THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. CANTO IV. BUT anxious cares the pensive nymph oppress'd, Not ancient ladies when refus'd a kiss, As thou, sad Virgin! for thy ravish'd Hair. For, that sad moment, when the Sylphs with drew, And Ariel weeping from Belinda flew, Umbriel, a dusky, melancholy sprite, VARIATIONS. 5 10 Ver. 11. For, that sad moment, &c.] All the lines from hence to the 94th verse, that describe the house of Spleen, are not in the first edition; instead of them followed only these, While her rack'd soul repose and peace requires, And continued at the 94th verse of this Canto. P. IMITATIONS. Ver. 1. "At regina gravi," &c. Virg. Æneid. iv. P. Down to the central earth, his proper scene, Swift on his sooty pinions flits the Gnome, And in a vapour reach'd the dismal dome. No cheerful breeze this sullen region knows, The dreaded East is all the wind that blows. Here in a grotto, shelter'd close from air, And screen'd in shades from day's detested glare, She sighs for ever on her pensive bed, 15 20 Pain at her side, and Megrim at her head. 24 Two handmaids wait the throne: alike in place, But diff'ring far in figure and in face. Here stood Ill-nature like an ancient maid, Her wrinkled form in black and white array'd! With store of pray'rs, for mornings, nights, and noons, Her hand is fill'd; her bosom with lampoons. 30 Ver. 16. Cave of Spleen.] NOTES. "Thro' me ye pass to Spleen's terrific dome, By sullen humour or vexatious strife; And here thro' scenes of endless vapour hurl'd, All ye who enter, every hope forego!" It is thus Mr. Hayley, in allusion to Dante's striking inscription over hell-gate, begins his description of the dwelling of Spleen. She and her attendants are afterward painted with force and spirit in the next 200 verses, and more. His mild and engaging Serena, her prim and sour aunt Penelope, and the good old Squire, are admirable portraits. Whether Pope's Belinda, in losing her lock, or Hayley's Serena, in being prevented going to a masquerade, felt the greater mortification and misfortune, is an arduous point that must be determined by the Ladies. There Affectation with a sickly mien, Shews in her cheek the roses of eighteen, Practis'd to lisp, and hang the head aside, Faints into airs, and languishes with pride, On the rich quilt sinks with becoming woe, Wrapt in a gown, for sickness, and for show. The fair-ones feel such maladies as these, When each new night-dress gives a new disease. A constant Vapour o'er the palace flies; Strange phantoms rising as the mists arise; Dreadful, as hermits' dreams in haunted shades, Or bright, as visions of expiring maids. Now glaring fiends, and snakes on rolling spires, Pale spectres, gaping tombs, and purple fires: Now lakes of liquid gold, Elysian scenes, And crystal domes, and Angels in machines. 35 40 45 Unnumber'd throngs, on ev'ry side are seen, Of bodies chang'd to various forms by Spleen. Here living Tea-pots stand, one arm held out, One bent; the handle this, and that the spout: 50 A Pipkin there, like Homer's Tripod walks; Here sighs a Jar, and there a Goose-pie talks ; NOTES. Ver. 41. Dreadful, as hermits' dreams in haunted shades, The poet, by this comparison, would insinuate, that the temptations of the mortified Recluses in the Church of Rome, and the extatic visions of their female Saints, were as much IMITATIONS. Ver. 51. Homer's Tripod walks ;] See Hom. Iliad xviii. of Vulcan's walking Tripods. Ver. 52. and there a Goose-pie talks ;] Alludes to a real fact, a Lady of distinction imagined herself in this condition. P. Men prove with child, as pow'rful fancy works, Who rule the sex to fifty from fifteen : Who give th' hysteric, or poetic fit, A nymph there is, that all thy pow'r disdains, 56 60 65 70 NOTES. the effects of hypochondriac disorders, the Spleen, or, what was then the fashionable word, the Vapours, as any of the imaginary transformations he speaks of afterward. W. Ver. 53. Men prove with child,] Van Swieten, in his Commentaries on Boerhaave, relates, that he knew a man who had studied till he fancied his legs to be of glass; his maid bringing wood to his fire, threw it carelessly down; our sage was angry and terrified for his legs of glass; the girl, out of patience with his megrims, gave him a blow with a log on the parts affected; he instantly started up in a rage, and from that moment recovered the use of his glass legs. Or caus'd suspicion when no soul was rude, The Goddess with a discontented air 75 Seems to reject him, tho' she grants his pray'r. 80 85 Her eyes dejected, and her hair unbound. 90 Full o'er their heads the swelling bag he rent, And all the Furies issu'd at the vent. Belinda burns with more than mortal ire, And fierce Thalestris fans the rising fire. 94 O wretched maid! she spread her hands, and cry'd 100 |