Everyone knows that Pope added the machinery of sylphs and gnomes when he revised The Rape of the Lock in 1714. And most people – aside from John Dennis – think it was a valuable addition. However, the precise imaginative territory opened up by this means has never been charted in any detail. The declared Rosicrucian origins of the machinery appear to have disabled criticism in a puzzling way. I wish to offer a threefold argument. First, that the gnomes are as important as the sylphs in the design. Second, that Pope writes in a tradition of rustic ‘faery’ lore, involving Shakespeare, Spenser, Drayton and others. And third, a relatively minor point, that the work of William Diaper – notably Dryades, published in December 1712 – has a perceptible relevance to the additions Pope made.

On July 1712, in the Spectator no. 419, Addison supplied the classic definition of the ‘fairy way of writing’. In this species of composition, he tells us,

Addison then goes on to specify the qualities required of a poet attempting this mode: