his colleagues with the materials of so many
_Spectators_. I think that even in Addison there is something which
rather jars upon us. His persiflage is full of humour and kindliness,
but underlying it there is a tone of superiority to women which is
sometimes offensive. It is taken for granted that a woman is a fool, or
at least should be flattered if any man condescends to talk sense to
her. With Pope this tone becomes harsher, and the merciless satirist
begins to show himself. In truth, Pope can be inimitably pungent, but he
can never be simply playful. Addison was too condescending with his
pretty pupils; but under Pope's courtesy there lurks contempt, and his
smile has a disagreeable likeness to a sneer. If Addison's manner
sometimes suggests the blandness of a don who classes women with the
inferior beings unworthy of the Latin grammar, Pope suggests the
brilliant wit whose contempt has a keener edge from his resentment
against fine ladies blinded to his genius by his personal deformity.

Even in his dedication, Pope, with unconscious impertinence, insults his
heroine for her presumable ignorance of his critical jargon. His smart
epigrams want but a slight change of tone to become satire. It is the
same writer who begins an essay on women's characters by telling a woman
that her sex is a compound of

Matter too soft a lasting mask to bear;
And best distinguished by black, brown, or fair,

and communicates to her the pleasant truth that

Every woman is at heart a rake.

Women, in short, are all frivolous beings, whose one genuine interest is
in love-making. The same sentiment is really implied in the more playful
lines in the _Rape of the Lock_. The sylphs are warned by omens that
some misfortune impends; but they don't know what.

Whether the nymph shall break Diana's law,
Or some frail china jar receive a flaw;
Or stain her honour or her new brocade,
Forget her prayers or miss a masquerade;
Or lose her heart or necklace at a ball,
Or whether heaven has doom'd that Shock must fall.

We can understand that Miss Fermor would feel such raillery to be
equivocal. It may be added, that an equal want of delicacy is implied in
the mock-heroic battle at the end, where the ladies are gifted with an
excess of screaming power:--

'Restore the lock!' she cries, and all around
'Restore the lock,' the vaulted roofs rebound--
Not fierce Othello in so loud a st