Page:The venture; an annual of art and literature.djvu/58

 (written at the age of twenty-four) which can be best compared to one of those Fetes Galaates in which Watteau depicts a group of fine ladies and gentlemen taking their pleasure, and depicts it with a rich mastery of style which gives a dignity to the slight and artificial subject. The comparison, however, is inadequate, for throughout Pope's description, even while it conveys the very flutter of a fan, there runs an undertone of trenchant raillery. Here is Belinda at her first arising on the fatal day: