Three Hours after Marriage was a dull and unsuccessful farce produced in January, 1717, at the Drury Lane Theatre. Though it was attributed to the joint authorship of Pope, Gay, and Arbuthnot, direct proof is lacking not only of Pope's share in the play, but of his authorship of the Prologue. Of the latter fact, at least, we have, however, indirect evidence in Pope's resentment of the ridicule cast by Cibber, in a topical impromptu, upon the play; the incident which first roused Pope's enmity for Cibber, which resulted in his eventually displacing Theobald as the central figure in The Dunciad.

AUTHORS are judged by strange capricious rules,

The great ones are thought mad, the small ones fools:

Yet sure the best are most severely fated; For Fools are only laugh'd at, Wits are hated.

Blockheads with reason men of sense abhor; But fool 'gainst fool, is barb'rous civil war. Why on all Authors then should Critics fall?

Since some have writ, and shown no wit at all.

The origin of this famous poem seems to have lain jointly in Pope's perception of the poetic availability of the Héloïse-Abelard legend, and in his somewhat factitious grief in his separation from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. They met in 1715, became friends, and in

ELOISA TO ABELARD

ARGUMENT

Abelard and Eloisa flourished in the twelfth century; they were two of the most distinguished persons of their age in Learning and Beauty, but for nothing more famous than for their unfortunate passion. After a long course of calamities, they retired each to a several convent, and consecrated the remainder of their days to Religion. It was many years after this separation that a letter of Abelard's to a friend, which contained the history of his misfortune, fell into the hands of Eloisa. This, awakening all her tenderness, occasioned those celebrated letters (out of which the following is partly extracted), which give so lively a picture of the struggles of Grace and Nature, Virtue and Passion.