the fpeech of the difconfolate Belinda; all these circumstances are poetically imagined, and are far fuperiour to any of Boileau and Garth. How much in character is it for Belinda to mark a very difmal and folitary fituation, by wishing to be conveyed,

Where the gilt chariot never marks the way,
Where none learn Ombre, none e'er tafte Bohea *!

Nothing is more common in the poets than to introduce omens as preceding fome important and dreadful event. Virgil has nobly described those that preceded the death of Dido. The rape of Belinda's Lock must neceffarily alfo be attended with alarming prodigies. With what exquifite fatire are they enumerated!

Thrice from my trembling hand the patch-box fell;
The tottering china fhook without a wind †.

And still more to aggravate the direfulness of the impending evil,

Nay Poll fate mute, and Shock was moft unkind!

* Cant. iv. ver. 156.

+ Ibid. ver. 161.

THE

THE chief fubject of the fifth and laft canto, is the battle that enfues, and the endeavours of the ladies to recover the hair. This battle is defcribed, as it ought to be, in very lofty and pompous terms: a game of romps was never fo well dignified before. The weapons made use of are the most proper imaginable: the lightening of the ladies eyes, intolerable frowns, a pinch of snuff, and a bodkin. The machinery is not forgot :

Triumphant Umbriel on a sconce's height,

Clapp'd his glad wings, and fate to view the fight *.

Again, when the snuff is given to the baron,

The gnomes direct, to ev'ry atom just,
The pungent grains of titillating dust †.

Boileau and Garth have alfo each of them enlivened their pieces with a mock-fight. But Boileau has laid the scene of his action in a bookseller's shop; where the combatants happen to encounter each other by chance. This conduct is a little inartificial; but has

* Cant. v. ver. 53.

+ Ibid. ver. 85.

given the fatyrist an opportunity of indulging his ruling paffion, the expofing the bad poets, with which France at that time abounded. Swift's Battle of the Books, at the end of the Tale of a Tub, is evidently taken from this battle of Boileau, which is excellent in its kind. The fight of the physicians, in the Difpenfary, is one of its moft fhining parts. There is a vast deal of propriety, as well as pleasantry, in the weapons Garth has given to his warriours. They are armed, much in character, with cauftics, emetics, and cathartics; with buckthorn, and steel-pills; with fyringes, bed-pans and urinals. The execution is exactly proportioned to the deadliness of fuch irresistible weapons; and the wounds inflicted, are suitable to the nature of each different inftrument, faid to inflict them †.

We are now arrived at the grand cataftrophe of the poem; the invaluable Lock which is fo eagerly fought, is irrecoverably loft! And here our poet has made a judicious

* Cant. v.

+ Ibid.

ufe

ufe of that celebrated fiction of Ariosto; that all things loft on earth are treasured in the moon. How fuch a fiction can have place in an epic poem, it becomes the defenders of this extravagant and lawless rhapsodist to justtify; but in a comic one, it appears with grace and confiftency. The whole paffage in Ariofto is full of wit and fatire; for wit and fatire were the chief and characteristical excellencies of Ariofto *. In this repofitory

* If this be thought too degrading a criticism on this juftly celebrated Italian, I am ready to adopt the following opinion of a writer of tafte and penetration:

"Ariosto pleases; but not by his monftrous and improbable fictions, by his bizarre mixture of the serious and comic styles, by the want of coherence in his stories, or by the continual interruptions in his narration. He charms by the force and clearnefs of his expreffion, by the readiness and variety of his inventions, and by his natural pictures of the paffions, especially those of the GAY and AMOROUS kind. And however his faults may diminish our fatisfaction, they are not able entirely to deftroy it. Did our pleasure really arife from these parts of his poem, which we denominate faults, this would be no objection to criticism in general: it would only be an objection to those particular rules of criticifm, which would establish fuch circumstances to be faults, and would represent them as univerfally blameable. If they are found to please, they cannot be faults; let the pleasure which they produce, be ever so unexpected and unaccountable." Hume's Four DISSERTATIONS. Diff. iv. p. 212. London, 1757.

in the lunar fphere, fays the SPRIGHTLY Italian, were to be found,

Le lachrime, e i fospiri de gli amanti,
L'inutil' tempo, che fi perde a gioco,
E l'otio lungo d'huomini ignoranti,
Vani difegni, che non han mai loco,
I vani defiderii fono tanti,

Che la piu parte ingombra di quel loco,
Cio che in fumma qua giu perdesti mai,
La fu faltendo ritrovar potrai *.

It is very remarkable, that the poet had the boldness to place among these imaginary treafures, the famous deed of gift of Constantine to Pope Silvefter, "If, fays he, I may be al"lowed to say this,"

Quefto era il dono (se pero dir lece)

Che Conftantino al buon Silveftre fece.

It may be observed in general, to the honour of the poets, both ancient and modern, that they have ever been fome of the first, who have detected and opposed the false claims, and mischievous ufurpations, of fuperftition

* Orlando Furiofo. Cant. xxxiv.