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Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel

A well-bred Lord t'assault a gentle Belle?
Osay what stranger cause, yet unexplor'd,
Could make a gentle Belle reject a Lord?
In tafks fo bold, can little inen engage,
And in foft bosoms dwells fuch mighty Rage?

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Sol thro' white curtains shot a tim'rous ray, And ope'd those eyes that muft eclipse the day: Now lap-dogs give themselves the rousing shake, 15 And fleepless lovers, just at twelve, awake: Thrice rung the bell, the flipper knock'd the ground, And the prefs'd watch return'd a filver found. Belinda still her downy pillow preft,

Her guardian SYLPH prolong'd the balmy rest: 20 'Twas He had fummon'd to her filent bed

that he made it more confiderable the next year by the addition of the machinery of the Sylphs, and extended it to five Canto's. We shall give the reader the pleasure of feeing in what manner these additions were inferted, so as to feem not to be added, but to grow out of the Poem. See Notes, Cant I. v 19, etc. P.

This intertion he always esteemed, and juftly, the greatest effort of his skill and art as a Poet.

VARIATIONS.

VER. II, 12. It was in the first Editions,

And dwells fuch rage in softest bosoms then,
And lodge fuch dering Souls in little Men?

VER. 13, etc. Stood thus in the fift Edition,

Sol thro' white curtains did his beams display,
And ope'd those eyes which brighter shone than they:
Shock just had giv'n himself the roufing shake,
And Nymphs prepar'd their Chocolate to take:
Thrice the wrought flipper knock'd against the ground,
And striking watches the tenth hour refound.

NOTES.

VER. 20. Her Guardian Sylph) When Mr. Pope had projected to give this Poem its present form, he was obliged to find it

NOTES.

with its Machinery. For as the fubiect of the Epic Poem confifts of two parts, the metaphysical and the civil, so this mock epic, which is of the fatiric kind, and receives its grace from a ludicrous imitation of the other's pomp and folemnity, was to have the same division of the fubject, And, as the civil part is intentionally debased by the choice of an infignificant action: so should the metaphysical, by the use of fome very extravagant system. A rule, which tho neither Boileau nor Garth have been careful enough to attend to, our Author's good sense would not fuffer him to overlook. And that fort of Machinery which his judgment taught him was only fit for his use, his admirable invention supplied. There was but one System in all nature which was to his purpose, the Roficrufian Philosophy: and this, by the well directed effort of his imagination, he prefently feized upon. The fanatic Alchemists, in their search after the great fecret. had invented a means altogether proportioned to their end. It was a kind of Theological - Philosophy, made up of almost equal mixtures of Pagan Platonism, Christian Quietism, and the Jewish Cabbala; a compofition enough to fright Reason from human commerce. This general system, he tells us; he took as he found it in a little French tract called, Le Comte de Gabalis. This book is written in Dialogue, and is a delicate and very ingenious piece of raillery of the Abbe Villiers, upon that invisible sect, of which the stories that went about at that time, made a great deal of noise at Paris. But, as in this fatirical Dialogue, Mr. P. found several whimfies, of a very high mysterious kind, told of the nature of these elementary beings, which were very unfit to come into the machinery of fuch a fort of poem, he has with great judgment omitted them; and in their stead, made use of the Legendary stories of Guardian Angels, and the Nursery Tales of the Fairies; which he has artfully accommodated to the rest of the Rosicrusian System. And to this, (unless we will be so uncharitable to believe he intended to give a needless scandal) we muft suppose he referred, in these two lines,

If e'er one Vision touch'd thy infant thought,
Of all the nurse, and all the priest have taught.

Thus, by the most beautiful invention imaginable, he has contrived, that, as in the ferious Epic, the popular belief supports the Machinery, so, in his mock Epic, the Machinery should be contrived to dismount philosophic pride and arrogance.

The morning dream that hover'd o'er her head,
A Youth more glitt'ring than a Birth-night Beau,
(That ev'n in slumber caus'd her cheek to glow)
Seem'd to her ear his winning lips to lay,
And thus in whispers faid, or seem'd to say.

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Fairest of mortals, thou diftinguifh'd care Of thousand bright Inhabitants of Air! If e'er one Vision touch thy infant thought, Of all the Nurse and all the Prieft have taught; 30 Of airy Elves by moonlight shadows feen,

The filver token, and the circled green,

Or virgins vifited by Angel-pow'rs,

With golden crowns and wreaths of heav'nly flow'rs;

Hear and believe! thy own importance know,
Nor bound thy narrow views to things below.
Some fecret truths, from learned pride conceal'd,
To Maids alone and Children are reveal'd;
What tho' no credit doubting Wits may give?
The Fair and Innocent shall still believe.
Know then, unnumber'd Spirits round thee fly,

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40

The light Militis of the lower sky:
These, tho' unfeen, are ever on the wing,
Hang o'er the Box, and hover round the Ring.
Think what an equipage thou haft in Air,
And view with scorn two Pages and a Chair.
As now your own, our beings were of old,

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VER. 22.

NOTES.

Belinda still, etc.) All the verses from hence to

the end of this Canto were added afterwards.

VFR. 47. As now your own, etc.) He here forsakes the Roficrufian system; which, in this part, is too extravagant even for Poetry; and gives a beautiful fiction of his own, on the Platonic Theology of the continuance of the paflions in another state, when NOTES.

And once inclos'd in Woman's beauteous mould;

Thence, by a soft tranfition, we repair
From earthly Vehicles to these of air.

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Think not, when Woman's tranfient breath is fled,

That all her vanities at once are dead;

Succeeding vanities she still regards,

And tho' she plays no more, o'erlooks the cards.

Her joy in gilded chariots, when alive,

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And love of Ombre, after death survive.
For when the Fair in all their pride expire,
To their first Elements their Souls retire:
The Sprites of fiery Termagants in Flame
Mount up and take a Salamander's name.
Soft yielding minds to Water glide away,
And fip, with Nymphs, their elemental Tea,
The graver Prude tinks downward to a Gnome,
In search of mischief still on Earth to roam.
The light Coquettes in Sylphs aloft repair,
And sport and flutter in the fields of Air.
Know farther yer; whoever fair and chafte
Rejects mankind, is by some Sylph embrac'd:

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65

the mind, before its leaving this, has not been purged and purified by philosophy; which furnishes an occafion for much useful fatire.

VER. 68. Is by fome Sylph embrac'd:) Here again the Author refumes a tenet peculiar to the Roficrufian system. But the principle, on which it is founded, was by no means fit to be employed in such a fort of poem.

VER. 54.55.

IMITATIONS.

Quæ gratia currüm

Armorumque fuit vivis, quæ cura nitentes
Pafcere equos, eadem fequitur tellure repostos.

Virg. Æn. vi.

For Spirits, freed from mortal laws, with ease Affume what fexes and what shapes they please. 70 What guards the purity of melting Maids,

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In courtly balls, and midnight masquerades,
Safe from the treach'rous friend, the daring spark,
The glance by day, the whisper in the dark,
When kind occafion prompts their warm defires, 75
When music softens, and when dancing fires?
'Tis but their Sylph, the wife Celestials know,
Tho' Honour is the word with Men below.

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Some nymphs there are, too confcious of their face, For life predeftin'd to the Gnome's embrace. These swell their profpects and exalt their pride, When offers are disdain'd, and love deny'd :

Then gay Ideas croud the vacant brain,

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While Peers, and Dukes, and all their sweeping train,
And Garters, Stars, and Coronets appear,
And in foft founds, Your Grace falutes their ear.
'Tis these that early taint the female foul,-
Instruct the eyes of young Coquettes to roll,
Teach infant-cheeks a bidden blush to know,
And little hearts to flutter at a Beau.

Oft, when the world imagine women stray,
The Sylphs thro' mystic mazes guide their way,
Thro' all the giddy circle they pursue,
And old impertinence expel by new.
What tender maid but must a victim fall

IMITATIONS.

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95

VER. 78. The honour is the word with Men below.) Parody of Homer.

VER. 79. soo confciens of their face,) i, c. too sensible of their beauty.

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