ALEXANDER POPE 85 others praised them warmly in MS., and left-legged Jacob Tonson came cap in hand to solicit them for the sixth part of his " Miscellany," where they ultimately wound up that volume, balancing (or rather over-balancing) the " Pastorals " of Ambrose Philips, which began it. To the same collection Pope contributed an imitation of Chaucer, and an episode from the " Iliad." The immediate success of these performances seems to have set him upon his next poem, the " Essay on Criticism," which was published by Lewis in 171 1. His mastery over his medium was still more noticeable than the originality of his thought. But this cento of exquisitely chiselled critical commonplaces goes far toward being a chef cCceuvre of mere manipulative skill ; and we are still, by our daily use of some of its lines, justifying the truth of Addison's dictum, that " Wit and fine Writing doth not consist so much in advancing Things that are new as in giving Things that are known an agreeable Turn." To the " Essay on Criticism " succeeded one of Pope's most brilliant poems, the famous " Rape of the Lock." In its first form it appeared, together with some minor poems and translations, in a volume of " Miscellanies " published by Tonson's rival, Lintot. Its motif was the theft by a certain Lord Petre of one of the tresses of Miss Arabella or " Belle " Fermor, and this venial larceny having somewhat strained the relations of the two families concerned, Pope was invited to compose matters by invocation of the Muse. The poem in its first " Miscel- lany " form consisted of no more than two cantos ; but Pope, confident of his powers, and certainly with a better knowledge of his own method than his critics could have possessed, boldly took advantage of its success to expand it into five cantos by the addition of a Rosicrucian machinery of sylphs and gnomes. This apparently hazardous experiment was perfectly successful, and the " Rape of the Lock " became what it remains, the typical example of raillery in English verse the solitary specimen of sustained and airy grace. If it has faults, they are the faults of the time, and not of the poem, the execution of which is a marvel of ease, good humor, and delicate irony. Another of Pope's efforts at this date was " Windsor Forest," a theme which, assuming that to be the best which lies near- est, should have afforded material for another enduring success. But Pope, with a matchless eye for manners, looked at nature with the unpurged vision of his generation, and the poem, though not without dignity and beauty of versifica- tion, is, to the modern reader, cold and conventional. To the reader under Anne it was otherwise, for to him " verdant isles " and " waving groves " and the whole farrago of gradus epithets were not only grate- ful but indispensable. " Mr. Pope," wrote Swift to Stella under date of March, 1713, "has published a fine poem called 'Windsor Forest.' Read it." This is the only time Pope is mentioned in that memorable journal (now nearing its closing pages) and it scarcely points to any close relations. But, by and by, when Swift came back from his Irish deanery to reconcile Oxford and Bohng- broke, he seems to have made Pope's personal acquaintance, and to have begun the correspondence which lasted so long. By Swift, Pope was introduced to Oxford, to his later " guide, philosopher, and friend," Bolingbroke, to the gentle
