It has all the system and construction of an epic.

The poet describes, with becoming delicacy, the toilet of the lady, at which she is attended by obsequious sylphs.
The party embark upon the river, and the fair lady is described in the splendor of her charms: This nymph, to the destruction of mankind, Nourished two locks, which graceful hung behind In equal curls, and well conspired to deck, With shining ringlets, the smooth, ivory neck.
* * * * * Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare.
And beauty draws us by a single hair.
Surrounding sylphs protect the beauty; and one to whom the lock has been given in charge, flutters unfortunately too near, and is clipped in two by the scissors that cut the lock.

It is a rather extravagant conclusion, even in a mock-heroic poem, that when the strife was greatest to restore the lock, it flew upward: A sudden star, it shot through liquid air, And drew behind a radiant trail of hair, and thus, and always, it Adds new glory to the shining sphere.
With these simple and meagre materials, Pope has constructed an harmonious poem in which the sylphs, gnomes, and other sprites of the Rosicrucian philosophy find appropriate place and service.

It failed in its principal purpose of reconciliation, but it has given us the best mock-heroic poem in the language.

As might have been expected, it called forth bitter criticisms from Dennis; and there were not wanting those who saw in it a political significance.