358 POPE. 



which, indeed, he appears more purely as poet than in any 

 other of his productions. Elsewhere he has shown more 

 force, more wit, more reach of thought, but nowhere such a 

 truly artistic combination of elegance and fancy. His 

 genius has here found its true direction, and the very same 

 artificiality, which in his pastorals was unpleasing, heightens 

 the effect, and adds to the general keeping. As truly as 

 Shakespeare is the poet of man, as God made him, dealing 

 with great passions and innate motives, so truly is Pope 

 the poet of society, the delineator of manners, the exposer 

 of those motives which may be called acquired, whose 

 spring is in institutions and habits of purely worldly 

 origin. 



The &quot; Rape of the Lock &quot; was written in Pope s twenty- 

 fourth year, and the machinery of the Sylphs was added at 

 the suggestion of Dr. Garth a circumstance for which we 

 can feel a more unmixed gratitude to him than for writing 

 the &quot; Dispensary.&quot; The idea was taken from that enter 

 taining book, &quot; The Count de Gabalis,&quot; in which Fouque 

 afterwards found the hint for his &quot; Undine ; &quot; but the little 

 sprites as they appear in the poem are purely the creation 

 of Pope s fancy. 



The theory of the poem is excellent. The heroic is out 

 of the question in fine society. It is perfectly true that 

 almost every door we pass in the street closes upon its 

 private tragedy, but the moment a great passion enters a 

 man he passes at once out of the artificial into the human. 

 So long as he continues artificial, the sublime is a conscious 

 absurdity to him. The mock-heroic then is the only way 

 in which the petty actions and sufferings of the fine world 

 can be epically treated, and the contrasts continually sug 

 gested with subjects of larger scope and more dignified 

 treatment, makes no small part of the pleasure and sharpens 

 the point of the wit. The invocation is admirable : 



&quot; Say, what strange motive, Goddess, could compel 

 A well-bred lord to assault a gentle belle ? 

 say what stranger cause, yet unexplored, 

 Could make a gentle belle reject a lord ? &quot; 



