Poets are limners of another kind,

To copy out ideas in the mind;

Words are the paint by which their thoughts are shown

And Nature sits the object to be drawn ;

The written picture we applaud or blame,
But as the due proportions are the same,
Who driven with ungovernable fire,

Or void of art, beyond these bounds aspire,
Gigantic forms and monstrous births alone

Produce, which Nature, shocked, disdains to own.1

Keeping in view this principle of following Nature, Dryden had recommended the constant study of Virgil as a model :

He (Virgil) is everywhere above conceits of epigrammatic wit and gross hyperboles; he maintains majesty in the midst of plainness; he shines but glares not; and is stately without ambition, which is the vice of Lucan. I drew my definition of poetical wit from my particular consideration of him: for propriety of thoughts and words are only to be found in him; and where they are proper they will be delightful.2

Opinions like these-which from the Restoration onwards were always multiplying-far from being in Pope's age "commonplace," had still their battle to fight against that idea of "Wit" which, I have attempted to show in an earlier chapter, sprang out of the decay of Mediævalism.3 The Essay on Criticism was an effort to codify the new law of the Renaissance with regard to poetical imitation. It is divided into three sections. In the first Pope dwells upon the chaotic state of Criticism in his day, and the many abuses of the art which consequently prevail; lays down his main rule of following Nature; and explains that the rules to be observed must be studied in the works of the great classical writers, because their way of proceeding is "Nature still, but Nature methodised." In the second section of the Essay, which is much the finest, he illustrates the necessity of his doctrine by many examples of False Wit, and produces his famous definition of True Wit, which he declares to be:

1 On Unnatural Flights in Poetry.
3 Vol. iii. chapter vi.

2 See vol. iii. p. 531.

Nature to advantage dressed,

What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.

Pope

In the third section he describes the character of the good
critic, and gives an historical sketch of those who have
most distinguished themselves in the art, closing it with
an elegant compliment to Walsh, who, as he told Spence,
was the first to advise him to aim at CC correctness." The
execution of the central design is very irregular; the
arrangement being often confused, and the particular
thoughts so unconnected as to leave the impression that
the epigrams have been produced without method.
had as yet by no means acquired that mastery of expres-
sion which distinguished him in his maturity; and there
are probably more faulty constructions in the Essay on
Criticism than in any other of his works. Much ambiguity
arises from the use of the word "wit," which, in the Essay,
has the various meanings of understanding, genius, conceit,
and judgment, and is sometimes employed in the same
sentence to express contrary ideas, as :—

Some, to whom Heaven in wit has been profuse,
Want as much more, to turn it to its use;

For wit and judgment often are at strife,

Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife.

Now and then the poet appears to be beaten by difficulties of expression, as in the following passage, where the general structure of the verse seems to require in some form the use of the word "imagination" in the second line :-

Thus in the soul while memory prevails,
The solid power of understanding fails;
Where beams of warm imagination play,
The memory's soft figures melt away;

and in more than one couplet the sense is entirely obscured by the elliptical grammar, as in these very poor and flat lines:

Nor suffers Horace more in wrong translations
By wits, than critics in as wrong quotations.

It must be added that both the history of criticism and the appreciation of individual critics contained in the

Essay are crude and sometimes puerile. These defects are, however, excusable when the age of the author is considered, and if this be taken into account, few impartial judges will deny that, for a boy of twenty-one, the Essay on Criticism is a marvellous performance. When we estimate it with reference to Pope's claim to be held a representative critic, we are bound to remember that his aim was to produce not a treatise of analytical reason, but a didactic poem. Judged by this standard, Johnson's praise of the Essay does not seem to be exaggerated :

The Essay on Criticism is one of Pope's greatest works, and if he had written nothing else would have placed him among the first critics and the first poets, as it exhibits every mode of excellence that can embellish or dignify didactic compositionselection of matter, novelty of arrangement, justice of precept, splendour of illustration, and propriety of digression.1

In the same year that the Essay on Criticism was published, Pope produced in The Rape of the Lock the most brilliant illustration that he, or indeed any other poet, ever devised of the principles advocated in the Essay. It happened that, in May 1711, Robert, seventh Baron Petre, in a freak of gallantry, cut a lock of hair from the head of Arabella Fermor, a young lady of beauty and fashion. Both parties belonged to leading Roman Catholic families, and as the incident seemed likely to cause divisions in a religious society which it was expedient to keep united, Pope's friend Caryll, of Ladyholt in Sussex, suggested that he might bring about a reconciliation by treating the subject humorously in poetry. The fruit of the suggestion appeared in the first draft of The Rape of the Lock, published in Lintot's Miscellany of May 1712. In this early form the poem consisted of two cantos, containing together 334 lines. It was without the machinery of the Sylphs, the episode of Belinda's toilet, the voyage up the Thames to Hampton Court, the game of Ombre, and the mission of Umbriel to the Cave of Spleen. These additions were made in 1713, after Pope had become acquainted with the

1 Lives of the Poets: Pope.

book of the Comte de Gabalis on the Rosicrucians; and The Rape of the Lock then assumed its expanded form of five cantos containing 794 lines. The motto, adapted from Martial, prefixed to the first edition, was replaced by one from Ovid, in order to emphasise Pope's declaration in dedicating the poem to Miss Fermor, that almost all the incidents and characters were fictitious.

The poem thus altered was received with almost universal applause. It produced the happy effect hoped for by Caryll, and the only person glanced at in it who seems, and not unnaturally, to have been offended was Sir George Brown, the original of Sir Plume. One harsh voice was, however, raised in disparagement of its quality. Dennis, the critic, now, through many pin-pricks, become Pope's implacable enemy, could see no merit in the performance. He proved, in a pamphlet, by many weighty arguments, that the whole thing was an imposture; and Pope, who respected his ability, gave heed to his criticisms. He even paid him the compliment of making changes to meet his objections, and when The Rape of the Lock appeared among the collected poems in the quarto of 1717, it was found to contain a final improvement in the speech of Clarissa, inserted for the first time in the fifth canto.

The censure of Dennis, which seems to have made the most impression upon Pope, was ethical rather than æsthetic. "The Rape of the Lock," said the critic, "is an empty trifle, which cannot have a moral." Clarissa's speech is evidently intended to supply the omission thus noted; and as, amidst the chorus of admiration lavished upon the poem, Dennis's criticism, in spite of the importance which Pope attached to it, has never received much attention, it seems worth while to consider it in connection with what Joseph Warton says in praise of the work:

I hope (the latter observes in his Essay on the Genius of Pope) it will not be thought an exaggerated panegyric to say that The Rape of the Lock is the best satire extant; that it contains the truest and liveliest picture of modern life; and that the subject is of a more elegant nature, as well as more artfully conducted, than that of any other heroic-comic poem.

Were satire the essence of The Rape of the Lock, as Warton's criticism seems to imply, it would be difficult not to agree with Dennis that the poem should be placed on a lower level than Le Lutrin. For Dennis's description of the ethical qualities of Boileau's poem is perfectly just: he calls it "an important satirical poem upon the luxury, pride, and animosities of the popish clergy, and the moral is that when Christians, and especially the clergy, run into great heats about religious trifles, their animosity proceeds from the want of that religion which is the pretence of their quarrel." Pope thought it a sufficient answer to say that if "female sex were substituted for "popish clergy," "ladies" for "clergy," and "sense " for

religion," Dennis's description would apply to The Rape of the Lock. But even if this were so, it is certain that, in weightiness of moral, The Rape of the Lock could not compare with Le Lutrin.

Moreover, in point of art, the skill with which Boileau applies the heroic-comic style for the purposes of moral satire is at least equal to anything in The Rape of the Lock. The special excellence of Boileau's style lies in his descriptions and his speeches. Choosing nicely selected words to exalt mean objects, and never deviating from the grave seriousness with which he makes his speakers expose their own ignorance, sloth, or gluttony, his verse is a model of taste and propriety, as may be inferred from the following specimen, describing the council held by the party of the precentor, on hearing the tidings of the replacing of the lectern :-

Alain tousse, et se lève; Alain ce savant homme,
Qui de Bauny vingt fois a lu toute la Somme,
Qui possède Abéli, qui sait tout Raconis,
Et même entend, dit-on, le latin d'A-Kempis.1

N'en doutez point, leur dit ce savant canoniste,
Ce coup part, j'en suis sûr, d'une main janséniste.
Mes yeux en sont témoins; j'ai vu moi-même hier
Entrer chez le prélat le chapelain Garnier.

1 The modern names in these verses are those of anti-Jansenists opposed to Arnauld, whose side Boileau took in the controversy between the latter and Jesuits. The Latin of the Imitatio is at once barbarous and easy to understand.