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

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HAMPTON COURT
gentleman," in Warburton's words, *' who was secretary
to Queen Mary, wife of James II., whose fortunes he
followed into France, author of the comedy of Sir
Solomon Single, and of several translationsin Dryden's
Miscellanies"), in proposing to Mr. Pope that he
should record in verse —
"What dire offence from am'rous causes springs,
What mightycontests rise from trivial things,"
" on the trifling occasion " of Lord Petre's having cut
off a lock of the hair of Miss Arabella Fermor. At
first a mere feu d'esprit, for the entertainment of the
lady herself and her friends, it grew into a long poem,
by the addition of the " machinery of the sylphs."
The Thames, the sylphs, and a lock of hair are the
foundations for this most charming of all delicate
satires on human folly.
For the Thames, the love of it was in Pope's blood,
and no one, till Thomas Love Peacock in " Crochet
Castle," so happily could paint the pleasures of a water
party: —
" But now secure the paintedvessel glides,
The sunbeams trembling on the floating tides *
While melting music steals upon the sky,
And softened sounds alongthe waters die.
Smooth flow the waves, the zephyrs gently play,
Belinda smiled, and all the world was gay."
And no less happy in mastery is Pope when he
adds the sylphs to the "machinery" of the poet's
craft. The " Rosicrucian doctrine of spirits" he