MAYNARD'S ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES.-No. 55. THE RAPE OF THE LOCK WITH THE EPISTLE TO DR. ARBUTHNOT BY ALEXANDER POPE WITH INTRODUCTORY AND EXPLANATORY NOTES. SELECTED FROM WORKS OF J. W. HALES, M.A., ATE FELLOW AND ASSISTANT TUTOR OF Christ's college, cambriDGE AT KING'S COllege school, LONDON; CO-EDITOR OF NEW YORK : 29, 31, AND 33 EAST NINETEENTH STREET. New Series, No. 110. December 1, 1900. Published Monthly. Subscription Price, 1.00, Ke 13095 ard University, Dori Library. Gift of the Publishers. A COMPLETE COURSE IN THE STUDY OF ENGLISH. Spelling, Language, Grammar, Composition, Literature. Reed's Word Lessons-A Complete Speller. Reed's Introductory Language Work. Reed & Kellogg's Graded Lessons in English. Kellogg & Reed's The English Language. Kellogg's Illustrations of Style. Kellogg's Text-Book on English Literature. In the preparation of this series the authors have had one object clearly in view-to so develop the study of the English language as to present a complete, progressive course, from the Spelling-Book to the study of English Literature. The troublesome contradictions which arise in using books arranged by different authors on these subjects, and which require much time for explanation in the schoolroom, will be avoided by the use of the above " Complete Course." Teachers are earnestly invited to examine these books. MAYNARD, MERRILL, & Co., PUBLISHERS, TRANSFERRED TO HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY JUN 6 1921 New York. Copyright, 1885, by CLARK & MAYNARD. ALEXANDER POPE. THIS eminent English poet was born in London, May 21, 1688. His parents were Roman Catholics, and to this faith the poet adhered, thus debarring himself from public office and employment. His father, a linen-merchant, having saved a moderate competency, withdrew from business, and settled on a small estate he had purchased in Windsor Forest. He died at Chiswick, in 1717. His son shortly afterwards took a long lease of a house and five acres of land at Twickenham, on the banks of the Thames, whither he retired with his "idowed mother, to whom he was tenderly attached, and where he resided till death, cultivating his little domain with exquisite taste and skill, and embellishing it with a grotto, temple, wilderness, and other adjuncts poetical and picturesque. In this famous villa Pope was visited by the most celebrated wits, statesmen, and beauties of the day, himself being the most popular and successful poet of his age. His early years were spent at Binfield, within the range of the Royal Forest. He received some education at little Catholic schools, but was his own instructor after his twelfth year. He never was a profound or accurate scholar, but he read Latin poets with ease and delight, and acquired some Greek, French, and Italian. He was a poet almost from infancy; he “lisped in numbers,” and when a mere youth surpassed all his contemporaries in metrical harmony and correctness. His pastorals and some translations appeared in 1709; but were written three or four years earlier. These were followed by the Essay on Criticism, 1711; Rape of the Lock (when completed, the most graceful, airy, and imaginative of his works), 1712-1714; Windsor Forest, 1713; Temple of Fame, 1715. In a collection of his works printed in 1717 he included the Epistle of Eloisa and Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady, two poems inimitable for pathetic beauty and finished melodious versification. From 1715 till 1726 Pope was chiefly engaged on his translations of the Iliad and Odyssey, which, though wanting in true Ho meric simplicity, naturalness, and grandeur, are splendid poems. In 1728-29 he published his greatest satire—the Dunciad, an attack on all poetasters and pretended wits, and on all other persons against whom the sensitive poet had conceived any enmity. In 1737 he gave to the world a volume of his Literary Correspondence, containing some pleasant gossip and observations, with choice passages of description; but it appears that the correspondence was manufactured for publication not composed of actual letters addressed to the parties whose names are given, and the collection was introduced to the public by means of an elaborate stratagem on the part of the scheming poet. Between the years 1731 and 1739 he issued a series of poetical essays, moral and philosophical, with satires and imitations of Forace, all admirable for sense, wit, spirit, and brilliancy. Of these delightful productions, the most celebrated is the Essay on Man, to which Bolingbroke is believed to have contributed the spurious philosophy and false sentiment; but its merit consists in detached passages, descriptions, and pictures. A fourth book to the Dunciad, containing many beautiful and striking lines, and a general revision of his works, closed the poet's literary cares and toils. He died on the 30th of May, 1744, and was buried in the church at Twickenham. Pope was of very diminutive stature, and deformed from his birth. His physical infirmity, susceptible temperament, and incessant study rendered his life "one long disease." He was, as his friend Lord Chesterfield said, "the most irritable of all the genus irritabile vatum, offended with trifles, and never forgetting or forgiving them." His literary stratagems, disguises, assertions, denials, and (we must add) misrepresentations would fill volumes. Yet when no disturbing jealousy, vanity, or rivalry intervened, was generous and affectionate, and he had a manly, independent spirit. As a poet he was deficient in originality and creative power, and thus was inferior to his prototype, Dryden; but as a literary artist, and brilliant declaimer, satirist, and moralizer in verse, he is still unrivaled. He is the English Horace, and will as surely descend with honors to the latest posterity. CRITICAL OPINIONS Pope "is, I believe, the most elegant, the most correct, and, what is more, the most harmonious poet, that England has had. He has produced the sweet sounds of the flute from the harsh notes of the English trumpet. One can translate him, because he is extremely clear, and because his subjects are, for the most part general, and of the experience of all nations."-Voltaire. Of genius, that power which constitutes a poet; that quality without which judgment is cold, and knowledge is inert; that energy which collects, combines, amplifies, and animates; the superiority must, with some hesitation, be allowed to Dryden. It is not to be inferred that of this poetical vigor Pope had only a little, because Dryden had more; for every other writer since Milton must give place to Pope; and even of Dryden it must be said, that, if he has brighter paragraphs, he has not better poems. Dryden's performances were always hasty, either excited by some external occasion, or extorted by domestic necessity; he composed without consideration, and published without correction. What his mind could supply at call, or gather in one excursion, was all that he sought, and all that he gave. The dilatory caution of Pope enabled him to condense his sentiments, to multiply his images, and to accumulate all that study might produce or chance might supply. If the flights of Dryden therefore are higher, Pope continues longer on the wing. If of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of Pope's the heat is more regular and constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent astonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight.-Samuel John son. Hi |