Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel A well-bred Lord t'assault a gentle Belle? 10 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, VER. 13, etc. Stood thus in the fift Edition, Sol thro' white curtains did his beams display, 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, 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, 25 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, 35 40 The light Militis of the lower sky: 45 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 50 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, 55 And love of Ombre, after death survive. 60 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 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, [ In courtly balls, and midnight masquerades, 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, 85 While Peers, and Dukes, and all their sweeping train, Oft, when the world imagine women stray, IMITATIONS. 90 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. |