The Rape of the Lock and Other Major Writings

by Alexander Pope

  109. buy a rope: i.e. to hang oneself with.

  119. new-built churches: Fifty new churches had recently been built in London.

  120. build bridges: London Bridge was the only one across the Thames in London, but there were plans for more. Whitehall: See ‘Windsor Forest’, 380n.

  122. Marlborough: British commander in the wars against Louis XIV, notorious for his avarice.

  123. Who thinks: i.e. whoever thinks.

  124. Prepares a dreadful jest: He will inadvertently become a jest or laughingstock.

  127. preventing: Anticipating, cautionary.

  131. equal: ‘even, uniform’ (Dictionary).

  133. South Sea days: When Pope and others dreamed of getting rich through investing in the South Sea Company; see also ‘III Bathurst’, 103n.

  134. excised: Subjected to taxation on commodities (Walpole’s excise taxes were widely resented).

  136. five acres: The grounds of the villa Pope rented at Twickenham.

  137. piddle: ‘to trifle’ (Dictionary).

  139. out of play: No longer in the game, i.e. out of office.

  140. bell: Doorbell.

  141. boards: Dining table.

  142. gudgeons: Small river fish.

  143. Hounslow Heath … Bansted Down: Rural areas near London.

  147. standard: A tree allowed to grow to its full height. espalier: See ‘IV Burlington’, 80n.

  148. The devil is in you: A casual expression, meaning ‘there’s something wrong with you’.

  149. have place: Take first place (in the toasts).

  152. double taxed: Roman Catholic estates were subject to double taxation.

  154. standing armies: See Horace, Satire, II, i, 73n.

  159. Homer’s rule: As translated by Pope: ‘True friendship’s laws are by this rule expressed: / Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest’ (Odyssey, XV, 83–4).

  166. Vernon: Thomas Vernon, from whose widow Pope leased the Twickenham property.

  168. Walter: Peter Walter: see ‘III Bathurst’, 20n.

  170. jointure: Sum of money settled upon a wife in the event that she outlived her husband (the rest of their property going legally to their heirs).

  172. Chanc’ry: The court that heard property cases (‘equity’ (171)), and was notoriously slow to reach judgement.

  176. a booby lord: Viscount Grimston, a would-be poet and owner of the estate that had once been Francis Bacon’s.

  177. Helmsley: Country estate of the Duke of Buckingham; in Pope’s day the property of a banker.

  178. scriv’ner: Moneylender. City knight: A man who had achieved knighthood after success in commerce.

  Epistle, I, i

  1. St John: Bolingbroke: See ‘Arbuthnot’, 135–41n.

  2. bound: ‘to limit; to terminate’ (Dictionary).

  3. sabbath: Pope seems to have been thinking of his age, 49 (7 times 7).

  5. my age: Old age, final years.

  6. Cibber: Colley Cibber, still Poet Laureate, but retired from acting; see also ‘Arbuthnot’, 97n.

  10. ev’n in Brunswick’s cause: Indicating ironically that the generals are not eager to die fighting on the Continent for George II’s German relatives.

  14. Pegasus: Winged horse of poetic inspiration.

  16. Blackmore … horse: Sir Richard Blackmore’s epic poems move as ponderously as the docile mount of the Lord Mayor, far different from Pegasus; the line itself ‘limps’ with awkward metre; see also ‘Essay on Criticism’, 463n.

  23. doctors: Learned men.

  24. sect: Coterie (Pope was always a loyal Roman Catholic).

  26. Montaigne … Locke: For Michel de Montaigne, see ‘I Cobham’, 87n.; John Locke, the British popularizer of empiricist philosophy, widely read and admired in Pope’s time; see also ‘Dunciad’, IV, 196 and note.

  27. Patriot: See ‘III Bathurst’, 139n.

  29. Lyttelton: George Lyttelton, a nobleman, opposition politician highly critical of Walpole, secretary to the Prince of Wales, and friend of Pope’s. her: The state’s.

  31. Aristippus: Horace said that for the Greek philosopher Aristippus ‘every state and circumstance of life was fitting’ (Epistle, I, xvii, 23). St Paul: ‘I am made all things to all men’ (1 Corinthians 9:22).

  32. candour: ‘sweetness of temper; purity of mind; openness’ (Dictionary).

  33. my native moderation: St Paul wrote: ‘Let your moderation be known unto all men’ (Philippians 4:5).

  38. for twenty-one: The age of attaining his majority.

  42. instant: ‘pressing; urgent; importunate’ (Dictionary).

  45. can no wants endure: i.e. they can want for nothing.

  50. lynx: Reputed to have especially acute vision.

  51. Mead and Cheselden: Richard Mead (see also ‘IV Burlington’, 10n.) and William Cheselden, physicians of high reputation.

  57. words, and spells: Pope suggests that his verses might have magically curative powers.

  60. arrant’st: ‘arrant: bad in a high degree’ (Dictionary).

  62. punk: Whore.

  63. Switz: Swiss. High Dutch: German (from Deutsch). Low Dutch: Dutch, from the Netherlands.

  68. figure: ‘distinguished appearance; eminence’ (Dictionary).

  69. either India: The East or West Indies.

  76. all that it admires: i.e. covetously.

  82. low … high: Probably implying a contrast between ‘low church’ Anglicanism, with its simplicity of worship, and the more ceremonial ‘high church’; but St James’s, Piccadilly is also much smaller than St Paul’s Cathedral.

  83. quills: Quill pens, the equipment of humble clerks.

  84. notches sticks: Wooden tallies with which the Exchequer traditionally kept records of moneys owed.

  85. Barnard: Sir John Barnard, much admired independent Member of Parliament for the City of London, who was critical of Walpole.

  87. harness: Emblem of a knight in the Order of the Garter. slave: Because obsequious to the government.

  88. Bug: Henry de Grey, Duke of Kent, apparently known (like a bedbug) for his smell. Dorimant: Sophisticated beau in Etherege’s The Man of Mode.

  89. cit: ‘contracted from citizen: an inhabitant of a city, in an ill sense; a pert low townsman; a pragmatical trader’ (Dictionary, citing this line).

  90. his Honour: Any patrician who would be so addressed.

  95. screen: Opposition term for Walpole, who ‘screened’ his supporters from investigation into their malfeasances. brass: Referring to Walpole’s ‘brazen’ confidence.

  100. Cressy and Poitiers: Sites of famous English victories over the French in the fourteenth century; ‘Cressy’ is more properly spelled ‘Crécy’. Pope evidently pronounced ‘Poitiers’ to rhyme with ‘peers’.

  103. place: Official post.

  105. eunuchs: See ‘Donne’, 125n.

  106. circle: The most expensive seats, closest to the stage and to the royal box (George II was a fervent patron of opera).

  108. look … through: See through shallow greatness.

  110. St James’s: Fashionable park.

  112. Schutz: Augustus Schutz, a court finance official (not regarded by Pope as especially ‘honest’). spark: See ‘Rape of the Lock’, I, 73n.

  113. palace: St James’s Palace.

  114. Reynard: The fox in Aesop’s fable.

  115. dread sir: The lion, whose cave the fox wisely refuses to enter.

  127. cross … the main: Cross the ocean to plunder provinces abroad.

  128. farm: Have the right to collect the proceeds from taxation or, as here, the box in a church for contributions to the poor.

  129. assemblies: Social gatherings. stews: Brothels.

  130. Some with fat bucks: Making a present of venison, in the hope of getting an inheritance from an aged heirless man.

  131. chine and brawn: The back and the buttock (normally used for cuts of meat).

  138. Sir Job: Evidently implying the recipient of a political appointment or ‘job�
�.

  139. Greenwich Hill: Site on the Thames near London.

  145. spleen: See ‘Rape of the Lock’, IV, 16n.

  147. snug’s the word: Colloquial for ‘keep quiet’.

  148. Flavio: Any attractive young man (from flavus, golden haired). stocking: On her wedding night a bride would toss her stocking among the guests, and whoever caught it was supposed to be the next to get married.

  150. elopes: ‘elope: to run away; to break loose; to escape from law or restraint’ (Dictionary, citing this line).

  152. Proteus: Sea-god who could take any shape. Merlin: Wizard in Arthur’s court.

  156. japanner: ‘a shoeblacker’ (Dictionary, citing this line).

  157. Discharge: Vacate. garrets: Cheap lodgings high up under the roof.

  158. chaise and one: Carriage drawn by a single horse.

  159. sculler: Boatman, available for hire to carry people across the Thames.

  162. band: Neck-band, formal collar.

  164. Lady Mary: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was notorious for slovenly dress.

  165. lawn: See ‘I Cobham’, 136n. hair-shirt: Concealed undergarment ‘made of hair, very rough and prickly, worn sometimes in mortification’ (Dictionary).

  169. I plant: In Pope’s garden at Twickenham.

  173. Chanc’ry: The Court of Chancery could take cases of insanity into consideration when deciding questions of property; see also ‘Dunciad’, II, 263n. Hales: The physician Richard Hales, who worked sympathetically with the mentally ill.

  174. hang your lip: Look disapproving.

  177. guide, philosopher, and friend: Bolingbroke, repeats ‘Essay on Man’, IV, 390.

  179. what he can, or none: i.e. if he can’t do it, nobody can.

  181–2. without title … plundered: Bolingbroke’s noble honours had been revoked, and his estates confiscated.

  184. the Tower: The Tower of London, where political prisoners, including Bolingbroke’s former colleague Oxford, were incarcerated.

  188. fit of vapours: See ‘Rape of the Lock’, IV, 18n.

  Epistle, II, i

  Advertisement: prince: i.e. king. our neighbours: The French, regarded as acquiescing in royal despotism. Admonebat … obsolefieri: ‘He [Augustus] admonished the praetors not to allow his name to be degraded’ (Suetonius, Life of Augustus, 89).

  DEDICATION: Augustus: With ironic reference to the disparity between Horace’s Emperor Augustus and Pope’s George II, christened George Augustus.

  Epigraph: ‘lest I should blush at being given a stupid gift’ (from the Horatian original).

  2. the main: The seas, especially the Spanish Main (the Caribbean), where the opposition claimed that Walpole’s government was refusing to avenge attacks on British shipping.

  3. in arms: George II led England into unpopular wars, with a punning reference to the ‘arms’ of a mistress with whom he had recently spent half a year in Germany.

  4. morals, arts, and laws: Entirely ironic, since George had several mistresses, was indifferent to all arts except music, and had little involvement in governing his country.

  7–8. Edward … Henry … Alfred: Edward III and Henry V, who won great victories over the French (‘Gaul’ (10)), and Alfred the Great, who defeated the Danes.

  17. Alcides: Hercules, who had to accomplish twelve labours, the last of which was the conquest of death.

  24. mature the praise: Implying that George II’s praise has been very long delayed.

  25. friend of Liberty: The opposition claimed that British liberties were being constantly eroded.

  35. dear: Expensive, hence valued.

  38. Skelton: Poet Laureate under Henry VIII, whose poems had been recently reprinted. heads of houses: Masters of Oxford or Cambridge colleges.

  39. Faery Queen: The archaic style of Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene was not universally admired.

  40. Christ’s Kirk o’ the Green: Ballad attributed to both James I and James V of Scotland.

  41. Ben: Ben Jonson.

  42. the Devil: A favourite tavern of Jonson’s.

  48. tumbling: Acrobatic displays.

  57. wants: Lacks. compound: Compromise.

  62. Courtesy of England: A technical legal concession.

  63. made the horsetail bare: The Roman general Sertorius illustrated the value of slow persistence by showing his soldiers that a horse’s tail could be plucked bare by pulling one hair at a time.

  65. ancients: Alluding to the Battle of the Books, in which Pope and Swift sided with those who argued for the enduring greatness of ‘ancient’ writers, while their opponents insisted that the ‘moderns’ had surpassed them.

  66. Stow: John Stow, Elizabethan chronicler.

  72. in his own despite: Despite his indifference to future fame.

  74. The life to come: i.e. poetic immortality.

  75. Cowley: Abraham Cowley, a poet popular in the previous century, but regarded in Pope’s time as mannered and artificial.

  77. Forgot: Forgotten. Pindaric art: In elaborate odes, modelled on those of the Greek Pindar.

  84. Beaumont … Fletcher: Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, Elizabethan dramatists who often wrote as collaborators.

  85. Shadwell: Thomas Shadwell, Restoration comic dramatist, Poet Laureate, and butt of Dryden’s ridicule in ‘Mac Flecknoe’; see also ‘Dunciad’, III, 22n. Wycherley: William Wycherley, also a dramatist, author of The Country Wife and The Plain Dealer; the implication is that it is absurd to apply the epithets ‘hasty’ to the tedious Shadwell and ‘slow’ to the witty Wycherley.

  86. passions: Emotions. Southerne … Rowe: Thomas Southerne and Nicholas Rowe, tragic dramatists; in his youth Pope was friendly with both Wycherley and Rowe.

  88. Heywood: John Heywood, Elizabethan dramatist (called ‘eldest’ to distinguish him from the later Thomas Heywood). Cibber: See ‘Arbuthnot’, 97n.; also 292 below.

  91. Gammer Gurton: Gammer Gurton’s Needle, an early English play, regarded in Pope’s time as crude. bays: Laurel trophy for poetic achievement.

  92. Careless Husband: Popular comedy by Cibber.

  97. affects the obsolete: As in 39.

  98. Roman feet: In Arcadia Sidney sometimes used the quantitative, rather than stressed, metres of Latin verse (scanned in segments known as poetic ‘feet’).

  101. quibbles: Puns.

  102. school-divine: Scholastic theologian.

  104. Bentley … hook: In a recent edition of Paradise Lost, the classical scholar Richard Bentley presumptuously altered Paradise Lost in accordance with his own sense of what Milton must have written, and put rejected passages in parentheses which he called ‘hooks’, literalized by Pope here as a gardener’s pruning hooks. See also ‘Dunciad’, II, 205 and note.

  107. either Charles: Charles I and Charles II, whose reigns were separated by the Puritan interregnum.

  108. mob of gentlemen: Deliberate oxymoron, since ‘mob’ normally referred to the common people.

  109. Sprat, Carew, Sedley: Thomas Sprat, Thomas Carew, and Charles Sedley, minor writers of the seventeenth century.

  110. miscellanies: Collections of verse by numerous writers.

  115. own: Acknowledge.

  119. Avon: The river in Shakespeare’s native Stratford, for which he was known as ‘the bard of Avon’.

  122. Betterton: Thomas Betterton, distinguished tragic actor, a friend of Pope’s youth.

  123. well-mouthed: Notable for impressive delivery. Booth: Barton Booth, tragic actor and co-manager with Cibber of the Drury Lane theatre; he played the lead in Addison’s Cato (334–7); also 334.

  124. names: ‘an absurd custom of several actors, to pronounce with emphasis the mere proper names of Greeks or Romans, which (as they call it) fill the mouth of the player’ (Pope’s note).

  132. Merlin’s prophecy: Prediction by the wizard Merlin that the Saxons would one day be driven out of England.

  140. with Charles restored: After the Civil Wars and subsequent Puritan rule, Charles II, at the Resto
ration, brought a relaxed and permissive culture to England.

  141. foreign courts: Charles and his courtiers had acquired French ideas and manners during their exile in France.

  142. ‘All … loved’: By George Granville, Lord Lansdowne: see ‘Windsor Forest’, 5n.

  144. Newmarket: See ‘I Cobham’, 86n.

  147. marble … grew warm: As if sculptors at that time, like Pygmalion, could create statues that came to life.

  149. Lely: Sir Peter Lely, fashionable portrait painter.

  154. eunuch’s throat: See ‘Donne’, 125n.

  156. Now calls in … turns away: Whereas Charles II was summoned from exile in 1660 to ascend the throne, his brother James II was ejected (on account of his Catholicism) in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Pope may also imply the ‘calling in’ of the Elector of Hanover to be George I of England.

  159. prerogative: Royal privilege or immunity from laws.

  160. noble cause: i.e. liberty.

  161–2. knock … up: Wake up.

  170. City: The financial and commercial district: the City of London.

  176. Not —’s self: Deliberately unspecific: ‘Cibber’s’ or ‘Walpole’s’ would fit the metre.

  182. Ward: Joshua Ward, quack doctor known for his medicinal ‘drops’.

  183. Radcliffe: John Radcliffe, distinguished physician whose bequest provided for medical students to study abroad.

  184. learned to dance: i.e. needed to acquire the manners of gentlemen before they could set up practice as fashionable physicians.

  185. drove a pile: i.e. had practical experience of pile-driving for bridge foundations.

  186. Ripley: Thomas Ripley, a carpenter who, despite lack of training and talent, was given architectural commissions by Walpole.

  195. Flight of cashiers: The chief financial officers of the South Sea Company fled England after its collapse.

  197. Peter: Peter Walter: see ‘III Bathurst’, 20n.

  206. a foreigner: George II was born in Germany, did not become an English citizen until he was twenty-two, and spoke English with a thick German accent.

  212. lewd: Like Charles II, George was notorious for numerous mistresses. unbelieving: George’s queen, Caroline, was thought to be a freethinker.

  214. Roscommon: See ‘Essay on Criticism’, 725n.

  216. whiter: ‘white: pure; unblemished’ (Dictionary, citing this line).