful mien, and various toss of air,
Fantastic, vain, and insolently fair,
Grandeur intoxicastes her giddy brain,
She looks ambition, and she moves disdain.
Far other carriage graced her virgin life, 5
But charming Gumley’s lost in Pulteney’s wife.
Not greater arrogance in him we find,
And this conjunction swells at least her mind.
O could the sire, renown’d in glass, produce
One faithful mirror for his daughter’s use! 10
Wherein she might her haughty errors trace,
And by reflection learn to mend her face:
The wonted sweetness to her form restore,
Be what she was, and charm mankind once more.
Prologue Designed for Mr. D’Urfey’s Last Play
‘Tom’ D’Urfey was a writer of popular farces under the Restoration. Through Addison’s influence his play The Plotting Sisters was revived for his benefit; and the present prologue was possibly written for that occasion. It was first published in 1727.
GROWN old in rhyme, ‘t were barb’rous to discard
Your persevering, unexhausted Bard:
Damnation follows death in other men,
But your damn’d poet lives and writes again.
The adventurous lover is successful still, 5
Who strives to please the Fair against her will.
Be kind, and make him in his wishes easy,
Who in your own despite has strove to please ye.
He scorn’d to borrow from the Wits of yore,
But ever writ, as none e’er writ before. 10
You modern Wits, should each man bring his claim,
Have desperate debentures on your fame;
And little would be left you, I ‘m afraid,
If all your debts to Greece and Rome were paid.
From this deep fund our author largely draws, 15
Nor sinks his credit lower than it was.
Tho’ plays for honour in old time he made,
‘T is now for better reasons – to be paid.
Believe him, he has known the world too long,
And seen the death of much immortal song. 20
He says, poor poets lost, while players won,
As pimps grow rich while gallants are undone.
Though Tom the poet writ with ease and pleasure,
The comic Tom abounds in other treasure.
Fame is at best an unperforming cheat; 25
But ‘t is substantial happiness to eat.
Let ease, his last request, be of your giving,
Nor force him to be damn’d to get his living.
Prologue to the ‘Three Hours after Marriage’
Three Hours after Marriage was a dull and unsuccessful farce produced in January, 1717, at the Drury Lane Theatre. Though it was attributed to the joint authorship of Pope, Gay, and Arbuthnot, direct proof is lacking not only of Pope’s share in the play, but o
f his authorship of the Prologue. Of the latter fact, at least, we have, however, indirect evidence in Pope’s resentment of the ridicule cast by Cibber, in a topical impromptu, upon the play; the incident which first roused Pope’s enmity for Cibber, which resulted in his eventually displacing Theobald as the central figure in The Dunciad.
AUTHORS are judged by strange capricious rules,
The great ones are thought mad, the small ones fools:
Yet sure the best are most severely fated;
For Fools are only laugh’d at, Wits are hated.
Blockheads with reason men of sense abhor; 5
But fool ‘gainst fool, is barb’rous civil war.
Why on all Authors then should Critics fall?
Since some have writ, and shown no wit at all.
Condemn a play of theirs, and they evade it;
Cry, ‘Damn not us, but damn the French, who made it.’ 10
By running goods these graceless Owlers gain;
Theirs are the rules of France, the plots of Spain:
But wit, like wine, from happier climates brought,
Dash’d by these rogues, turns English common draught.
They pall Molière’s and Lopez’ sprightly strain, 15
And teach dull Harlequins to grin in vain.
How shall our Author hope a gentler fate,
Who dares most impudently not translate?
It had been civil, in these ticklish times,
To fetch his fools and knaves from foreign climes. 20
Spaniards and French abuse to the world’s end,
But spare old England, lest you hurt a friend.
If any fool is by our satire bit,
Let him hiss loud, to show you all he ‘s hit.
Poets make characters, as salesmen clothes; 25
We take no measure of your Fops and Beaux;
But here all sizes and all shapes you meet,
And fit yourselves like chaps in Monmouth Street.
Gallants, look here! this Foolscap has an air
Goodly and smart, with ears of Issachar. 30
Let no one fool engross it, or confine
A common blessing! now ‘t is yours, now mine.
But poets in all ages had the care
To keep this cap for such as will, to wear.
Our Author has it now (for every Wit 35
Of course resign’d it to the next that writ)
And thus upon the stage ‘t is fairly thrown;
Let him that takes it wear it as his own.
Prayer of Brutus
From Geoffrey of Monmouth
The Rev. Aaron Thompson, of Queen’s College, Oxon., translated the Chronicle of Geoffrey of Monmouth. He submitted the translation to Pope, 1717, who gave him the following lines, being a translation of a Prayer of Brutus. (Carruthers.)
GODDESS of woods, tremendous in the chase
To mountain wolves and all the savage race,
Wide o’er th’ aërial vault extend thy sway,
And o’er th’ infernal regions void of day.
On thy Third Reign look down; disclose our fate; 5
In what new station shall we fix our seat?
When shall we next thy hallow’d altars raise,
And choirs of virgins celebrate thy praise?
To Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
While there is no absolute date to be given for this or the following poem, both evidently belong to the period of Pope’s somewhat fanciful attachment for Lady Mary.
I
IN beauty, or wit,
No mortal as yet
To question your empire has dar’d;
But men of discerning
Have thought that in learning, 5
To yield to a lady was hard.
II
Impertinent schools,
With musty dull rules,
Have reading to females denied:
So Papists refuse 10
The Bible to use,
Lest flocks should be wise as their guide.
III
‘T was a woman at first,
(Indeed she was curst)
In Knowledge that tasted delight, 15
And sages agree
The laws should decree
To the first possessor the right.
IV
Then bravely, fair Dame,
Resume the old claim, 20
Which to your whole sex does belong;
And let men receive,
From a second bright Eve,
The knowledge of right and of wrong.
V
But if the first Eve 25
Hard doom did receive,
When only one apple had she,
What a punishment new
Shall be found out for you,
Who tasting have robb’d the whole tree? 30
Extemporaneous Lines
On a Portrait of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Painted by Kneller
THE PLAYFUL smiles around the dimpled mouth,
That happy air of majesty and truth,
So would I draw (but oh! ‘t is vain to try;
My narrow Genius does the power deny;)
The equal lustre of the heav’nly mind, 5
Where ev’ry grace with ev’ry virtue’s join’d;
Learning not vain, and Wisdom not severe,
With Greatness easy, and with Wit sincere;
With just description show the work divine,
And the whole Princess in my work should shine. 10
THE RAPE OF THE LOCK
Widely regarded as Pope’s most accomplished work, this mock-heroic narrative poem was first published anonymously in Lintot’s Miscellany in 1712. Originally formed of just two cantos, it was reissued under Pope’s name in 1714 in a much-expanded five canto version, formed of 794 lines. The final form appeared in 1717, bearing the addition of Clarissa’s speech on good humour. The Rape of the Lock was inspired by an actual incident recounted by Pope’s friend, John Caryll. Arabella Fermor and her suitor, Lord Petre, were both from aristocratic recusant Catholic families at a period in England when under such laws as the Test Act, all denominations except Anglicanism suffered legal restrictions and penalties. Petre, lusting after Arabella, had cut off a lock of her hair without permission and the consequent argument had created a breach between the two families. Pope, being also a Catholic, wrote the poem at the request of friends in an attempt to “comically merge the two.” He used the character Belinda to represent Arabella and introduced an entire system of ‘sylphs’, guardian spirits of virgins, as a parodied version of the gods and goddesses of conventional epic, and so Pope’s poem uses the traditional high stature of classical epics to emphasise the triviality of the incident. For example, the abduction of Helen of Troy becomes here the theft of a lock of hair; the gods become minute sylphs; the description of Achilles’ shield becomes an excursus on one of Belinda’s petticoats.
Pope employs the use of epic style invocations, lamentations, exclamations and similes, and in some cases also uses parody by following the framework of actual speeches in Homer’s Iliad. Although the poem is humorous at times, Pope conveys a sense that beauty is fragile and that the loss of a lock of hair touches Belinda deeply. As his introductory letter makes clear, women in that period were essentially supposed to be decorative rather than rational, and the loss of beauty was a serious matter.
The poem opens with Belinda still asleep. Her guardian Sylph, named Ariel, warns her while she sleeps that some dread event may occur. Belinda then awakes and proceeds to prepare herself for the day ahead with the help of her maid, Betty. The Sylphs, though unseen, also aid their mistress. Pope describes Belinda’s two locks of hair “which graceful hung behind”. The Baron, one of Belinda’s suitors, greatly admires these locks and conspires to steal one, and so he builds an altar and on it places “all the trophies of his former loves”, sets them on fire and fervently prays “soon to obtain, and long posses the lock.”
The mock-heroic conclusion of the p
oem aims to compliment Arabella Fermor, while also giving Pope himself due credit for being the instrument of her immortality. This ending effectively excuses the heroine’s vanity, even though the poem has functioned throughout as a criticism of that vanity. Even in its most mocking moments, the poem is a gentle critique, in which Pope shares a basic sympathy with the social world, in spite of its shallow foibles. The searing critiques of his later satires would be much more hostile and less forgiving.
Arabella Fermor
CONTENTS
The Rape of the Lock: Canto I
The Rape of the Lock: CantoII
The Rape of the Lock: CantoIII
The Rape of the Lock: CantoIV
The Rape of the Lock: CantoV
A contemporary illustration of the cutting of the lock
The Rape of the Lock
An Heroi-Comical Poem
Nolueram, Belinda, tuos violare capillos;
Sed juvat, hoc precibus me tribuisse tuis.
Mart. Epig. xii. 84.
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 humour 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 offer’d 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 entirely wanting to complete it.
The Machinery, Madam, is a term invented by the critics, to signify that part which the Deities, Angels, or Dæmons, 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 La 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 Dæmons of earth, delight in mischief; but the Sylphs, whose habitation is in the air, are the best-conditioned creatures imaginable; for, they say, any mortal may enjoy the most intimate familiarities with these gentle spirits, upon a condition very easy to all true adepts, — an inviolate preservation of chastity.
Alexander Pope - Delphi Poets Series Page 21