The Rape of the Lock and Other Major Writings: Poems and Other Writings (Penguin Classics)

by Alexander Pope

  282. annual … wars: ‘annual trophies, on the Lord Mayor’s Day, and monthly wars [militia exercises] in the Artillery Ground’ (Pope’s note).

  283. my party: The Whigs.

  284. roasting Popes: Settle organized a symbolic Pope burning.

  286. dragon: Settle ‘acted in his old age in a dragon of green leather of his own invention’ (Pope’s note).

  288. Smithfield Fair: Entertainment at the Smithfield meat market.

  291. Coached: Provided with a gentleman’s coach. carted: Carried through the streets in a cart as a punishment.

  292. in some dog’s tail: Apparently suggesting that he is reduced to the dirt of the street.

  297. Patriot: See ‘III Bathurst’, 139n.; hence, the opposite of a ‘courtier’.

  299. booths: Stalls at a fair.

  301. Opera: Italian opera, still something of a novelty, was criticized as a mindless spectacle in a language that few in the audience could understand.

  302. sway: ‘power; rule; dominion’ (Dictionary).

  303. drabs: Whores.

  304. doting: Senile.

  305. Polypheme: The one-eyed giant Polyphemus of the Odyssey, in an Italian opera called Polifemo that Cibber adapted (where it would be incongruous for a giant to warble).

  308–10. Faustus … Pluto … Proserpine: ‘miserable farces which it was the custom to act at the end of the best tragedies’ (Pope’s note), e.g. Addison’s Cato and Congreve’s The Mourning Bride.

  312. fire: Spectacular fires were incorporated in stage productions.

  313. Another Aeschylus: ‘It is reported of Aeschylus that when his tragedy of the Furies [the Eumenides] was acted, the audience were so terrified that the children fell into fits and the big-bellied women miscarried’ (Pope’s note).

  315. Semele: Mortal woman who asked Jupiter to come to her bed in his full glory, whereupon his lightning burned her up.

  316. wildfire: ‘a composition of inflammable materials, easy to take fire, and hard to be extinguished’ (Dictionary, citing this line).

  320. Augustus … Saturnian times: Aeneas had a vision of the Emperor Augustus in Rome’s future, and was told that he would found a golden age in fields that were once ruled by Saturn (Aeneid, VI), but Saturn is associated not with gold but with lead.

  323. Phoebus: Apollo, god of poetry.

  324. Midas: King who unwisely judged Pan a better musician than Apollo, and was punished with ass’s ears. Lord Chancellor: Official who granted or refused permission for every new play; Cibber is a sort of unofficial Lord Chancellor.

  325. Benson’s titles: William Benson erected a monument to Milton, incorporating his own ‘titles’, in Westminster Abbey; see also 329n.

  326. Ambrose Philips: See I, Argument note. preferred: Given a preferment, ‘a place of honour or profit’ (Dictionary), not for ‘wit’ but for political support.

  327. Ripley: Thomas Ripley, a former carpenter who designed unimpressive new buildings for the Admiralty, contrasted ironically here with the noble Whitehall edifice that burned down in the Great Fire of 1666.

  328. Jones: Inigo Jones: See ‘IV Burlington’, 46n. Boyle: Richard Boyle: see ‘IV Burlington’, Dedication note.

  329. Wren: Christopher Wren, architect of St Paul’s Cathedral and many London churches built after the Fire, who was replaced by the inept Benson as Surveyor-General of Works.

  330. Gay dies unpensioned: John Gay hoped in vain for a government pension, such as inferior writers with political connections often received. See also ‘Epistle to T. Blount’, 47n.

  331. Hibernian: Irish; Swift’s expectation of a bishopric in England was dashed at the death of Queen Anne, and he spent the rest of his life in his native Ireland.

  332. Pope’s … translate: Much of Pope’s time from 1713 to 1726 was devoted to his translation of Homer and his edition of Shakespeare.

  334. birch shall blush: i.e. whips of birch twigs reddened with the blood of thrashed schoolboys.

  335–6. Eton … Westminster: Two of the most distinguished schools in England, on the Thames close to Pope’s boyhood home near Windsor, and adjoining Westminster Abbey, respectively.

  337. Isis: The river at Oxford University. elders reel: The tutors reel in consequence of heavy drinking.

  338. dissolved in port: Incapacitated after imbibing their favourite drink, port wine, with a pun on ships becalmed ‘in port’.

  339. Monarch: Bays/Cibber.

  340. iv’ry gate: Dreams that pass through the gate of horn bring true visions, while those through the gate of ivory are false (Odyssey, XIX; Aeneid, VI).

  Book the Fourth

  Argument: Virtuosos: ‘virtuoso: a man skilled in antique or natural curiosities; a man studious of painting, statuary, or architecture’ (Dictionary).

  3. darkness visible: Milton’s phrase describing Hell, ‘no light, but rather darkness visible’ (Paradise Lost, I, 63).

  7. force inertly strong: ‘alluding to the vis inertiae of matter, which, though it really be no power, is yet the foundation of all the qualities and attributes of that sluggish substance’ (Pope’s note).

  9. Dog-star: See ‘Arbuthnot’, 3n.

  10. bay: The laurel of poetic achievement.

  13. seed: Offspring (of Dullness).

  15. new world: ‘in allusion to the Epicurean opinion that from the dissolution of the natural world into night and chaos, a new one should arise’ (Pope’s note).

  16. Saturnian: Not only reversing the Virgilian prophecy in which the Saturnian age of lead will be superseded by gold (as in III, 320 and note), but including gold as well, since money is the chief object of the Dunces.

  18. below revealed: In a mock-Scriblerian footnote, Pope quoted an ‘old adage: the higher you climb, the more you show your arse’.

  21. Science: Learning in general.

  22. Wit: Intelligence. exile, penalties and pains: As experienced in 1723 by Pope’s friend Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, who was condemned under the Act of Pains and Penalties for conspiring to bring back the Stuart monarchy; also 246 and note.

  26. Billingsgate: Vulgar and abusive language; see also I, 307n.

  28. Chicane in furs: Legal trickery by judges, dressed in ermine robes. Casuistry in lawn: Sophistry by bishops, wearing sleeves of lawn (see ‘I Cobham’, 136n.).

  29. straiten: ‘to make tight’ (Dictionary), thus strangling Morality.

  30. Page: Serving as the Goddess’s court ‘page’ is Sir Francis Page, ‘always ready to hang any man, of which he was suffered to give a hundred miserable examples during a long life’ (Pope’s note). See also Horace, Satire, II, i, 82n.

  31. Mathesis: Mathematics (‘mad’, with reference to arcane theories).

  33. ecstatic: ‘ravished; rapturous; elevated to ecstasy’ (Dictionary).

  34. circle … square: The famously insoluble problem of ancient geometry: to construct a square whose area equals that of a given circle.

  37. addressed: Aimed.

  38. wont: Wonted, accustomed.

  41. Thalia: The muse of comedy; accented on the second syllable.

  42. Satyr: See ‘Essay on Criticism’, 592n.

  43. CHESTERFIELD: Philip Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield, unsuccessfully opposed passage of the Licensing Act that required every play to be approved in advance by the Lord Chamberlain.

  45. harlot form: Italian opera, with ‘its affected airs, its effeminate sounds, and the practice of patching up these operas with favourite songs incoherently put together’ (Pope’s note).

  51. Nine: The Muses.

  52. recitativo: Musical declamation, midway between singing and speaking.

  53. cara: Dear (Italian). that train: The Muses and their followers.

  54. Division: Series of notes sung to a single syllable of text.

  57. One trill shall harmonize: i.e. the music takes no account of emotional contexts.

  64. Music … Sense: The music in Handel’s oratorios was closely allied to the meaning of the words.


  66. Briareus: Giant, son of the earth-mother Gaia, with a hundred hands.

  70. Hibernian: Irish; the Messiah had recently received its first performance in Dublin. Handel had lived in England since 1712, but Pope implies that his music had lost favour with London audiences, in part because of the loud ‘thunder’ and ‘drums’ (68).

  75–6. attraction … gravity: As in Newtonian physics.

  77. want a place: Fail to get a place.

  84. vortex: A whirlpool sucking in its victims (Descartes thought the planets were whirled around in invisible cosmic ‘vortices’).

  85. own: Acknowledge.

  87. Town: London.

  88. toupee: Or toupet, ‘a curl; an artificial lock of hair’ (Dictionary). gown: Of college scholars.

  89. mungril: Mongrel, ‘generated between different natures; baseborn; degenerate’ (Dictionary).

  92. the Great: The aristocracy: see I, 3n.

  93. bow the knee to Baal: St Paul preached to those who had not ‘bowed the knee to the image of Baal’ (Romans 11:4), i.e. to false gods.

  94. without a call: Enter holy orders for career advancement, rather than in response to a calling.

  96. Withhold … head: Commission a bust of a poet who received no pension during his lifetime.

  97. vest … gown: Reward a flatterer with a rich church benefice.

  98. from fool … crown: The succession of contemptible Poets Laureate.

  100. Muse’s Hypocrite: ‘he who thinks the only end of poetry is to amuse, and the only business of the poet to be witty; and consequently who cultivates only such trifling talents in himself, and encourages only such in others’ (Pope’s note).

  103–4. Narcissus … show’r: Lord John Hervey, with his lily-white face (as in ‘Arbuthnot’, 306), was ‘showered’ with flattery by the clergyman Conyers Middleton.

  105. Montalto: High mountain, referring to Sir Thomas Hanmer, speaker of the House of Commons and editor of an edition of Shakespeare (the ‘Volume fair’ (106)); see also 113–18 and note.

  109. awful: ‘that which strikes with awe, or fills with reverence’ (Dictionary).

  110–12. Benson … Johnston’s name: William Benson erected a monument to Milton (see III, 325 and note), but also sought to make his reputation by publishing a poetic version of the Psalms by a Scottish physician, Arthur Johnston.

  113–18. decent knight … off in state: Hanmer was furious when it appeared that there would be insufficient purchasers for his Shakespeare edition, but it was afterward subsidized by the Clarendon Press at Oxford. In so doing the Vice-Chancellor and the heads of Oxford Houses have demeaned themselves as ‘Apollo’s may’r and aldermen’; the ‘gold-capped youths’ are wealthy gentlemen commoners, with gold tassels on their caps.

  122. Aeson: The father of Jason, whom Medea restored to youthful vigour by draining his blood and replacing it with a magic brew.

  123. standard-Authors: Standard in the sense of canonical texts, but also flying the battle flag so known.

  125. the chequered shade: From Milton, L’Allegro, 96.

  133. triumphal car: In ancient Rome, a chariot in a procession celebrating a military ‘triumph’.

  134. slave: A general being honoured with a triumph would be accompanied by captives in chains.

  136. Address: Petition.

  138. complaisance: ‘civility; desire of pleasing; act of adulation’ (Dictionary).

  139–40. Spectre … dreadful wand: The ghost of Dr Richard Busby, seventeenth-century headmaster of Westminster School, famous for thrashing his students; the ‘index-hand’ is his right hand.

  141. beavered brow: Busby wore a beaver hat; also, a play on the ‘beaver’ or visor on a medieval helmet.

  144–5. Eton … Westminster: See III, 335–6. Winton: Nickname for Winchester School in Hampshire.

  146. Genius of the place: Guardian spirit.

  147. boy-senator: Youthful Member of Parliament, clutching his breeches because he still fears Busby’s birch rod.

  151. Samian letter: ‘the letter Y, used by Pythagoras as an emblem of the different roads of virtue and vice’ (Pope’s note).

  156. Sense: The understanding.

  159. exercise the breath: ‘by obliging them to get the classic poets by heart, which furnishes them with endless matter for conversation, and verbal amusement for their whole lives’ (Pope’s note).

  160. pale: Enclosure.

  161. howe’er designed: Whatever career they may be in training for.

  162. jingling: In rhyme and metre.

  163. A poet the first day: Schoolboys were required from the beginning to compose Latin verse.

  166. House or Hall: Westminster Hall, site of law courts, and the House of Commons.

  167–70. WYNDHAM … TALBOT … MURRAY … PULT’NEY: Sir William Wyndham; Charles Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury; William Murray (see Horace, Ode, IV, i, 9–10n.); and William Pulteney, Earl of Bath; all politicians whom Pope admired, ‘lost’ to Dullness because they devoted their writing talents to important causes rather than to mere verbal exercises.

  174. that Masterpiece: ‘viz. an epigram. The famous Dr [Robert] South declared a perfect epigram to be as difficult a performance as an epic poem’ (Pope’s note).

  176. JAMES: James I was proud of his Latin scholarship.

  177. Doctor: Learned teacher.

  180. Council: The Privy Council, the king’s closest advisers.

  181. grateful: ‘pleasing; acceptable; delightful’ (Dictionary).

  187. Cam, and Isis: The rivers flowing through Cambridge and Oxford, respectively.

  188. RIGHT DIVINE: Though a Tory, Pope was not sympathetic to the old doctrine of the divine right of kings, fiercely asserted by James I.

  190. shoal: ‘a crowd; a great multitude; a throng’ (Dictionary, citing this line).

  192. Aristotle: His philosophy dominated medieval scholarship and by Pope’s time was widely considered discredited, but there were still Aristotelians at Oxford.

  194. Christ Church: Distinguished Oxford college, appreciated by Pope for attacking Richard Bentley (see II, 205 and note); the brackets parody Bentley’s custom of indicating passages that he considered spurious.

  195. Polemic: Controversialist.

  196. expelling Locke: ‘In the year 1703 there was a meeting of the heads of the University of Oxford to censure Mr Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding, and to forbid the reading it’ (Pope’s note).

  198. Crouzaz: Jean-Pierre de Crousaz (Swiss, not German), who had attacked Pope’s ‘Essay on Man’ on religious grounds. Burgersdyck: Francis Burgersdijk, Dutch professor of philosophy whose old-fashioned treatises were still studied at Oxford.

  200. Marg’ret and Clare Hall: Colleges at Cambridge; St John’s College is also known by the name of its founder, Lady Margaret Beaufort, and Clare College was known as Clare Hall in Pope’s day.

  202. troubled waters: Bentley was a ferocious controversialist. sleeps in port: Like a ship safely in harbour, with punning reference to Bentley’s fondness for port wine.

  203. Aristarch: A severe critic, from a Greek grammarian of that name.

  204. Remark: Bentley published numerous Remarks on classical subjects.

  205. vailed: ‘vail: to let fall in token of respect’ (Dictionary).

  206. Walker: Richard Walker, Vice-Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, of which Bentley was Master; he was said to have sedulously looked after Bentley’s hat.

  208. upright Quakers: As an affirmation of spiritual equality, Quakers would take off their hats to God but not to social superiors.

  211. Scholiast: Textual commentator.

  212. humbled Milton’s strains: See Horace, Epistle, II, i, 104n.

  216–18. something yet more great … o’er-tops them all: Bentley plumed himself on restoring the digamma – a double Greek letter gamma, larger than other letters and thus ‘something yet more great’ – in the text of Homer. Saul: Taller than other Israelites (1 Samuel 9:2).

  220�
��22. Disputes … or K: Controversies about Latin pronunciation and spelling, including whether Cicero’s name should be pronounced with hard or soft Cs.

  223–4. Freind … Alsop: ‘Dr Robert Freind, master of Westminster School and a canon of Christ Church; Dr Anthony Alsop, a happy imitator of the Horatian style’ (Pope’s note).

  225–6. Virgil … Solinus: ‘Some critics having had it in their choice to comment either on Virgil or Manilius, Pliny or Solinus, have chosen the worse author, the more freely to display their critical capacity’ (Pope’s note). Bentley had published an edition of Manilius’ treatise on astronomy; Solinus wrote an unremarkable compendium of historical information.

  227. Attic: See ‘Epilogue to the Satires’, II, 85n.

  228–31. Suidas … Gellius … Stobaeus: Ancient grammarians whom Pope considered inferior.

  237. Kuster, Burman, Wasse: Foreign classical scholars admired by Bentley.

  243. House: An Oxford or Cambridge college.

  244. Noς: Mind (Greek), pronounced to rhyme with ‘house’, used by Plato to refer to the rational and immortal part of the soul; ‘a word much affected by the learned Aristarchus [i.e. Bentley] in common conversation, to signify genius or natural acumen’ (Pope’s note).

  245. BARROW: Isaac Barrow, a master before Bentley of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the teacher of Isaac Newton. block: Blockhead.

  246. ATTERBURY: Exiled from England and thus, in Dullness’ opinion, unable to ‘spoil’ the faithful.

  247. Canon: Deliberately spelled with a single n to emphasize the pun on a clergyman attached to a cathedral or college.

  248. involve the pole: Cloud the sky.

  260. Dispute: Logical disputation.

  262. what he must divorce: Because most students will have to give up poetry after graduation.

  266. Show all his paces: Like a horse at a riding school, ‘going through its paces’ without actually advancing.

  267. cement: Accented on the first syllable.

  270. hew … the Man: ‘a notion of Aristotle that there was originally in every block of marble a statue, which would appear on the removal of the superfluous parts’ (Pope’s note); actually it was Plato.

  272. governor: Travelling tutor on the Grand Tour of the Continent, taken to complete a young gentleman’s education.