Strait hover round the fair her airy band *; Some, as the fipp'd, the fuming liquor fann'd. Then follows an inftance of affiduity fancied with great delicacy; Some o'er her lap their careful plumes display'd, But nothing can excell the behaviour of the fylphs, and their wakeful follicitude for their charge, when the danger grows more imminent, and the catastrophe approaches. 1 Swift to the Lock a thoufand fprites repair. The methods by which they endeavoured to preferve her from the intended mischief, are fuch only as could be executed by a fylph; and have therefore an admirable propriety, as well as the utmost elegance. A thousand wings by turns blow back the hair f; Still farther to heighten the piece, and to preserve the characters of his machines *Cant. iii. ver. 113. + Cant. iii. ver. 156. to to the last, juft when the fatal * forfex was fpread, Ev'n then, before the fatal engine clos'd †, A wretched fylph too fondly interpos'd; Fate urg'd the sheers, and cut the sylph in twain, Which last line is an admirable parody on The griding fword, with difcontinuous wound, The parodies are fome of the most exqui- While fish in ftreams, or birds delight in air, Or in a coach and fix the British fair, *Obferve the many periphrafes, and uncommon appellations, POPE has used for Sciffars,which would found too vulgar," Fatal Engine,-"Forfex,-" Sheers,—" Meeting Points, &c." + Cant. iii. ver 153. Paradife Loft, book vi. ver. 330. As long as Atalantis fhall be read, Or the fmall pillow grace a lady's bed, THE introduction of frequent parodies on serious and folemn paffages of Homer and Virgil, give much life and spirit to heroicomic poetry. "Tu dors, Prelat? tu dors?" in Boileau, is the "Eudes Alge Homer, and is full of humour. VIE" of The wife of the barber, talks in the language of Dido in her expoftulations to her Æneas, at the beginning of the fecond canto of the Lutrin. POPE's parodies of the fpeech of Sarpedon in Homer, and of the description of Achilles's scepter, together with the scales of Jupiter from Homer, Virgil, and Milton §, are judiciously introduced in their feveral places; are perhaps fuperiour to thofe Boileau or Garth have used, and are worked up with peculiar * Cant. iii. ver. 165. + Cant. v. ver. 9. pleasantry. pleasantry. The mind of the reader is engaged by novelty, when it fo unexpectedly finds a thought or object it had been ac customed to survey in another form, fuddenly arrayed in a ridiculous garb. A mixture of comic and ridiculous images, with ferious and important ones, is also no small beauty to this species of poetry. As in the following paffages, where real and imaginary distresses are coupled together. Not youthful kings in battle feiz'd alive, Not fcornful virgins who their charms furvive, Nay, to carry the climax ftill higher, Not Cynthia when her manteau's pinn'd awry, This is much fuperiour to a fimilar paffage in the Dispensary, which POPE might have in his eye; At this the victors own fuch ecftacies + As Memphian priests if their Ofiris fneeze; *Cant. iv. ver. 3. + Cant. v. ad calc. Or Gg 2 Or champions with Olympic clangor fir'd, Thefe objects have no reference to Garth's fubject, as almost all of POPE's have, in the paffage in queftion, where fome female foible is glanced at. In this fame canto, the cave of SPLEEN, the pictures of her attendants, ILLNATURE and AFFECTATION, the effects of the vapour that hung over her palace, the imaginary diseases fhe occafions, the * speech of Umbriel, a gnome, to this malignant deity, the vial of female forrows, the fpeech of Thaleftris to aggravate the misfortune, the breaking the vial with its direful effects, and Especially when he adjures the goddess by an account of his fervices, Cant. iv. ver. 72. If e'er with airy horns I planted heads, Nothing can equal this beautiful panegyric, but the fatirical Ouches that go before. the |