Or wedged whole ages in a bodkin's eye:
Gums and pomatums shall his flight restrain,
While, clogged, he beats his silken wings in vain;
Or alum styptics with contracting power
Shrink his thin essence like a shrivelled flower;
Or, as Ixion fixed, the wretch shall feel
The giddy motion of the whirling mill,
In fumes of burning chocolate shall glow,
And tremble at the sea that froths below!"

He spoke; the spirits from the sails descend;
Some, orb in orb, around the nymph extend;
Some thread the mazy ringlets of her hair;
Some hang upon the pendants of her ear;
With beating hearts the dire event they wait,
Anxious, and trembling for the birth of Fate.

The Third Canto opens with the nymphs and heroes chattering in the palace at Hampton Court.

One speaks the glory of the British Queen,
And one describes a charming Indian screen;
A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes;
At every word a reputation dies.

Snuff, or the fan, supply each pause of chat,
With singing, laughing, ogling, and all that.

Meanwhile, declining from the noon of day,
The sun obliquely shoots his burning ray;
The hungry judges soon the sentence sign,
And wretches hang that jurymen may dine;

The merchant from the Exchange returns in peace,

And the long labours of the toilet cease.

Belinda now, whom thirst of fame invites,

Burns to encounter two adventurous knights,

At ombre singly to decide their doom;

And swells her breast with conquests yet to come.

Here follows a description of the game of ombre, under figure of a battle, in delightful imitation of a game of chess by Girolamo Vida, in one of his Latin poems. The turn of the game is raising exultation in the nymph, when coffee is brought in

Coffee (which makes the politician wise,

And see through all things with his half-shut eyes) Sent up in vapours to the Baron's brain

New stratagems, the radiant lock to gain.

Ah, cease, rash youth! Be warned by Scylla, whom the gods changed to a bird for plucking from the head of her father Nisus the one purple hair in which his fortune lay, and giving it to her lover Minos, who made war upon him.

But when to mischief mortals bend their will, How soon they find fit instruments of ill! Just then, Clarissa drew with tempting grace A two-edged weapon from her shining case: So ladies in romance assist their knight, Present the spear, and arm him for the fight. He takes the gift with reverence, and extends The little engine on his fingers' ends; This just behind Belinda's neck he spread, As o'er the fragrant steams she bends her head. Swift to the lock a thousand sprites repair, A thousand wings, by turns, blow back the hair; And thrice they twitched the diamond in her ear;

Thrice she looked back, and thrice the foe drew near.
Just in that instant, anxious Ariel sought
The close recesses of the virgin's thought;
As on the nosegay in her breast reclined,
He watched the ideas rising in her mind,
Sudden he viewed, in spite of all her art,
An earthly lover lurking at her heart.
Amazed, confused, he found his power expired,
Resigned to fate, and with a sigh retired.

The Peer now spreads the glittering forfex wide,
To inclose the lock; now joins it to divide.
Even then, before the fatal engine closed,
A wretched Sylph too fondly interposed;
Fate urged the shears, and cut the Sylph in twain,
(But airy substance soon unites again,)
The meeting points the sacred hair dissever
From the fair head, for ever, and for ever!

Then flashed the living lightning from her eyes, And screams of horror rend the affrighted skies. Not louder shrieks to pitying heaven are cast, When husbands, or when lapdogs breathe their last; Or when rich China vessels, fallen from high, In glittering dust and painted fragments lie!

She sighs for ever on her pensive bed,

Pain at her side, and Megrim at her head.

Two handmaids, Ill-Nature and Affectation, wait upon her throne, spectres are about it, and unnumbered throngs of bodies changed to various forms by Spleen :

Here living teapots stand, one arm held out,
One bent; the handle this, and that the spout:
A pipkin there, like Homer's tripod walks ;1
Here sighs a jar, and there a goose-pie talks.

Umbriel passed safely among all with a branch of healing spleenwort in his hand, and prayed of the goddess:

"Hear me, and touch Belinda with chagrin,

That single act gives half the world the spleen."
The goddess with a discontented air,

Seems to reject him, though she grants his prayer.
A wondrous bag with both her hands she binds,
Like that where once Ulysses held the winds;
There she collects the force of female lungs,
Sighs, sobs, and passions, and the war of tongues.
A vial next she fills with fainting fears,
Soft sorrows, melting griefs, and flowing tears.
The Gnome rejoicing bears her gifts away,
Spreads his black wings, and slowly mounts to day.
Sunk in Thalestris' arms the nymph he found,
Her eyes dejected and her hair unbound.
Full o'er their heads the swelling bag he rent,
And all the furies issued at the vent.
Belinda burns with more than mortal ire,
And fierce Thalestris fans the rising fire.

"O wretched maid!" she spread her hands, and cried,
(While Hampton's echoes "wretched maid!" replied)
"Was it for this you took such constant care
The bodkin, comb, and essence to prepare?
For this your locks in paper durance bound?
For this with torturing irons wreathed around?
For this with fillets strained your tender head?
And bravely bore the double loads of lead?" "

Her wrath uttered, and still raging, Belinda

-to Sir Plume repairs,

And bids her beau demand the precious hairs:
(Sir Plume, of amber snuff-box justly vain,
And the nice conduct of a clouded cane)
With earnest eyes, and round, unthinking face,
He first the snuff-box opened, then the case.

Sir Plume could not move the triumphant Baron.

But Umbriel, hateful Gnome! forbears not so; He breaks the vial whence the sorrows flow.

Belinda passes now to tears and sighs.

"What moved my mind with youthful lords to roam ? Oh, had I stayed, and said my prayers at home! 'Twas this the morning omens seemed to tell :

1 The reference is to Vulcan's walking tripods, in the 18th Book of Homer's "Iliad."

2 Strips of lead were then used for fixing and tightening the curlpapers.

Thrice from my trembling hand the patch-box fell;
The tottering china shook without a wind,
Nay, Poll sat mute, and Shock was most unkind!
A Sylph too warned me of the threats of Fate,
In mystic visions, now believed too late.
See the poor remnants of these slighted hairs!
My hands shall rend what ev'n thy rapine spares:
These in two sable ringlets taught to break,
Once gave new beauties to the snowy neck;
The sister-lock now sits uncouth, alone,
And in its fellow's fate foresees its own:
Uncurled it hangs, the fatal shears demands,
And tempts, once more, thy sacrilegious hands.
Oh hadst thou, cruel! been content to seize
Hairs less in sight, or any hairs but these!"

The Fifth Canto opens, in Clarissa's counsel, with a parody of Homer's speech of Sarpedon to Glaucus.

She said the pitying audience melt in tears;
But Fate and Jove had stopped the Baron s ears.
In vain Thalestris with approach assails,
For who can move when fair Belinda fails?
Not half so fixed the Trojan could remain,
While Anna begged and Dido raged in vain.
Then grave Clarissa graceful waved her fan;
Silence ensued, and thus the nymph began:

"Say, why are beauties praised and honoured most,
The wise man's passion, and the vain man's toast ?
Why decked with all that land and sea afford?
Why angels called, and angel-like adored?

Why round our coaches crowd the white-gloved beaux ?
Why bows the side-box from its inmost rows?
How vain are all these glories, all our pains,
Unless good sense preserve what beauty gains:
That men may say, when we the front-box grace,
Behold the first in virtue as in face!

Oh! if to dance all night, and dress all day,
Charmed the small-pox, or chased old-age away;
Who would not scorn what housewife's cares produce,
Or who would learn one earthly thing of use?
To patch, nay ogle, might become a saint,
Nor could it, sure, be such a sin to paint.
But since, alas! frail beauty must decay,
Curled or uncurled, since locks will turn to grey;
Since painted, or not painted, all shall fade,
And she who scorns a man, must die a maid;
What then remains, but well our power to use,
And keep good-humour still, whate'er we lose?
And trust me, dear! good-humour can prevail,
When airs, and flights, and screams, and scolding fail.
Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll;
Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul."
So spoke the dame, but no applause ensued;
Belinda frowned, Thalestris called her prude.
"To arms, to arms!" the fierce virago cries,
And swift as lightning to the combat flies.
All side in parties, and begin the attack;
Fans clap, silks rustle, and tough whalebones crack;
Heroes' and heroines' shouts confusedly rise,
And base and treble voices strike the skies.
No common weapons in their hands are found;
Like gods they fight, nor dread a mortal wound.

Umbriel and the sprites-Umbriel from a sconce's height-look on delighted or assist the fray. One

died in metaphor and one in song; one was killed by a frown, but revived by a smile.

See fierce Belinda on the Baron flies, With more than usual lightning in her eyes: Nor feared the chief the unequal fight to try, Who sought no more than on his foe to die.

THE BATTLE.

From the Illustrations by L. Du Guernier to the Edition of 1714.

But this bold lord, with manly strength endued,
She with one finger and a thumb subdued:
Just where the breath of life his nostrils drew,
A charge of snuff the wily virgin threw;
The Gnomes direct, to every atom just,
The pungent grains of titillating dust.
Sudden, with starting tears each eye o'erflows,
And the high dome re-echoes to his nose.
"Now meet thy fate!" incensed Belinda cried,
And drew a deadly bodkin from her side,
(The same, his ancient personage to deck,
Her great-great-grandsire wore about his neck,
In three seal-rings; which after, melted down,
Formed a vast buckle for his widow's gown:
Her infant grandame's whistle next it grew,
The bells she jingled, and the whistle blew ;
Then in a bodkin graced her mother's hairs,
Which long she wore, and now Belinda wears.)
"Boast not my fall," he cried, "insulting foe!
Thou by some other shalt be laid as low.
Nor think, to die dejects my lofty mind:
All that I dread is leaving you behind!
Rather than so, ah! let me still survive,

And burn in Cupid's flames,-but burn alive."

"Restore the lock!" she cries; and all around
"Restore the lock!" the vaulted roofs rebound.
Not fierce Othello in so loud a strain
Roared for the handkerchief that caused his pain.
But see how oft ambitious aims are crossed,
And chiefs contend till all the prize is lost!
The lock, obtained with guilt, and kept with pain,
In every place is sought, but sought in vain :
With such a prize no mortal must be blest,
So Heaven decrees! with Heaven who can contest?
Some thought it mounted to the lunar sphere,
Since all things lost on earth are treasured there.
There heroes' wits are kept in ponderous vases,
And beaux' in snuff-boxes and tweezer-cases.
There broken vows, and death-bed alms are found,
And lovers' hearts with ends of ribbon bound,
The courtiers' promises, and sick man's prayers,
The smiles of harlots, and the tears of heirs,
Cages for gnats, and chains to yoke a flea,
Dried butterflies, and tomes of casuistry.

But trust the Muse-she saw it upward rise,
Though marked by none but quick, poetic eyes:
(So Rome's great founder to the heavens withdrew,
To Proculus alone confessed in view)

A sudden star, it shot through liquid air,

And drew behind a radiant trail of hair.

Not Berenice's locks first rose so bright,

The heaven's bespangling with dishevelled light.

The Sylphs behold it kindling as it flies,

And, pleased, pursue its progress through the skies.
This the beau-monde shall from the Mall survey,
And hail with music its propitious ray.

This the blessed lover shall for Venus take,
And send up vows from Rosamonda's lake.
This Partridge soon shall view in cloudless skies,
When next he looks through Galileo's eyes;
And hence the egregious wizard shall foredoom
The fate of Louis, and the fall of Rome.

Then cease, bright nymph, to mourn thy ravished hair,
Which adds new glory to the shining sphere!
Not all the tresses that fair head can boast
Shall draw such envy as the lock you lost.
For, after all the murders of your eye,
When, after millions slain, yourself shall die;
When those fair suns shall set, as set they must,
And all those tresses shall be laid in dust,
This lock the Muse shall consecrate to fame,
And 'midst the stars inscribe Belinda's name.

THOMSON'S " CASTLE OF INDOLENCE." FORESHADOWINGS of the revival of a sense of nature among English poets were to be found already in 1726 when James Thomson began the publication of his "Seasons," and John Dyer published "Grongar Hill," both having been preceded, in 1725, by Allan Ramsay's "Gentle Shepherd." A revived interest in the poetry of Spenser was another sign of growing reaction against French critical rule. Shenstone's "Schoolmistress," in thirty or forty stanzas, first published in 1742, was a pleasant illustration of the

1 See in this Library, "Shorter English Poems," pages 361-365.

taste for imitations of Spenser; but the best of all these imitations was James Thomson's "Castle of Indolence." Shenstone's imitation is weakened by very crude attempts at antique phrase, and it paints the active life of the village schoolmistress in a fine spirit of indolence. But in the two cantos of his "Castle of Indolence," each of about seventy-eight stanzas, James Thomson struck the deeper notes of life. The theme of the poem is Indolence, not as a good, but as an evil. To the Knight who represents the energies of life, the Castle of Indolence represents what the Gardens of Acrasia were to Guyon in the "Faerie Queene." The playful tone of the poem only quickens the sense of the underlying earnestness. Thomson imitates Spenser in the manner of a poet who has really felt and understood him, who has placed his hand in Spenser's and been led by the great master to higher ground. "The Castle of Indolence," published in 1748, the year of his death, is Thomson's best poem. He had been at work on it during the course of nearly fifteen years, beginning, it is said, with stanzas painting playfully his own idleness and that of his friends, and then developing it into a fine picture of the triumph of human energy in labour for the days to come. Of the two cantos the first represents the Castle of Indolence:

The castle hight of Indolence,

And its false luxury,

Where, for a little time, alas! We lived right jollily.

The second is devoted to

The Knight of Arts and Industry,
And his achievements fair,
That, by this Castle's overthrow,
Secured and crownéd were.

After an opening stanza that indicates the thought of the poem by suggesting that there is great reason for man's toil early and late, six stanzas, accumulating images of drowsy ease, represent the country round about the Castle.

II.

In lowly dale, fast by a river's side,

With woody hill o'er hill encompassed round,
A most enchanting wizard did abide,

Than whom a fiend more fell is nowhere found.
It was, I ween, a lovely spot of ground;
And there a season atween June and May,

Half prankt with spring, with summer half imbrowned,
A listless climate made, where, sooth to say,
No living wight could work, ne caréd even for play.

III.

Was nought around but images of rest: Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between; And flowery beds that slumbrous influence kest, From poppies breathed; and beds of pleasant green, Where never yet was creeping creature seen. Meantime, unnumbered glittering streamlets played, And hurléd every where their waters sheen; That, as they bickered through the sunny glade, Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made.

IV.

Joined to the prattle of the purling rills Were heard the lowing herds along the vale, And flocks loud bleating from the distant hills, And vacant shepherds piping in the dale; And, now and then, sweet Philomel would wail, Or stockdoves plain amid the forest deep, That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale; And still a coil the grasshopper did keep; Yet all these sounds yblent inclinéd all to sleep.

V.

Full in the passage of the vale, above, A sable, silent, solemn forest stood,

Where nought but shadowy forms was seen to move,
As Idless fancied in her dreaming mood;
And up the hills, on either side, a wood

Of blackening pines, aye waving to and fro,
Sent forth a sleepy horror through the blood;
And where this valley winded out, below,

The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard, to flow.

VI.

A pleasing land of drowsyhead it was,

Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye; And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, For ever flushing round a summer-sky: There eke the soft delights, that witchingly Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast; And the calm pleasures always hovered nigh; But whate'er smacked of noyance, or unrest, Was far, far off expelled from this delicious nest.

VII.

The landscape such, inspiring perfect ease, Where Indolence (for so the wizard hight) Close-hid his castle mid embowering trees, That half shut out the beams of Phoebus bright, And made a kind of chequered day and night: Meanwhile, unceasing at the massy gate, Beneath a spacious palm, the wicked wight Was placed; and to his lute, of cruel fate And labour harsh, complained, lamenting man's estate.

To this castle continual pilgrims came, allured by the freshness of its valley and the syren melody of the enchanter.

IX.

"Behold! ye pilgrims of this earth, behold! See all, but man, with unearned pleasure gay; See her bright robes the butterfly unfold, Broke from her wintry tomb in prime of May! What youthful bride can equal her array? Who can with her for easy pleasure vie? From mead to mead with gentle wing to stray, From flower to flower on balmy gales to fly, Is all she has to do beneath the radiant sky.

X.

"Behold the merry minstrels of the morn,
The swarming songsters of the careless grove,
Ten thousand throats! that, from the flowering thorn,
Hymn their good God, and carol sweet of love,
Such grateful kindly raptures them emove:
They neither plough, nor sow; ne, fit for flail,
E'er to the barn the nodden sheaves they drove;