Just where the breath of life his nostrils drew,
A charge of snuff the wily virgin threw.
The gnomes direct, to every atom just,
The pungent grains of titillating dust.
Sudden, with starting tears each eye o'erflows,
And the high dome re-echoes to his nose.
Now meet thy fate, incensed Belinda cried,
And drew a deadly bodkin from her side.
(The same, his ancient personage to deck,
Her great-great-grandsire wore about his neck,
In three seal-rings; which after, melted down,
Formed a vast buckle for his widow's gown :
Her infant grandame's whistle next it grew,
The bells she jingled, and the whistle blew;
Then in a bodkin graced her mother's hairs,
Which long she wore, and now Belinda wears.)
"Boast not my fall" (he cried), “insulting foe!
Thou by some other shalt be laid as low,
Nor think, to die dejects my lofty mind:
All that I dread is leaving you behind!
Rather than so, ah let me still survive,
And burn in Cupid's flames—but burn alive."

"Restore the lock!" she cries; and all around
"Restore the lock!" the vaulted roofs rebound.
Not fierce Othello in so loud a strain
Roared for the handkerchief that caused his pain.
But see how oft ambitious aims are crossed,
And chiefs contend till all the prize is lost!
The lock, obtained with guilt, and kept with pain,
In every place is sought, but sought in vain :
With such a prize no mortal must be blest,
So Heaven decrees! with Heaven who can contest?

Some thought it mounted to the lunar sphere,

90

IIO

Since all things lost on earth are treasured there.
There heroes' wits are kept in ponderous vases,
And beaux' in snuff-boxes and tweezer-cases.
There broken vows and death-bed alms are found,
And lovers' hearts with ends of riband bound,
The courtier's promises, and sick man's prayers,
The smiles of harlots, and the tears of heirs,
Cages for gnats, and chains to yoke a flea,
Dried butterflies, and tones of casuistry.

But trust the Muse-she saw it upward rise,
Though marked by none but quick, poetic eyes:
(So Rome's great founder to the heavens withdrew,
To Proculus alone confessed in view)

A sudden star, it shot through liquid air,
And drew behind a radiant trail of hair.
Not Berenice's locks first rose so bright,
The heavens bespangling with dishevelled light.
The sylphs behold it kindling as it flies,
And pleased pursue its progress through the skies.
This the beau monde shall from the Mall survey,
And hail with music its propitious ray

This the blest lover shall for Venus take,

And send up vows from Rosamonda's lake.

This Partridge soon shall view in cloudless skies,1
When next he looks through Galileo's eyes;
And hence the egregious wizard shall foredoom
The fate of Louis, and the fall of Rome.

I 20

130

140

Then cease, bright nymph! to mourn thy ravished hair, Which adds new glory to the shining sphere!

Not all the tresses that fair head can boast,

1 John Partridge was a ridiculous star-gazer, who in his almanacs every year never failed to predict the downfall of the Pope, and the King of France, then at war with the English.

Shall draw such envy as the lock you lost.
For, after all the murders of your eye,
When, after millions slain, yourself shall die:
When those fair suns shall set, as set they must,
And all those tresses shall be laid in dust,
This lock the Muse shall consecrate to fame,
And 'midst the stars inscribe Belinda's name.

150

Armorumque fuit vivis, quæ cura nitentes

Pascere equos, eadem sequitur tellure repostos."
Virg. Æn. vi., ver. 653-5.

Ver. 101.

"Jam clypeus clypeis, umbone repellitur umbo,
Ense minax ensis, pede pes et cuspide cuspis," &c.

CANTO II.

Stat. Warburton.

Ver. 28. With a single hair.

In allusion to those lines of Hudibras, applied to the same pur.

pose

"And though it be a two-foot trout,

'Tis with a single hair pulled out."

Ver. 45.-The powers gave ear.
Virg. Æn. xi., ver. 794-5.

Ver. 119.

Warburton.

-"clypei dominus septemplicis Ajax." Ovid. Warburton.

Metam. lib. xiii. v. 2

Ver. 121.-About the silver bound.

In allusion to the shield of Achilles,

"Thus the broad shield complete the artist crowned,
With his last band, and poured the ocean round:
In living silver seemed the waves to roll,

And beat the buckler's verge, and bound the whole."
Warburton. Iliad, bk. xviii.

CANTO III.

Ver. 101.

"Nescia mens hominum fati sortisque futuræ,
Et servare modum, rebus sublata secundis !
Turno tempus erit, magno cum optaverit emptum
Intactum Pallanta; et cum spolia ista diemque

Oderit."

Virg. Warburton. Æn. x. 501-5.

Ver. 163, 170.

"Dum juga montis aper, fluvios dum piscis amabit,
Semper honos, nomenque tuum laudesque manebunt."

Virg. Warburton. Ecl. v. 76, 8.

Ver. 177.

"Ille quoque aversus mons est, &c.

Quid faciant crines, cum ferro talia cedant ?"

Catull. de com. Berenices.

CANTO IV.

Ver. I.

Virg. Æn. iv. ver. I.

"At regina gravi," &c.

Ver. 51.-Homer's Tripod walks.

See Hom. Iliad xviii. of Vulcan's walking Tripods. Warburton.

Ver. 133.- But by this lock.

In allusion to Achilles's oath in Homer, I. i.

CANTO V.

Ver. 35. So spoke the dame.

It is a verse frequently repeated in Homer after any speech,— "So spoke—and all the heroes applauded."

Ver. 53.-Triumphant Umbriel.

Minerva, in like manner, during the battle of Ulysses with the suitors in Odyss. perches on a beam of the roof to behold it. Ver. 64.-Those eyes are made so killing.

The words of a song in the opera of Camilla.

Ver. 65. Thus on Maander's flowery margin lies.

"Sic ubi fata vocant, udis abjectus in herbis,

Ad vada Mæandri concinit albus olor."

Ov. Ep. Heroid. E. vii., ver 2. Ver. 72.

Vid. Homer I.

viii., and Virg. Æn. xii.

Ver. 83. The gnomes direct.

These two lines added for the above reason.

Ver. 89. The same, his ancient personage to deck.

In imitation of the progress of Agamemnon's sceptre in Homer,

From hence the poem continues, in the first edition, to ver. 46— The rest the winds dispersed in empty air;

all after, to the end of this canto, being additional.

CANTO III.

Ver. 24. And the long labours of the toilet cease.

All that follows of the same at Ombre, was added since the first edition, till ver. 105, which connected thus: Sudden the board, &c.

CANTO V.

Ver. 7.Then grave Clarissa, Exc.

A new character introduced in the subsequent editions, to open more clearly the moral of the poem, in a parody of the speech of Sarpedon to Glaucus in Homer, Ilad. bk. xii.