Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 4.djvu/26

22 with still greater vigilance, till of this restraint she grew so impatient, that she bribed a woman-servant to procure her a sword, which she directed to her heart.

From this account, given with evident intention to raise the Lady's character, it does not appear that she had any claim to praise, nor much to compassion. She seems to have been impatient, violent, and ungovernable. Her uncle's power could not have lasted long; the hour of liberty and choice would have come in time. But her desires were too hot for delay, and she liked self-murder better than suspence.

Nor is it discovered that the uncle, who ever he was, is with much justice delivered to posterity as "a false Guardian;" he seems to have done only that for which a guardian is appointed: he endeavoured to direct his niece till she should be able to direct herself. Poetry has not often been worse employed than in dignifying the amorous fury of a raving girl.

Not long after, he wrote the "Rape of the Lock," the most airy, the most ingenious, and the most delightful of all his compositions, occasioned by a frolick of gallantry, rather Rh