Description
The Rape of the Lock
AN HEROI-COMICAL POEM
TO MRS. ARABELLA FERMOR
MADAM,
It will be in vain to deny that I have some regard for this piece, since
I dedicate it to You. Yet you may bear me witness, it was intended only
to divert a few young Ladies, who have good sense and good humour enough
to laugh not only at their sex’s little unguarded follies, but at their
own. But as it was communicated with the air of a Secret, it soon found
its way into the world. An imperfect copy having been offer’d to a
Bookseller, you had the good-nature for my sake to consent to the
publication of one more correct: This I was forc’d to, before I had
executed half my design, for the Machinery was entirely wanting to
compleat it.
The Machinery, Madam, is a term invented by the Critics, to signify that
part which the Deities, Angels, or Dæmons are made to act in a Poem:
For the ancient Poets are in one respect like many modern Ladies: let an
action be never so trivial in itself, they always make it appear of the
utmost importance. These Machines I determined to raise on a very new
and odd foundation, the Rosicrucian doctrine of Spirits.