36o POPE. 



tefe said : when Shock, who thought she slept too long, 

 Leaped up and waked his mistress with his tongue ; 

 Twaa then, Belinda, if report say true, 

 Thy eyes first opened on a billet-doux.&quot; 



Throughout this poem the satiric wit of Pope peeps out in 

 the pleasantest little smiling ways, as where, in describing 

 the toilet-table, he says : 



&quot; Here files of pins extend their shining rows, 

 Puffs, powders, patches, Bibles, billet-doux.&quot; 



Or when, after the fatal lock has been severed, 



&quot; Then flashed the living lightning from her eyes, 

 And screams of horror rend the affrighted skies, 

 Not louder shrieks to pitying Heaven are cast 

 When husbands or when lapdogs breathe their last ; 

 Or when rich china-vessels, fallen from high, 

 In glittering dust and painted fragments lie ! &quot; 



And so when the conflict begins : 



&quot; Now Jove suspends his golden scales in air ; 

 Weighs the men s wits against the ladies hair ; 

 The doubtful beam long nods from side to side ; 

 At length the wits mount up, the hairs subside.&quot; 



But more than the wit and fancy, I think, the perfect 

 keeping of the poem deserves admiration. Except a touch 

 of grossness, here and there, there is the most pleasing 

 harmony in all the conceptions and images. The punish 

 ments which he assigns to the sylphs who neglect their 

 duty are charmingly appropriate and ingenious : 



&quot; Whatever spirit, careless of his charge, 

 His post neglects, or leaves the fair at large, 

 Shall feel sharp vengeance soon o er take his sins ; 

 Be stopped in vials or transfixed with pins, 

 Or plunged in lakes of bitter washes lie, 

 Or wedged whole ages in a bodkin s eye ; 

 Gums and pomatums shall his flight restrain, 

 While clogged he beats his silver wings in vain ; 

 Or alum styptics with contracting power, 

 Shrink his thin essence like a rivelled flower ; 

 Or as Ixion fixed the wretch shall feel 

 The giddy motion of the whirling wheel, 

 In fumes of burning chocolate shall glow, 

 And tremble at the sea that froths below 1 &quot; 



