what Spenser and Milton had
sanctioned. Gods and goddesses therefore play a conspicuous part in his
description of the Forest. The following lines afford a fair
illustration of the style throughout, and the sole merit of the poem is
the smoothness of versification in which Pope excelled.

'Not proud Olympus yields a nobler sight,
Though gods assembled grace his towering height,
Than what more humble mountains offer here,
When in their blessings all those gods appear.
See Pan with flocks, with fruits Pomona crowned,
Here blushing Flora paints th' enamelled ground,
Here Ceres' gifts in waving prospect stand,
And nodding tempt the joyful reaper's hand;
Rich Industry sits smiling on the plains,
And peace and plenty tell a Stuart reigns.

Pope, who was never known to laugh, was a great wit, but his sense of
humour was small, and the descent from these deities to Queen Anne
savours not a little of bathos.

In 1712 Pope had published _The Rape of the Lock_, which Addison justly
praised as 'a delicious little thing.' At the same time he advised the
poet not to attempt improving it, which he proposed to do, and Pope most
unreasonably attributed this advice to jealousy. In 1714 the delightful
poem appeared in its present form with the machinery of sylphs and
gnomes adopted from the mysteries of the Rosicrucians. Pope styles it an
heroi-comical poem, and judged in the light of a burlesque it is
conceived and executed with an art that is beyond praise. Lord Petre, a
Roman Catholic peer, had cut off a lock of Miss Arabella Fermor's hair,
much to the indignation of her family and possibly of the young lady
also. Pope wrote the poem to remove the discord caused by the fatal
shears, but its publication, and two or three offensive allusions it
contained, only served to add to Miss Fermor's annoyance. 'The
celebrated lady herself,' the poet wrote, 'is offended, and which is
stranger, not at herself but me. Is not this enough to make a writer
never be tender of another's character or fame?' But Pope, whose praise
of women is too often a libel upon them, was not as tender as he ought
to have been of the lady's reputation.

The offence felt by the heroine of the poem is now unheeded; the dainty
art exhibited is a permanent delight, and our language can boast no more
perfect specimen of the poetical burlesque than the _Rape of the Lock_.
The machinery of the sylphs is managed with perfect skill,