While visits shall be paid on solemn days,
When num'rous wax-lights in bright order blaze,
While nymphs take treats, or assignations give, 169
So long my honour, name, and praise fhall live!
What Time would spare, from Steel receives its date,
And monuments, like men, submit to fate!
Steel could the labour of the Gods destroy,
And strike to duft th' imperial tow’rs of Troy;
Steel could the works of mortal pride confound,
And hew triumphal arches to the ground.

176 What wonder then, fair nymph! thy hairs should feel The conqu’ring force of unrefifted Steel?

NOTES. Mrs. Manley, the author of it, was the daughter of Sir Roger Manley, Governor of Guernsey, and the author of the first volume of the famous Turkish Spy, published, from his papers, by Dr. Midgley. She was known and admired by all the wits of the times. She wrote three plays; Lucius, the last, 1717, was de. dicated to Sir Richard Steele, with whom she had quarrelled fume time before. He wrote the prologue to it, and Prior the epilogue. She was also celebrated by Lord Lansdown. She died in the house of Alderman Barber, Swift's friend; and was said to have been the mistress of the Alderman.

WARTON.

IMITATIONS. VFR. 163, 170.] “ Dum juga montis aper, fluvios dum piscis amabit, Semper honos, nomenque tuum, laudesque manebunt.”

VIRG. Ver. 177.] “ Ille quoque eversus mons est, &c. Quid faciant crines, cum ferro talia cedant ?"

CATULL. de com. Berenices. Pope.

THE RAPE OF THE LOCK.

CANTO IV.

5

But
UT anxious cares the pensive nymph oppress’d,

And secret passions labour'd in her breast.'
Not youthful kings in battle feiz'd alive,
Not fcornful virgins who their charms survive,
Not ardent lovers robb'd of all their bliss,
Not ancient ladies when refus'd a kiss,
Not tyrants fierce that unrepenting die,
Not Cynthia when her manteau's pinn'd awry,
E'er felt such rage, resentment, and despair,
As thou, fad Virgin! for thy ravish'd Hair.

For, that fad moment, when the Sylphs withdrew,
And Ariel weeping from Belinda flew,
Umbriel, a dusky, melancholy sprite,
As ever fully'd the fair face of light,

Down

10

VARIATIONS. Ver. 11. 'For, tbat sad moment, &c.] All the lines from hence to the 94th verse, that describe the house of Spleen, are not in the first Edition; instead of them followed only these,

While her rack'd Soul repose and peace requires,

The fierce Thalestris fans the rising fires. And continued at the 94th verse of this Canto. POPE.

IMITATIONS. Ver. 1.] “ At regina gravi,” &c. Virg. Æneid. iv. Pope. Down to the central earth, his proper scene, 15 Repair'd to search the gloomy Cave of Spleen.

Swift on his sooty pinions flits the Gnome, And in a vapour reach'd the dismal dome. No chearful breeze this fullen region knows, The dreaded East is all the wind that blows. Here in a grotto, shelter'd close from air, And screen’d in shades from day's detested glare, She fighs for ever on her pensive bed, Pain at her side, and Megrim at her head. 24

Two handmaids wait the throne: alike in place, But diff’ring far in figure and in face. Here stood Ill-nature like an ancient maid, Her wrinkled form in black and white array'd! With store of pray’rs, for mornings, nights, and noons, Her hand is fill'd; her bosom with lampoons. 30

There Affectation with a fickly mien, Shows in her cheek the roses of eighteen,

Practis'd

NOTES.
VER. 16. Cave of Spleen.]
“ Thro' me ye pass to Spleen's terrific dome,

Thro' me, to Discontent's eternal home!
Thro’ me, to those who sadden'd human life,
» By sullen humour or vaxations strife ;
And here thro' fceves of endless vapour

hurl'd,
Are punish'd in the forms they plagu'd the world;
Juftly they feel no joy, who none bestow,

All ye who enter, every hope forego!" It is thus Mr. Hayley, in allusion to Dante's striking inscription over hell gate, begins his description of the dwelling of Spleen. She and her attendants are afterwards painted with force and spirit in the next 200 verses, and more.

His mild and engaging Serena, her prim and four aunt Penelope, and the good old Squire, are admirable portraits.

WARTON.

Practis'd to lifp, and hang the head aside,
Faints into airs, and languishes with pride,
On the rich quilt sinks with becoming woe, 35
Wrapt in a gown, for fickness, and for show.
The fair-ones feel such maladies as these,
When each new night-dress gives a new disease.

A constant Vapour o'er the palace flies;
Strange phantoms rising as the mists arise;

40 Dreadful, as hermits' dreams in haunted shades, Or bright, as visions of expiring maids. Now glaring fiends, and snakes on rolling spires, Pale fpe&res, gaping tombs, and purple fires: Now lakes of liquid gold, Elysian scenes, 45 And crystal domes, and Angels in machines.

Unnumber'd throngs, on ev'ry side are seen, Of bodies chang'd to various forms by Spleen. Here living Tea-pots stand, one arm held out, One bent; the handle this, and that the spout: 50 A Pipkin there, like Homer's Tripod walks ; Here fighs a Jar, and there a Goose-pye talks ;

Men

NOTES.
Ver. 41. Dreadful, as hermits' dreams in haunted fbades,

Or bright, as visions of expiring maid..] The Poet by this comparison would infinuate, that the tempta. tions of the mortified Recluses in the Church of Rome, and the extatic visions of their female Saints, were as much she effects

of

IMITATIONS. VER. 51. Homer's Tripod walks ;] See Hom. Iliad. xviii. cf* Vulcan's walking Tripods.

Pore. Ver. 52. and there a Goose-pye talks ;] Alludes to a real fact, a Lady of distinction imagined herself in this condition. Pore.

56

Men

prove with child, as pow'rful fancy works, And maids turn'd bottles, call aloud for corks.

Safe past the Gnome through this fantastic band, A branch of healing Spleenwort in his hand. Then thus address’d the pow'r–Hail, wayward Queen! Who rule the sex to fifty from fifteen : Parent of vapours and of female wit, Who give th' hysteric, or poetic fit,

60 On various tempers act by various ways, Make some take physic, others scribble plays; Who cause the proud their visits to delay, And send the godly in a pet to pray. A nymph there is, that all thy pow'r disdains, And thousands more in equal mirth maintains. But oh! if e'er thy Gnome could spoil a grace, Or raise a pimple on a beauteous face, Like Citron-waters matrons' cheeks inflame, Or change complexions at a lofing Game; 70 If e'er with airy horns I planted heads, Or rumpled petticoats, or tumbled beds,

Or

65

NOTES.

of hypochondriac disorders, the Spleen, or, what was then the fashionable word, the Vapours, as any of the imaginary trans. formations he speaks of afterwards.

WARBURTON. Ver. 53. Men prove with child,] Van Swieten, in his Com. mentaries on Boerhaave, relates, that he knew a man who had ftudied till he fancied his legs to be of glass; his maid bringing wood to his fire, threw it carelessly down ; our fage was angry and terrified for his legs of glass; the girl, out of patience with his megrims, gave him a blow with a log on the parts affected i

instantly ftarted up in a rage, and from that moment recovered the use of his glass legs!

WARTON.