If to her share some female errors fall,
Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all.
Pope's statement in the dedication that he had been forced into publishing the first draft of the poem before his design of enlarging it was half executed is probably to be taken, like many of his statements, with a sufficient grain of salt. Pope had a curious habit of protesting that he was forced into publishing his letters, poems, and other trifles, merely to forestall the appearance of unauthorized editions. It is more likely that it was the undoubted success of
The Rape of the Lock
in its first form which gave him the idea of working up the sketch into a complete mock-heroic poem.
Examples of such a poem were familiar enough to Pope. Not to go back to the pseudo-Homeric mock epic which relates the battle of the frogs and mice, Vida in Italy and Boileau in France, with both of whom Pope, as the
Essay on Criticism
shows, was well acquainted, had done work of this kind. Vida's description of the game of chess in his
Scacchia Ludus
certainly gave him the model for the game of ombre in the third canto of
The Rape of the Lock