414 POPE. 



The speech of Thalestris, too, with its droll climax, 

 is equally good : 



" Methinks already I your tears survey, 

 Already hear the horrid things they say, 

 Already see you a degraded toast, 

 And all your honor in a whisper lost ! 

 How shall I then your helpless fame defend? 

 'T will then be infamy to seem your friend! 

 And shall this prize, the inestimable prize, 

 Exposed through crystal to the gazing eyes, 

 And heightened by the diamond's circling rays, 

 On that rapacious hand forever blaze V 

 Sooner shall grass in Hydepark Circus grow, 

 And wits take lodging in the sound of Bow, 

 Sooner let earth, air, sea, in chaos fall, 

 Men, monkeys, lapdogs, parrots, perish all! " 



So also Belinda's account of the morning omens : 



" 'T was this the morning omens seemed to tell; 

 Thrice from my trembling hand the patch-box fell; 

 The tottering china shook without a wind ; 

 Nay, Poll sat mute, and Shock was most unkind.'* 



The idea of the goddess of Spleen, and of her palace, 

 where 



" The dreaded East is all the wind that blows," 



was a very happy one. In short, the whole poem more 

 truly deserves the name of a creation than anything 

 Pope ever wrote. The action is confined to a world of 

 his own, the supernatural agency is wholly of his own 

 contrivance, and nothing is allowed to overstep the 

 limitations of the subject. It ranks by itself as one of 

 the purest works of human fancy ; whether that fancy 

 be strictly poetical or not is another matter. If we 

 compare it with the " Midsummer-night's Dream," an 

 uncomfortable doubt is suggested. The perfection of 

 form in the " Rape of the Lock " is to me conclusive 

 evidence that in it the natural genius of Pope found 

 fuller and freer expression than in any other of his 

 poems. The others are aggregates of brilliant passages 

 vather than harmonious wholes. 



