Johnson says of the sylphs that they are "a new race of beings," and that there is nothing "but the names of his agents which Pope has not invented." This is an exaggeration. The names were a considerable part of the novelty; for, in the fundamental conception, the sylphs in the Rape of the Lock were the time-honoured fairies of English literature. Their immediate prototypes are the elves of Shakespeare. The sprites of Pope belong to the same family with the diminutive, joyous, ethereal creatures which anciently crept into acorn cups, couched in the bells of cowslips, or lived under blossoms; who sported in air, rode on the curled clouds, and flitted with the swiftness of thought over land and sea; who hung dew-drops on flowers, fetched jewels from the deep, shaded sleeping eyes from moonbeams with wings plucked from painted butterflies, and who mingled, benignly or maliciously, in all but the graver varieties of human affairs. Pope acknowledges the ancestry of his newly-named race when Ariel,--whose own name confesses his parentage,--addressing his subjects, says, Ye sylphs and sylphids, to your chief give ear; Fays, fairies, genii, elves, and demons hear. The benevolent and mischievous fairies of old days were, in their turn, little more than the good and evil angels dwarfed to suit their lighter functions. For the precise outward aspect which Pope assigned to the sylphs, he was beholden to Spenser, with whose works he was well acquainted: And all about her neck and shoulders flew A flock of little loves, and sports, and joys, With nimble wings of gold and purple hue, Whose shapes seemed not like to terrestrial boys, But like to angels playing heav'nly toys. These are just the beings who hover round Belinda. But though Johnson's claim for Pope is over-stated, his supernatural agents are the product of genius. The vividness with which they are described, the novel offices they fulfil, the poetic beauty with which they are invested, even when engaged in employments not in their nature poetic, constitute them a distinct variety, and they rise up before our minds like a fresh creation, and not as the reflection of antecedent familiar forms. The remark is true of the work throughout. What Pope borrowed he varied, embellished, and combined in a manner which leaves the poem unique. Some of the parts may be traced to earlier sources, but few master-pieces have more originality in the aggregate.