rain
Roar'd for the handkerchief that caused his pain.

These faults, though far from trifling, are yet felt only as blemishes
in the admirable beauty and brilliance of the poem. The successive
scenes are given with so firm and clear a touch--there is such a sense
of form, the language is such a dexterous elevation of the ordinary
social twaddle into the mock-heroic, that it is impossible not to
recognize a consummate artistic power. The dazzling display of true wit
and fancy blinds us for the time to the want of that real tenderness and
humour, which would have softened some harsh passages, and given a more
enduring charm to the poetry. It has, in short, the merit that belongs
to any work of art which expresses in the most finished form the
sentiment characteristic of a given social phase; one deficient in many
of the most ennobling influences, but yet one in which the arts of
converse represent a very high development of shrewd sense refined into
vivid wit. And we may, I think, admit that there is some foundation for
the genealogy that traces Pope's Ariel back to his more elevated
ancestor in the _Tempest_. The later Ariel, indeed, is regarded as the
soul of a coquette, and is almost an allegory of the spirit of poetic
fancy in slavery to polished society.

Gums and pomatums shall his flight restrain
While clogg'd he beats his silken wings in vain.

Pope's Ariel is a parody of the ethereal being into whom Shakspeare had
refined the ancient fairy; but it is a parody which still preserves a
sense of the delicate and graceful. The ancient race which appeared for
the last time in this travesty of the fashion of Queen Anne, still
showed some touch of its ancient beauty. Since that time no fairy has
appeared without being hopelessly childish or affected.

Let us now turn from the poems to the author's personal career during
the same period. In the remarkable autobiographic poem called the
_Epistle to Arbuthnot_, Pope speaks of his early patrons and friends,
and adds--

Soft were my numbers; who could take offence
When pure description held the place of sense?
Like gentle Fanny's was my flow'ry theme,
A painted mistress or a purling stream.
Yet then did Gildon draw his venal quill--
I wish'd the man a dinner, and sat still.
Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret;
I never answer'd,--I was not in debt.

Pope's view of his own career suggests the curious problem: