Beardsley Aubrey - The rape of the lock: an heroi-comical poem in five cantos

T HE B ARGE . T HE R APE OF THE L OCK . T HE C AVE OF S PLEEN . T HE B ATTLE OF THE B EAUX AND THE B ELLES . T HE N EW S TAR

No one had written like this before. For the first time, ordinary people could imagine the allure, the privilege, and the fragility of upper-class life in England. And though many would try, no one quite managed to match the poems vitality and freshness until, one hundred years later, an unknown young woman from Hampshire published a novel called Pride and Prejudice. Pope took the idea for the poem from a friend named John Caryll, who told him about a scandal that had just broken concerning two of Englands leading Roman Catholic families, the Fermors and the Petres. The families had become involved in a quarrel, provoked by a lovers tiff between Lord Petre, seventh Baron of Ingatestone, and the lovely, youthful Arabella, eldest daughter of the Fermor family. While at a party in the country, Lord Petre had snipped a lock of Arabellas hair without first asking her permission.

The Fermor family took offence at the prank, more offence than the trifle seemed to merit. John Caryll, who was a mutual friend of both parties, had reasons of his own for wanting to mend the breach. Caryll was also the head of an old and distinguished Catholic family, a self-appointed custodian of English Catholicism. By the early eighteenth century Catholics had been subject to more than a century of prejudice and persecution following the Protestant reformation. The great Catholic houses, once the most ancient, noble and wealthy in England, had shrunk to a beleaguered minority holding out against persecution, imprisonment, and punitive legislation. Caryll was loathe to permit a schism between two such important families.

So he asked his friend Alexander Pope, still largely unknown, to write verses to make a jest of it, and laugh them together again. Pope jumped at the idea, recognising that the story had everything he needed to write a poem that might make his name. Young and obscure, but brilliantly talented, Pope was desperate for fame. But until now it had seemed that Fortune was against him. Like the others, he was Catholic, but in contrast to the Carylls, the Petres and the Fermors, he was socially undistinguished. His father was a textile importer in London, a successful businessman, but modest nonetheless.

Pope was born in London in 1688, but by the time he was four years old his family had been exiled by the passing of a punitive Act that forced all papists to live more than ten miles from Hyde Park Corner. In 1692 the Popes moved to the village of Hammersmith, and six years later to Binfield, in Windsor Forest. As a Catholic, Pope knew that he could never have a university education, obtain professional qualifications, nor, indeed, inherit property of his own. More was to come. When he was about twelve years old, Pope contracted Potts Disease, or tuberculosis of the spine, a condition that was to leave him a lifelong invalid. His growth was stunted, and as a young man he was well on his way to becoming a hunchback.

He was almost always in pain, very often bedridden. In later life his back had to be laced tightly into a brace before he could stand at all. These circumstances seemed to inspire Pope to even greater heights of ambition. His dream was to become as important an English poet as Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton. Incredibly enough, he was destined to see that dream come true. Pope had a couple of pieces of luck.

Close to his parents house in Binfield lived Sir Anthony Englefield, also a distinguished Catholic, and a man of considerable cultural and intellectual sophistication. Sir Anthony took a shine to the young Pope and engineered introductions to a few noteworthy people, including the famous dramatist William Wycherley. Pope used his acquaintance with Wycherley to insinuate himself into the fringes of literary and artistic life in London, and from there, by sheer force of talent and determination, he rose to the greatest heights of literary celebrity. The second piece of luck, of course, came when John Caryll, also a neighbour, told him about the episode with Arabella Fermors hair. At the time, Caryll may not have known, or perhaps chose not to explain, all of the details. But as it happened, Pope had heard rumours about Arabella Fermor from another source.

Sir Anthony Englefield had two granddaughters, Martha and Teresa Blount, who were close friends of Popes. These girls were also cousins of Arabella Fermor. Although neither as fashionable nor as rich as Arabella, the Blount sisters did belong to the same circle of young, upper-class Catholics who divided their time between the country and London (the Ten-Mile Act had been effectively suspended by the early eighteenth century). Martha and Teresa probably discussed the real situation between Arabella and Lord Petre in letters with other friends, as well as with Pope himself. The exact details have not survived, but it appears that rumours were circulating of a possible engagement between the pair, and that Lord Petre failed to come through with a formal offer. What we do know is that two months before Pope published the first edition of