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Nothing is more common in the poets, than to introduce omens as preceding some important and dreadful event. Virgil has strongly described those that preceded the death of Dido. The rape of Belinda's Lock must necessarily also be attended with alarming prodigies. With what exquisite satire are they enumerated!

Trice from my trembling hand the patch-box fell;
The tottering china shook without a wind.*

And still more to aggravate the direfulness of the impending evil,

Nay, Poll sate mute, and Shock was most unkind!

The chief subject of the fifth and last canto, is the battle that ensues, and the endeavours of the ladies to recover the hair. This battle is de

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scribed, as it ought to be, in very lofty and pompous terms: a game of romps was never so well dignified before. The weapons made use of are the most proper imaginable: the lightning of the ladies eyes, intolerable frowns, a pinch of

snuff,

*Cant. iv. ver. 162.

snuff, and a bodkin. The machinery is not for

got:

Triumphant Umbriel on a sconce's height,

Clapp'd his glad wings, and sate to view the fight.*

Again, when the snuff is given to the Baron,

The gnomes direct, to ev'ry atom just,
The pungent grains of titillating dust.†

Boileau and Garth have also each of them enlivened their pieces with a mock-fight. But Boileau has laid the scene of his action in a neighbouring bookseller's shop, where the combatants encounter each other by chance. This conduct is a little inartificial; but has given the satirist an opportunity of indulging his ruling passion, the exposing the bad poets with which France at that time abounded. Swift's Battle of the Books, at the end of the Tale of a Tub, is evidently taken from this battle of Boileau, which is exThe fight of the physicians,

cellent in its kind.

*Cant. v. ver. 53.

+ Cant. v. ver. 83.

Cant. v.

in

in the Dispensary, is one of its most shining parts. There is a vast deal of propriety, as well as pleasantry, in the weapons Garth has given to his warriors. They are armed, much in character, with caustics, emetics, and cathartics; with buckthorn, and steel-pills; with syringes, bed-pans, and urinals. The execution is exactly proportioned to the deadliness of such irresistible weapons; and the wounds inflicted are suitable to the nature of each different instrument said to inflict them.*

We are now arrived at the grand catastrophe of the poem: the invaluable Lock which is so eagerly sought, is irrecoverably lost! And here our poet has made a judicious use of that celebrated fiction of Ariosto, that all things lost on earth are treasured in the moon. How such a fiction can properly have place in an epic poem, it becomes the defenders of this agreeably extravagant writer to justify; but in a comic poem,

it

appears with grace and consistency.

The

whole passage in Ariosto is full of wit and satire; for wit and satire were, perhaps, the chief and characteristical

* Cant. v.

characteristical of the many striking excellencies of Ariosto.* In this repository in the lunar sphere, says the sprightly Italian, were to be found,

Le lachrime, e i sospiri de gli amanti,
L'inutil' tempo, che si perde a gioco,
E l' otio lungo d'huomini ignoranti,
Vani disegni, che non han mai loco,
I vani desiderii sono tanti,

Che la piu parte ingombra di quel loco,

Cio

* If this be thought too harsh a criticism on this justly celebrated Italian, I am ready to adopt the following opinion of a writer of taste and penetration.

"Ariosto pleases; but not by his monstrous and improbable fictions, by his bizarre mixture of the serious and comic styles, by the want of coherence in his stories, or by the continual interruptions in his narration. He charms by the force and clearness of his expression, by the readiness and variety of his inventions, and by his natural pictures of the passions, especially those of the gay and amorous kind. And however his faults may diminish our satisfaction, they are not able entirely to destroy it. Did our pleasure really arise from those parts of his poem which we denominate faults, this would be no objection to criticism in general; it would only be an objection to those particular rules of criticism, which would establish such circumstances to be faults, and would represent them as universally blameable. If they are found to please, they cannot be faults; let the pleasure which they produce be ever so unexpected and unaccountable." Hume's Four DISSERTATIONS. Diss. iv. p. 212. London, 1757.

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Cio che in summa qua giu perdesti mai,

La su saltendo ritrovar potrai.*

It is very remarkable, that the poet had the boldness to place among these imaginary treasures, the famous deed of gift of Constantine to Pope Silvester. "If (says he) I may be allowed to say this,

Questo era il dono (se pero dir lece)

Che Constantino al buon Silvestre fece.

It may be observed in general, to the honour of the poets, both ancient and modern, that they have ever been some of the first who have detected and opposed the false claims, and mischievous usurpations, of superstition and slavery. Nor can this be wondered at, since these two are the greatest enemies, not only to all true happiness, but to all true genius.

The denouement, as a pedantic disciple of Bossu would call it, of this poem, is well conducted. What is become of this important Lock

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* Orlando Furioso, Cant. xxxiv.

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