Page:A Key to the Lock. Or, A Treatise Proving, Beyond All Contradiction, the Dangerous Tendency of a Late Poem, Entituled, The Rape of the Lock, to Government and Religion - Pope (1715).djvu/24

 To put this Matter beyond all dispute, the Sylphs are said to be wond'rous fond of Place, in the Canto following, where Ariel is perched uppermost, and all the rest take their Places subordinately under him.

Here again I cannot but observe, the excessive Malignity of this Author, who could not leave this Character of Ariel without the same invidious Stroke which he gave him in the Character of the Baron before.

Being another Prophecy that he should resign his Place, which it is probable all Ministers do with a Sigh.

At the Head of the Gnomes he sets Umbriel, a dusky melancholy Spright, who makes it his Business to give Belinda the Spleen; a vile and malicious Suggestion against some grave and worthy Minister. The Vapours, Fantoms, Visions, and the like, are the Jealousies, Fears, and Cries of Danger, that have so often affrighted and alarm'd the Nation. Those who are described in the House of Spleen under those several fantastical Forms, are the same whom their Ill-willers have so often called the Whimsical.

The two foregoing Spirits being the only considerable Characters of the Machinary, I