gentleman," in Warburton's words,"who was secretary to Queen Mary, wife of James II., whose fortunes he followed into France, author of the comedy of Sir Solomon Single, and of several translations in Dryden's Miscellanies"), in proposing to Mr. Pope that he should record in verse—
"What dire offence from am'rous causes springs,
What mighty contests rise from trivial things,"
"on the trifling occasion" of Lord Petre's having cut off a lock of the hair of Miss Arabella Fermor. At first a mere jeu d'esprit, for the entertainment of the lady herself and her friends, it grew into a long poem, by the addition of the "machinery of the sylphs." The Thames, the sylphs, and a lock of hair are the foundations for this most charming of all delicate satires on human folly.
For the Thames, the love of it was in Pope's blood, and no one, till Thomas Love Peacock in "Crochet Castle," so happily could paint the pleasures of a water party:—
"But now secure the painted vessel glides,
The sunbeams trembling on the floating tides;
While melting music steals upon the sky,
And softened sounds along the waters die.
Smooth flow the waves, the zephyrs gently play,
Belinda smiled, and all the world was gay."
And no less happy in mastery is Pope when he adds the sylphs to the "machinery" of the poet's craft. The "Rosicrucian doctrine of spirits" he
