t, though it
seems that the lady and her family began to think that young Mr. Pope
was making rather too free with her name. Pope meanwhile, animated by
his success, hit upon a singularly happy conception, by which he thought
that the poem might be rendered more important. The solid critics of
those days were much occupied with the machinery of epic poems; the
machinery being composed of the gods and goddesses who, from the days of
Homer, had attended to the fortunes of heroes. He had hit upon a curious
French book, the _Comte de Gabalis_, which professes to reveal the
mysteries of the Rosicrucians, and it occurred to him that the elemental
sylphs and gnomes would serve his purpose admirably. He spoke of his new
device to Addison, who administered--and there is not the slightest
reason for doubting his perfect sincerity and good meaning--a little
dose of cold water. The poem, as it stood, was a "delicious little
thing"--_merum sal_--and it would be a pity to alter it. Pope, however,
adhered to his plan, made a splendid success, and thought that Addison
must have been prompted by some mean motive. The _Rape of the Lock_
appeared in its new form, with sylphs and gnomes, and an ingenious
account of a game at cards and other improvements, in 1714. Pope
declared, and critics have agreed, that he never showed more skill than
in the remodelling of this poem; and it has ever since held a kind of
recognised supremacy amongst the productions of the drawing-room muse.

The reader must remember that the so-called heroic style of Pope's
period is now hopelessly effete. No human being would care about
machinery and the rules of Bossu, or read without utter weariness the
mechanical imitations of Homer and Virgil which were occasionally
attempted by the Blackmores and other less ponderous versifiers. The
shadow grows dim with the substance. The burlesque loses its point when
we care nothing for the original; and, so far, Pope's bit of
filigree-work, as Hazlitt calls it, has become tarnished. The very
mention of beaux and belles suggests the kind of feeling with which we
disinter fragments of old-world finery from the depths of an ancient
cabinet, and even the wit is apt to sound wearisome. And further, it
must be allowed to some hostile critics that Pope has a worse defect.
The poem is, in effect, a satire upon feminine frivolity. It continues
the strain of mockery against hoops and patches and their wearers, which
supplied Addison and