strongest atonement, both as poet and man, for his faults as both." It
seems to me to be a poem which reveals Pope's faults as a poet, while of
Pope the man it tells us simply nothing. It has none of Pope's wit, none
of his epigrammatic characterization, none of his bewigged and powdered
fancies, none of his malicious self-revelation. Almost the only
interesting thing about it is the notes the critics have written on it,
discussing whether the lady ever lived, and, if so, whether she was a Miss
Wainsbury or a lady of title, whether she was beautiful or deformed,
whether she was in love with Pope or the Duke of Buckingham or the Duc de
Berry, whether Pope was in love with her, or even knew her, or whether she
killed herself with a sword or by hanging herself. One can find plenty of
"rest and refreshment" among the conjectures of the commentators, but in
the verse itself one can find little but a good example of the technique
of the rhymed couplet. But Mr. Saintsbury evidently loves the heroic
couplet for itself alone. The only long example of Pope's verse which he
quotes is merely ding-dong, and might have been written by any capable
imitator of the poet later in the century. Surely, if his contention is
true that Pope's reputation as a poet is now lower than it ought to be, he
ought to have quoted something from the _Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_ or _The
Rape of the Lock_, or even _The Essay on Man_. The two first are almost
flawless masterpieces. Here Pope suddenly becomes a star. Here he gilds
his age and his passions with wit and fancy; he ceases to be a mere rhymed
moralist, a mechanician of metre. Mr. Saintsbury, I regret to see,
contends that the first version of _The Rape of the Lock_ is the best. One
can hardly forgive this throwing overboard of the toilet and the fairies
which Pope added in the later edition. We may admit that the gnomes are a
less happy invention than the sylphs, and that their introduction lets the
poem down from its level of magic illusion. But in the second telling the
poem is an infinitely richer and more peopled thing. Had we only known the
first version, we should, no doubt, have felt with Addison that it was
madness to tamper with such exquisite perfection. But Pope, who foolishly
attributed Addison's advice to envy, proved that Addison was wrong. His
revision of _The Rape of the Lock_ is one of the few magnificently
successful examples in literature of painting the lily.

One differs from Mr