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, A foliage of the vulnerary leaves, Graved round the brim, the wondering sight deceives. Of leeches spouting hemorrhoidal blood. 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, 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 : 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 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; Or walnut (whose malignant touch impairs Then follow mysteries of grafting: Let sage experience teach thee all the arts 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. 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 And vain debates; then twenty tongues at once 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 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, Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel Sol through white curtains shot a timorous ray, Thrice rung the bell, the slipper knocked the ground, Of thousand bright inhabitants of air! With golden crowns and wreaths of heavenly flowers; And view with scorn two pages and a chair. And though she plays no more, o'erlooks the cards. 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. Oh, blind to truth! the Sylphs contrive it all. I saw, alas! some dread event impend, Ere to the main this morning sun descend, He said; when Shock, who thought she slept too long, And now, unveiled, the toilet stands displayed, Now awful beauty puts on all its arms; 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, On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore, 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, Th' adventurous Baron the bright locks admired: For this, ere Phoebus rose, he had implored Of twelve vast French romances, neatly gilt. A brighter wash; to curl their waving hairs, This day, black omens threat the brightest fair But what, or where, the Fates have wrapt in night. Or whether Heaven has doomed that Shock must fall. "Shall feel sharp vengeance soon o'ertake his sins, |