Part 12 (1/2)
”Not with more glories, in the ethereal plain, The sun first rises o'er the purpled main, Than, issuing forth, the rival of his beams Launch'd on the bosom of the silver Thames.
Fair nymphs, and well-drest youths around her shone, But ev'ry eye was fix'd on her alone.
On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore, Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.
Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose, Quick as her eyes, and as unfix'd as those: Favours to none, to all she smiles extends; Oft she rejects, but never once offends.
Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike; And like the sun, they s.h.i.+ne on all alike.
Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride, Might hide her faults, if belles had faults to hide: If to her share some female errors fall.
Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all.
This nymph, to the destruction of mankind, Nourish'd two locks, which graceful hung behind In equal curls, and well conspir'd to deck With s.h.i.+ning ringlets the smooth iv'ry neck.”
The following is the introduction to the account of Belinda's a.s.sault upon the baron bold, who had dissevered one of these locks ”from her fair head for ever and for ever.”
”Now meet thy fate, incens'd Belinda cry'd, And drew a deadly bodkin from her side.
(The same his ancient personage to deck, Her great, great grandsire wore about his neck, In three seal-rings; which after, melted down, Form'd a vast buckle for his widow's gown; Her infant grandame's whistle next it grew, The bells she jingled, and the whistle blew: Then in a bodkin grac'd her mother's hairs, Which long she wore, and now Belinda wears.)”
I do not know how far Pope was indebted for the original idea, or the delightful execution of this poem, to the Lutrin of Boileau.
The Rape of the Lock is a double-refined essence of wit and fancy, as the Essay on Criticism is of wit and sense. The quant.i.ty of thought and observation in this work, for so young a man as Pope was when he wrote it, is wonderful: unless we adopt the supposition, that most men of genius spend the rest of their lives in teaching others what they themselves have learned under twenty. The conciseness and felicity of the expression is equally remarkable. Thus in reasoning on the variety of men's opinions, he says--
”'Tis with our judgments, as our watches; none Go just alike, yet each believes his own.”
Nothing can be more original and happy than the general remarks and ill.u.s.trations in the Essay: the critical rules laid down are too much those of a school, and of a confined one. There is one pa.s.sage in the Essay on Criticism in which the author speaks with that eloquent enthusiasm of the fame of ancient writers, which those will always feel who have themselves any hope or chance of immortality. I have quoted the pa.s.sage elsewhere, but I will repeat it here.
”Still green with bays each ancient altar stands, Above the reach of sacrilegious hands; Secure from flames, from envy's fiercer rage, Destructive war, and all-involving age.
Hail, bards triumphant, born in happier days, Immortal heirs of universal praise!
Whose honours with increase of ages grow, As streams roll down, enlarging as they flow.”
These lines come with double force and beauty on the reader as they were dictated by the writer's despair of ever attaining that lasting glory which he celebrates with such disinterested enthusiasm in others, from the lateness of the age in which he lived, and from his writing in a tongue, not understood by other nations, and that grows obsolete and unintelligible to ourselves at the end of every second century. But he needed not have thus antedated his own poetical doom--the loss and entire oblivion of that which can never die. If he had known, he might have boasted that his ”little bark” wafted down the stream of time,
”With _theirs_ should sail, Pursue the triumph and partake the gale”--
if those who know how to set a due value on the blessing, were not the last to decide confidently on their own pretensions to it.
There is a cant in the present day about genius, as every thing in poetry: there was a cant in the time of Pope about sense, as performing all sorts of wonders. It was a kind of watchword, the s.h.i.+bboleth of a critical party of the day. As a proof of the exclusive attention which it occupied in their minds, it is remarkable that in the Essay on Criticism (not a very long poem) there are no less than half a score successive couplets rhyming to the word _sense_. This appears almost incredible without giving the instances, and no less so when they are given.
”But of the two, less dangerous is the offence, To tire our patience than mislead our sense.” _lines_ 3, 4.
”In search of wit these lose their common sense, And then turn critics in their own defence.” _l._ 28, 29.
”Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence, And fills up all the mighty void of sense.” _l._ 209, 10.
”Some by old words to fame have made pretence, Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense.” _l._ 324, 5.
”Tis not enough no harshness gives offence; The sound must seem an echo to the sense.” _l._ 364, 5.
”At every trifle scorn to take offence; That always shews great pride, or little sense.” _l._ 386, 7.
”Be silent always, when you doubt your sense, And speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence.” _l._ 366, 7.
”Be n.i.g.g.ards of advice on no pretence, For the worst avarice is that of sense.” _l._ 578, 9.