Hampton Court ... Illustrated with forty-three drawings by Herbert ...

"RAPE OF THE LOCK" 209
river floods that the tragedy has occurred. When
he stays with my Lord Bathurst at Cirencester, he is
dreaming of a great canal which shall wed the Severn
to the river by whose streams he was nurtured.
Thames is the presiding deity of his rustic pantheon,
and round him circle the satellites, the little streams
which combine to enhance his glory: —
"Around his throne the sea-born brothers stood,
Who swell with tributary arms his flood;
First the famed authors of his ancient name,
The windingIsis, and the fruitful Thame;
The Kennet swift, for silver eels renown'd;
The Loddon slow, with verdant alders crown'd;
Cole, whose dark streams his flow'ryislands lave;
And chalky Wey, that rolls a milky wave;
The blue, transparent Vandalis appears;
The gulphy Lee his sedgy tresses rears;
And sullen Mole, that hides his divingflood;
And silent Darent, stained with Danish blood." l
"The Rape of the Lock" is the culmination of this
influence. The story, like its fair heroine, is
" Launched on the bosom of the silver Thames,'1
and under all its brilliant epigram, and dipt, biting
phrase, the ripple of the water is heard in everyline.
An excursion to Hampton Court was the foundation
of the " heroi-comical poem," as its author calls it;
and innothing is the charm of the Palaceinits renewed
youth more happily expressed. To compose a serious
dissension was the object, it is said, of Mr. Caryll (" a
1 "Windsor Forest."
O