POPE. 411 



the delineator of manners, the exposer of those motives 

 which may be called acquired, whose spring is in insti- 

 tutions and habits of purely worldly origin. 



The "Rape of the Lock" 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 "Dispensary." The idea was taken 

 from that entertaining book " The Count de Gabalis," in 

 which Fouque afterward found the hint for his "Un- 

 dine " ; 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 sub- 

 lime 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 contrast continually suggested 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 : — 



" 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? " 



The keynote of the poem is here struck, and we are able 

 to put ourselves in tune with it. It is not a parody of 

 the heroic style, but only a setting it in satirical juxta- 

 position with cares and events and modes of thought 

 with which it is in comical antipathy, and while it is 

 not degraded, they are shown in their triviality. The 



