n, who directed her to be watched with still
greater vigilance, till of this restraint she grew so impatient, that
she bribed a woman servant to procure her a sword, which she directed to
her heart.

From this account, given with evident intention to raise the lady's
character, it does not appear that she had any claim to praise, nor
much to compassion. She seems to have been impatient, violent, and
ungovernable. Her uncle's power could not have lasted long; the hour of
liberty and choice would have come in time. But her desires were too hot
for delay, and she liked self-murder better than suspense.

Nor is it discovered that the uncle, whoever he was, is with much
justice delivered to posterity as "a false guardian;" he seems to have
done only that for which a guardian is appointed: he endeavoured to
direct his niece till she should be able to direct herself. Poetry has
not often been worse employed than in dignifying the amorous fury of a
raving girl.

Not long after, he wrote the Rape of the Lock, the most airy, the most
ingenious, and the most delightful of all his compositions, occasioned
by a frolick of gallantry, rather too familiar, in which lord Petre cut
off a lock of Mrs. Arabella Fermor's hair. This, whether stealth or
violence, was so much resented, that the commerce of the two families,
before very friendly, was interrupted. Mr. Caryl, a gentleman who, being
secretary to king James's queen, had followed his mistress into France,
and who, being the author of Sir Solomon Single, a comedy, and some
translations, was entitled to the notice of a wit, solicited Pope to
endeavour a reconciliation by a ludicrous poem, which might bring both
the parties to a better temper. In compliance with Caryl's request,
though his name was for a long time marked only by the first and last
letters, C----l, a poem of two cantos was written, 1711, as is said, in
a fortnight, and sent to the offended lady, who liked it well enough to
show it; and, with the usual process of literary transactions, the
author, dreading a surreptitious edition, was forced to publish it.

The event is said to have been such as was desired, the pacification and
diversion of all to whom it related, except sir George Brown, who
complained, with some bitterness, that, in the character of sir Plume,
he was made to talk nonsense. Whether all this be true I have some
doubt; for at Paris, a few years ago, a niece of Mrs. Fermor, who
presided in an English