of a coquette, and is almost an allegory of the spirit of poetic fancy in slavery to polished society.
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—
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: how it came to pass that so harmless a man should be the butt of so many hostilities? How could any man be angry with a writer of gentle pastorals and versified love-letters? The answer of Pope was, that this was the normal state of things. "The life of a wit," he says, in the preface to his works, "is a warfare upon earth;" and the warfare results from the hatred of men of genius natural to the dull. Had any one else made such a statement, Pope would have
