An essay on the writings and genius of Pope:

SECT. III. Of the ESSAY on Criticism.

WE are now arrived at a poem of that species, for which our author's ge|nius was particularly turned, the DIDACTIC and the MORAL; it is therefore, as might be expected, a master-piece in its kind. I have been sometimes inclined to think, that the praises Addison has bestowed on it, * 1.1 were a little partial and invidious.

"The observa|tions, says he, follow one another, like those in Horace's Art of Poetry, without that methodical regularity which would have been requisite in a prose writer."

It is however certain, that the poem before us is by no means destitute of a just integrity, and a lucid order: each of the precepts and re|marks naturally introduce the succeeding ones, so as to form an entire whole. The ingeni|ous Mr. Hurd, hath also usefully shewn, that

Horace observed a strict method, and unity of design, in his epistle to the Pisones, and that altho the connexions are delicately fine and almost imperceptible, like the secret hinges of a well-wrought box, yet they art|fully and closely unite each part together, and give coherence, uniformity, and beauty to the work. The Spectator adds;

"The ob|servations in this essay are some of them un|common;"

there is, I fear, a small mixture of ill-nature in these words; for this ESSAY tho' on a beaten subject, abounds in many new remarks, and original rules, as well as in many happy and beautiful illustrations, and applications of the old ones. We are indeed amazed to find such a knowledge of the world, such a maturity of judgment, and such a penetration into human nature, as are here displayed, in so very young a writer as was POPE, when he produced this ESSAY; for he was not twenty years old. Correct|ness and a just taste, are usually not attained but by long practice and experience in any art; but a clear head, and strong sense were

the characteristical qualities of our author, and every man soonest displays his radical excellencies. If his predominant talent be warmth and vigor of imagination, it will break out in fanciful and luxuriant descrip|tions, the colouring of which will perhaps be too rich and glowing. If his chief force lies in the understanding rather than in the imagination, it will soon appear by solid and manly observations on life or learning, ex|pressed in a more chast and subdued style. The former will frequently be hurried into obscurity or turgidity, and a false grandeur of diction; the latter will seldom hazard a figure, whose usage is not already established, or an image beyond common life; will always be perspicuous if not elevated; will never dis|gust, if not transport his readers; will avoid the grosser faults, if not arrive at the greater beauties of composition; The

"eloquentiae genus,"

for which he will be distinguished, will not be the

"plenum, & erectum, & audax, & praecultum,"

but the

"pressum,

& mite, & limatum."* 1.2

In the earliest letters of POPE to Wycherly, to Walsh, and Cromwell, we find many admirable and acute judgments of men and books, and an intimate acquaintance not only with some of the best Greek and Roman, particularly the latter, but the most celebrated of the French and Italian classics.

DU BOS † 1.3 fixes the period of time, at which, generally speaking, the poets and the painters have arrived at as high a pitch of perfection, as their geniuses will permit, to be the age of thirty years, or a few years more or less. Virgil was near thirty when he composed his first Eclogue; Horace was a grown man when he began to be talked of at Rome as a poet, having been formerly engaged in a busy military life. Racine was about the same age when his ANDROMACHE, which may be regarded as his first good tragedy, was played. Corneille was more than thirty

when his CID appeared. Despreaux was full thirty when he published his satires, such as we now have them; Moliere was full forty when he wrote the first of those comedies, on which his reputation is founded. But to excell in this species of composition, it was not sufficient for Moliere to be only a great poet; but it was more necessary for him to gain a thorough knowledge of men and the world, which is seldom attained so early in life, but without which, the best poet would be able to write but very indifferent comedies. Raphael was about thirty years old also, when he displayed the beauty and sublimity of his genius in the Vatican. For it is there we be|hold the first of his works, that are worthy the great name he at present so deservedly pos|sesses. When our Shakespear wrote his LEAR, Milton his PARADISE LOST, Spenser his FAIRY QUEEN, and Dryden his MUSIC ODE, they were all of them past the middle age of man. From this short review it ap|pears, that few poets ripened so early as POPE; who seems literally and strictly to have

fulfilled the precept of Horace in each of it's circumstances;

Multa tulit, fecitque PUER;

he was laborious and indefatigable in his pur|suits of learning;

—Sudavit et alsit;

and above all, what is of the greatest conse|quence in preserving each faculty of the mind in due vigour,

Abstinuit venere et vino;

these are the two temptations to which a youthful bard is principally subject, and into whose snares he generally falls. If the ima|gination be lively, the passions will be strong. True genius seldom resides in a cold and phleg|matic constitution. The same temperament, and the same sensibility that makes a poet or a painter, will be apt to make a man a lover and a debauchee. POPE was happily secured from falling into these common failings, the bane of so many others, by the weakness and

delicacy of his body, and the bad state of his health. The sensual vices were too violent for so tender a frame; he never fell into intemperance and dissipation. May I add, that even his bodily make was of use to him as a writer; for one who was acquainted with the heart of man, and the secret springs of our actions, has observed with great penetra|tion;

"* 1.4It is good to consider deformity, not as a signe, which is more deceivable, but as a cause, which seldom faileth of the effect. Whosoever hath any thing fixed in his person, that doth induce contempt, hath also a perpetual spur in himselfe, to rescue and deliver himself from scorne."

I do not think it improbable, that this circum|stance might animate our poet, to double his diligence to make himself distinguished, and hope I shall not be accused, by those who have a knowledge of human nature, of assign|ing his desire of excellence to a motive too mean and sordid, as well as too weak and inefficacious, to operate such an effect.

What crops of wit and honesty appear, From spleen, from obstinacy, hate or fear! See anger, zeal and fortitude, supply, Ev'n avarice, prudence; sloth, philosophy; Nor virtue male or female can we name, But what will grow on pride or grow on shame. * 1.5

It was another circumstance equally propi|tious to the studies of POPE, in this early part of his life, that he inherited a fortune that was a decent competence, and sufficient to supply the small expences, which both by constitution and reflection he required. He had no occasion to distract his thoughts by being sollicitous,

"de lodice paranda;"

he needed not to wait,

—Pour diner, le success d'un sonnet. † 1.6

his father retired from business, at the revo|lution, to a little convenient box, at Binfield, near Oakingham, in Berkshire, ‡ 1.7 and having converted his effects into money, is said to have brought with him into the country al|most

twenty thousand pounds. As he was a papist he could not purchase, nor put his money to interest on real security; and as he adhered to the interests of King James, he he made a point of conscience not to lend it to the new government;

For right hereditary tax'd and fin'd, He stuck to poverty with peace of mind,

he therefore kept this sum in his chest, and lived upon the principal; till by that time his son came to the succession, it was almost all fairly spent. There was however enough left to supply the occasions of our author, * 1.8 and to keep him from the two most destruc|tive

enemies to a young genius, want and dependence.

"I can easily conceive, says a late moralist, that a mind occupied and overwhelmed with the weight and immen|sity of its own conceptions, glancing with astonishing rapidity from heaven to earth, and from earth to heaven, cannot willingly submit to the dull drudgery, of examining the justness and accuracy of a butcher's bill. To descend from the widest and comprehensive views of nature, and weigh out hops for a brewing, must be invincibly disgusting to a true genius; to be able to build imaginary palaces of the most exqui|site architecture, but yet not to pay a car|penter's bill, is a cutting mortification and disgrace."* 1.9

ON the other hand, opulence, and high station would be equally pernicious and un|favourable to a young genius; as they would almost unavoidably embarrass and immerse him, in the cares, the pleasures, the indo|lence,

and the dissipation, that accompany abundance. And perhaps the fortune most truly desireable, and the situation most pre|cisely proper for a young poet, are marked out in that celebrated saying of Charles the ninth of France;

"equi et poetae ALENDI sunt, non SAGINANDI."

THE ESSAY ON CRITICISM, which occa|sioned the introduction of these reflections, was first, I am well informed, written in prose, according to the precept of Vida, and the practice of Racine.

Quinetiam, prius effigiem formare, SOLUTIS, Totiusque operis simulacrum fingere, verbis, Proderit; atque omnes ex ordine nectere partes, Et seriem rerum, et certos sibi ponere fines, Per quos tuta regens vestigia tendere pergas. * 1.10

When Racine had fixed on a subject for a play, he wrote down in plain prose, not on|ly the subject of each of the five acts, but of every scene and every speech; so that he

could take a view of the whole at once, and see whether every part cohered, and coopera|ted to produce the intended event: when his matter was thus regularly disposed, he was used to say,

"My Tragedy is finished."

I NOW propose to make some observations on, and illustrations of such passages and precepts in this ESSAY, as, on account of their utility, novelty, or elegance, deserve particular atten|tion; and perhaps I may take the freedom to hint at a few imperfections, in this SEN|SIBLE performance. I shall cite the passages in the natural order, in which they succes|sively occur.

• 1.

  In poets as true genius is but rare † 1.11 —

  It is indeed so extremely rare, that no country in the succession of many ages has produced above three or four persons that deserve the title. The

  "man of rhymes"

  may be easily found; but the genuine poet, of a lively plastic imagination, the true MAKER

• ...

  or CREATOR, is so uncommon a progidy, that one is almost tempted to subscribe to the opi|nion of Sir William Temple, where he says,

  "That of all the numbers of mankind, that live within the compass of a thousand years, for one man that is born capable of making a great poet, there may be a thousand born capable of making as great generals, or ministers of state, as the most renowned in story."* 1.12

  There are indeed more causes required to concur to the formation of the former than of the latter, which necessarily render it's production more difficult.

• 2.

  True taste as seldom is the critic's share. ‡ 1.13 —

  La Bruyere says very sensibly, I will allow the good writers are scarce enough; but then I ask, where are the people that know how to read?

• 3.

  Let such teach others who themselves excel, And censure freely who have written well. † 1.14 —

• ...

  It is somewhere remarked by Dryden, I think, that none but a poet is qualified to judge of a poet. The maxim is however contradicted by experience. Aristotle is said indeed to have written one ode; but neither Bossu nor Hurd, are poets. The penetrating author of the Reflexions on Poetry, Painting, and Music, will for ever be read with delight, and with profit by all ingenious artists; il ne savait pourtant pas la musique, says Voltaire, * 1.15 il n'avoit jamais pu faire de vers, & n'avoit pas un tableau: mais il avoit beaucoup lû, vû, entendû, & reflechi. And Lord Shaftes|bury speaks with some indignation on this subject; if a musician performs his part well in the hardest symphonies, he must necessa|rily know the notes, and understand the rules of harmony and music. But must a man, therefore, who has an ear, and has studied the rules of music, of necessity have a voice or hand? can no one possibly judge a fiddle, but who is himself a fidler? can no

• ...

  one judge a picture, but who is himself a layer of colours? ‡ 1.16 Quintilian and Pliny, who speak of the works of the ancient pain|ters and statuaries, with so much taste and sentiment, handled not themselves either the pencil or the chissel, nor Longinus nor Dio|nysius, the harp. But altho' such as have actually performed nothing in the art itself, may not on that account, be totally disquali|fied to judge with accuracy of any piece of workmanship, yet perhaps a judgment will come with more authority and force from an artist himself. Hence the connoisseurs highly prize the treatise of Rubens, concerning the imitation of antique statues, the art of paint|ing by Leonardo da Vinci, and the lives of the painters by Vasari. As for the same rea|sons, Rameau's dissertation on the thorough bass, and the introduction to a good taste in music by the excellent, but neglected, Ge|miniani, demand a particular regard. The prefaces of Dryden would be equally valu|able,

• ...

  if he did not so frequently contradict himself, and advance opinions diametrically opposite to each other. Some of Corneille's discourses on his own tragedies are admirably just. And one of the best pieces of modern criticism, the academy's observations on the Cid, was we know the work of persons who had themselves written well. And our au|thor's own excellent preface to his translation of the Iliad, one of the best pieces of prose in the English language, is an example how well poets are qualified to be critics.

• 4.

  Some neither can for wits nor critics pass, As heavy mules are neither horse or ass; Those half-learn'd witlings, numerous in our isle, As half form'd insects on the banks of Nile; Unfinish'd things, one knows not what to call, Their generation's so equivocal. * 1.17 —

  These lines and those preceding, and follow|ing them, are excellently satirical; and were, I think, the first we find in his works, that give an indication of that species of poetry to

• ...

  which his talent was most powerfully bent, and in which, tho' not, as we shall see, in others, he excelled all mankind. The simile of the mule heightens the satire, and is new; as is the application of the insects of the Nile. POPE never shines so brightly as when he is proscribing bad authors.

• 5.

  In the soul while MEMORY prevails, The solid pow'r of UNDERSTANDING fails; Where beams of bright imagination play, The memory's soft figures melt away. * 1.18 —

  I hardly believe there is in any language a metaphor more appositely applied, or more elegantly expressed, than this of the effects of the warmth of fancy. Locke who has embellished his dry subject with a vast variety of pleasing similitudes and allusions, has a passage relating to the retentiveness of the memory so very like this before us, and so happily worded, that I cannot forbear giving the reader the pleasure of comparing them together; only premising that these two pas|sages

• ...

  are patterns of the manner in which the metaphor should be used, and of the method of preserving it unmixed with any other idea, and not continuing it too far. Our minds re|present to us those tombs to which we are approaching; where though the brass and marble remain, yet the inscriptions are effa|ced by time, and the imagery moulders away. How much the constitution of our bodies are concerned in this, and whether the temper of the brain makes this difference, that in some, it retains the characters drawn on it like marble, in others like freestone, and in others little better than sand, I shall not here en|quire; though it may seem probable that the constitution of the body does sometimes in|fluence the memory; since we sometimes find, a disease quite strip the mind of all its ideas, and the flames of a fever, in a few days CALCINE all those images to dust and confu|sion, which seemed to be as lasting as if graved in marble. * 1.19

• ...

  WITH respect to the truth of this obser|vation of POPE, experience abundantly evinc|eth, that the three great faculties of the foul here spoken of are seldom found united in the same person. There have yet existed, but a few transcendant geniuses, who have been singularly blest with this rare assemblage of different talents. All that I can at present recollect, who have at once enjoyed in full vigour, a sublime and splendid imagination, a solid and profound understanding, an exact and tenacious memory, are Herodotus, Plato, Tully, Livy, Tacitus, Galilaeo, Bacon, Des Cartes, Malebranche, Milton, Burnet of the Charterhouse, Berkley and Montesqueiu. Ba|con in his Novum Organum, divides the hu|man genius into two sorts; men of dry di|stinct heads, cool imaginations, and keen ap|plication; they easily apprehend the diffe|rences of things, are masters in controversy, and excell in confutation; and these are the most common. The second sort are men of warm fancies, elevated thought, and wide knowledge: they instantly perceive the re|semblances

• ...

  of things, and are poets or makers in science, invent arts, and strike out new light wherever they * 1.20 carry their views. This general observation has in it all that acuteness, comprehension, and knowledge of man, which so eminently distinguished this philosopher.

• 6.

  One science only will one genius fit; So vast is art, so narrow human wit.— Not only bounded to peculiar arts, But oft in those confin'd to single parts. † 1.21 —

  When Tully attempted poetry, he became as ridiculous as Bolingbroke when he attempted philosophy and divinity; we look in vain for that genius which produced the Dissertation on Parties, in the tedious philosophical works; of which it is no exaggerated satire to say, that the reasoning of them is sophistical and inconclusive, the style diffuse and verbose, and the learning seemingly contained in them not drawn from the originals, but picked up

• ...

  and purloined from French critics and transla|tions, and particularly from Bayle, from Rapin, and Thomassin, (as perhaps may be one day minutely shewn) together with the assistances that our Cudworth and Stanley, happily af|forded a writer confessedly ignorant of the Greek tongue, who has yet the insufferable * 1.22 arrogance to vilify and censure, and to think

• ...

  he can confute the best writers in that best language.

  WHEN Fontaine, whose tales indicated a truly comic genius, brought a comedy on the stage, it was received with a contempt equally unexpected and undeserved. Terence has left us no tragedy, and the Mourning Bride of Congreve, notwithstanding the praises be|stowed on it by POPE, in the Dunciad, * 1.23 is certainly a despicable performance; the plot is unnaturally intricate, and overcharged with incidents, the sentiments trite, and the lan|guage turgid and bombast. Heemskirk and Teniers could not succeed in a serious and sublime subject of history-painting. The latter, it is well known, designed cartoons for tapestry, representing the history of the Tur|riani of Lombardy. Both the composition and

• ...

  the expression are extremely indifferent; and some nicer virtuosi have remarked, that in the serious pieces, into which Hogarth has deviated from the natural biass of his genius, there are some strokes of the Ridiculous di|scernible, which suit not with the dignity of his subject. In his PREACHING OF St. PAUL, a dog snarling at a cat; and in his PHARAOH's DAUGHTER, the figure of the infant Moses, who expresses rather archness than timidity, are alleged as instances, that this artist, unrivalled in his own walk, could not resist the impulse of his imagination to|wards drollery. His picture, however, of Richard III. is pure and unmixed with any ridiculous circumstances, and strongly impresses terror and amazement. The mo|desty and good sense of the ancients is, in this particular, as in others, remarkable. The same writer never presumed to undertake more than one kind of dramatic poetry, if we except the CYCLOPS of Euripides. A poet never presumed to plead in public, or to write history, or indeed any considerable

• ...

  work in prose. The same actors never reci|ted tragedy and comedy; this was observed so long ago, as by Plato, in the third book of his REPUBLIC. They seem to have held that diversity, nay universality, of excellence, at which the moderns frequently aim, to be a gift unattainable by man. We therefore of Great-Britain have perhaps more reason to congratulate ourselves, on two very singular phenomena; I mean, Shakespear's being able to pourtray characters so very different as FALSTAFF, and MACKBETH; and Garrick's being able to personate so inimitably a LEAR, or an ABEL DRUGGER. Nothing can more fully demonstrate the extent and versatility of these two original geniuses. Corneille, whom the French are so fond of opposing to Shake|spear, produced very contemptible comedies; and the PLAIDEURS of Racine is so close a resemblance of Aristophanes, as it ought not to be here urged. The most universal of authors seems to be Voltaire; who has writ|ten almost equally well, both in prose and verse; and whom either the tragedy of ME|ROPE,

• ...

  or the history of LOUIS XIV, would alone have immortalized.

• 7.

  Those rules of old, discover'd not devis'd, Are nature still, but nature methodiz'd; Nature, like liberty, is but restrain'd By the same laws which first herself ordain'd. * 1.24

  THE precepts of the art of poesy, were po|sterior to practise; the rules of the Epopea were all drawn from the Iliad and the Odys|sey; and of Tragedy, from the EDIPUS of Sophocles. A petulant rejection, and an im|plicit veneration, of the rules of the ancient critics, are equally destructive of true taste.

  "It ought to be the first endeavour of a writer, says the excellent RAMBLER, † 1.25 to distinguish nature from custom, or that which is established, because it is right, from that which is right, only because it is established; that he may neither violate essential principles by a desire of novelty, nor debar himself from the attainment of

• ...

  any beauties within his view, by a need|less fear of breaking rules, where no liter|ary dictator had authority to prescribe."

  The same penetrating and judicious author, who always thinks for himself, has also ano|ther passage too full of strong sense, and too apposite to the subject before us, to be here omitted.

  "CRITICISM, though dignified, from the earliest ages, by the labours of men emi|nent for knowledge and sagacity, and since the revival of polite literature, the favorite study of European scholars, has not yet attained the certainty and stability of sci|ence. The rules, that have been hitherto received, are seldom drawn from any set|tled principle, or self-evident postulate; nor are adapted to the natural and invariable constitution of things: but will be found upon examination, to be the arbitrary edicts of dictators exalted by their own authority, who out of many means by which the same end may be attained, selected those which

• ...

  happened to occur to their own reflection; and then by an edict, which idleness and timidity were willing to obey, prohibited any new experiments of wit, restrained fancy from the indulgence of her innate inclination to hazard and adventure, and condemned all the future flights of genius, to persue the path of the Maeonian eagle."

  "THE authority claimed by critics may be more justly opposed, as it is apparently derived from them whom they endeavour to controul; for we are indebted for a very small part of the rules of writing to the acuteness of those by whom they are delivered. The critics have generally no other merit, than that of having read the works of great authors with attention; they have observed the arrangement of their matter, and the graces of their expression, and then expect honour and reverence for precepts, which they never could have inven|ted; so that practice has introduced rules, rather than rules have directed practice."

• ...

  "FOR this reason, the laws of every species of writing have been settled by the ideas of him by whom it was first raised to reputa|tion; without much enquiry, whether his performances were not yet susceptible of improvement. The excellencies and the faults of celebrated writers have been equally recommended to posterity; and so far has blind reverence prevailed, that the NUMBER of their BOOKS has been thought worthy of imitation."* 1.26

  THIS liberal and manly censure of critical bigotry, extends not to those fundamental and indispensable rules, which nature and necessity dictate, and demand to be observed; such, for instance, in the higher kinds of poetry, that the action of the epopea be one, great, and entire; that the hero be eminently distin|guished, move our concern, and deeply in|terest us; that the episodes arise easily out of the main fable; that the action commence as near the catastrophe as possible: and in the

• ...

  drama, that no more events be crowded to|gether, than can be justly supposed to happen during the time of representation, or to be transacted on one individual spot, and the like. But the absurdity here animadverted on, is the scrupulous nicety of those, who bind them|selves to obey frivolous and unimportant laws; such as, that an epic poem should consist not of less than twelve books; that it should end fortunately; that in the first book there should be no simile; that the exordium should be very simple and unadorned: that in a tragedy, only three personages should ap|pear at once upon the stage; and that a tragedy must consist of five acts; by the rigid observati|on of which last unnecessary precept, the poet is deprived of using many a moving story, that would furnish matter enough for three per|haps, but not for five acts; with others of the like nature. For the rest, as Voltaire ob|serves, * 1.27 whether the action of an epopea be simple or complex, completed in a month or in a year, or a longer time, whether the

• ...

  scene be fixed to one spot, as in the Iliad; or that the hero voyages from sea to sea, as in the Odyssey; whether he be furious like Achilles, or pious like Eneas; whether the action pass on land or sea; on the coast of Africa, as in the Luziada of Camoens; in America, as in the Araucana of Alonzo D'Ercilla; in heaven, in hell, beyond the limits of our world, as in the Paradise Lost; all these circumstances are of no consequence: the poem will be for ever an Epic poem, an Heroic poem, at least till another new title be found proportioned to its merit. If you scruple, says Addison, to give the title of an Epic poem to the Paradise Lost of Milton, call it, if you chuse, a DIVINE poem, give it whatever name you please, provided you confess, that it is a work as admirable in its kind as the Iliad.

  "Ne disputons jamais sur les noms, c'est une puerilitè impardonable."

• 8.

  Hear how learn'd Greece her useful rules indites, When to repress, and when indulge our flights. * 1.28

• ...

  IN the second part of Shaftesbury's ADVICE to an Author, is a judicious and elegant ac|count of the rise and progress of arts and sciences, in ancient Greece; to subjects of which sort, it were to be wished this author had always confined himself, as he indisputably understood them well, rather than that he had blemished and belied his patriotism, by writing against the religion of his country. I shall give the reader a passage that relates to the origin of criticism, which is curious and just.

  "When the persuasive arts, which were necessary to be cultivated among a people that were to be convinced before they acted, were grown thus into repute; and the power of moving the affections become the study and emulation of the forward wits and aspiring geniuses of the times; it would necessarily happen, that many geniuses of equal size and strength, though less covetous of public ap|plause, of power, or of influence over man|kind, would content themselves with the contemplation merely of these enchanting arts. These they would the better enjoy, the more

• ...

  they refined their taste, and cultivated their ear.—Hence was the origin of CRITICS; who, as arts and sciences advanced, would necessarily come withal into repute; and be|ing heard with satisfaction in their turn, were at length tempted to become authors, and ap|pear in public. These were honoured with the name of Sophists; a character which in early times was highly respected. Nor did the gravest philosophers, who were censors of manners, and critics of a higher degree, disdain to exert their criticism on the inferior arts; especially in those relating to speech, and the power of argument and persuasion. When such a race as this was once risen, 'twas no longer possible to impose on mankind, by what was specious and pretending. The pub|lic would be paid in no false wit, or jingling eloquence. Where the learned critics were so well received, and philosophers themselves dis|dained not to be of the number; there could not fail to arise critics of an inferior order, who would subdivide the several provinces of this empire."* 1.29

• ...

• 9.

  Know well each Ancient's proper character; His fable, subject, scope, in every page; Religion, country, genius of his age. * 1.30

  FROM their inattention to these particulars, many critics, and particularly the French, have been guilty of great absurdities. When Perrault impotently attempted to ridicule the first stanza of the first Olympic of Pindar, he was ignorant that the poet, in beginning with the praises of WATER† 1.31, alluded to the philosophy of Thales, who taught that water was the principle of all things; and which philosophy, Empedocles the Sicilian, a co|temporary of Pindar, and a subject of Hiero to whom Pindar wrote, had adopted in his beautiful poem. Homer and the Greek tra|gedians have been likewise censured, the for|mer for protracting the Iliad after the death of Hector; and the latter, for continuing the AJAX and PHOENISSAE, after the deaths of their respective heroes. But the censurers did not consider the importance of burial among

• ...

  the ancients: and that the action of the Iliad would have been imperfect without a de|scription of the funeral rites for Hector and Patroclus; as the two tragedies, without those of Polynices and Eteocles: for the an|cients esteemed a deprivation of sepulture to be a more severe calamity than death itself. It is observable that this circumstance did not occur to POPE* 1.32, when he endeavoured to justify this conduct of Homer, by only say|ing, that as the anger of Achilles does not die with Hector, but persecutes his very re|mains, the poet still keeps up to his subject by describing the many effects of that anger, 'till it is fully satisfied: and that for this reason, the two last books of the Iliad may be thought not to be excrescencies, but essential to the poem. I will only add, that I do not know an author whose capital excellence suffers more from the reader's not regarding his climate and country, than the incomparable Cer|vantes. There is a striking propriety in the madness of Don Quixote, not frequently

• ...

  taken notice of; for Thuanus informs us, that MADNESS is a common disorder among the Spaniards at the latter part of life, about the age of which the knight is represented.

  "Sur la fin de ses jours Mendozza devint furieux, comme font d'ordinaire les Espagnols."† 1.33

• 10.

  Still with itself compar'd, his text peruse, And let your comment be the Mantuan Muse. ‡ 1.34

  ALTHOUGH perhaps it may seem impossible to produce any new observations on Homer and Virgil, after so many volumes of criticism as have been spent upon them, yet the fol|lowing remarks have a novelty and penetra|tion in them that may entertain; especially as the treatise from which they are taken is ex|tremely scarce.

  "Quae variae inter se notae atque imagines animorum, a principibus utriusque populi poetis, Homero & Virgilio, mirificè exprimuntur. Siquidem Homeri duces & reges rapacitate, libidine, atque

• ...

  anilibus questibus, lacrymisque puerilibus, Graecam levitatem & inconstantiam referunt. Virgiliani vero principes, ab eximio poeta, qui Romanae severitatis fastidium, & Latinum supercilium verebatur, & ad heroum popu|lum loquebatur, ita componuntur ad majesta|tem consularem, ut quamvis ab Asiatica mol|litie luxuque venerint, inter Furios atque Clau|dios nati educatique videantur. Neque suam, ullo actu, Aeneas originem prodidisset, nisi a praefactiore aliquanto pietate, fudisset crebro copiam lacrymarum.—Qua meliorum ex|pressione morum hac aetate, non modo Vir|gilius Latinorum poetarum princeps, sed qui|vis inflatissimus vernaculorum, Homero prae|fertur: cum hic animos proceribus induerit suos, ille verò alienos.—Quamobrem va|rietas morum, qui carmine reddebantur, & hominum ad quos ea dirigebantur, inter Lati|nam Graecamque poesin, non inventionis tan|tum attulit, sed & elocutionis discrimen illud, quod praecipue inter Homerum & Virgilium deprehenditur; cum sententias & ornamenta quae Homerus sparserat, Virgilius, Romano|rum

• ...

  aurium causa, contraxerit; atque ad mores & ingenia retulerit eorum, qui a poesi non petebant publicam aut privatam institu|tionem, quam ipsi Marte suo invenerant; sed tantùm delectationem."* 1.35

  Blackwell, in his Enquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer, has taken many observations from this valu|able book, particularly in his twelfth Section.

• 11.

  Some beauties yet no precepts can declare, For there's a happiness, as well as care. Music resembles poetry; in each Are nameless graces, which no methods teach, And which a master-hand alone can reach. † 1.36

  POPE in this passage seems to have re|membered one of the Essays of Bacon, of which he is known to have been remarkably fond.

  "There is no excellent beauty, that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. A man cannot tell whether Apelles or Albert Durer, were the more trifler: whereof the one would make a personage by geometrical

• ...

  proportions; the other, by taking the best parts out of divers faces, to make one excel|lent. Such personages, I think, would please nobody but the painter that made them. Not but I think, a painter may make a better face than ever was; but he must do it by a kind of felicity, as a musician that maketh an excellent ayre in music, and not by rule. A man shall see faces, that if you examine them, part by part, you shall find never a good one; and yet altogether doe well."* 1.37

• 12.

  Thus Pegasus, a nearer way to take, May boldly deviate from the common track; From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part, And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art, Which, without passing through the judgment, gains The heart, and all it's ends at once obtains. † 1.38

  HERE is evidently a blameable mixture of metaphors, where the attributes of the horse and the writer are confounded. The former may justly be said to

  "take a nearer way, and, to deviate from a track;"

  but how can a horse

  "snatch a grace,"

  or

  "gain the heart?"

• ...

• 13.

  Some figures monstrous and mishap'd appear, Consider'd singly, or beheld too near, Which, but proportion'd to their light, or place, Due distance reconciles to time and place. * 1.39

  BY this excellent observation, delivered in a beautiful metaphor, all the faults imputed to Homer may be justified. Those who cen|sure what is called the GROSSNESS of some of his images, may please to attend to the follow|ing remark of a writer, by no means pre|judiced in favour of the ancients.

  "Quant a ce qu'on appelle GROSSIERETE dans les héros d'Homére, on peut rire tant qu'on voudra de voir Patrocle, au neuviéme livre de l'Iliade, mette trois gigots de mouton dans une marmite, allumer & fousser le feu, & préparer le diner avec Achille: Achille & Pa|trocle n'ent sont pas moins éclatans. Charles XII. Roi de Suéde, a fait six mois sa cuisine a Demir-Tocca, sans perdre rien de son he|roisme, & la plûpart de nos generaux qui portent dans une campe tout le luxe d'une

• ...

  cour effeminée, auront bien de la pein a egaler ces heros, qui faisoient leur cuisine aux-memes.—En un mot, Homere avoit a representer un Ajax & un Hector; non un courtisan de Versailles, ou de saint James."* 1.40

• 13.

  A prudent chief not always must display His pow'rs in equal rank, and fair array. † 1.41

  THE same may be said of music: concern|ing which a discerning judge has lately made the following observation.

  "I do not mean to affirm, that in this extensive work [of Marcello] every recitative, air, or chorus, is of equal excellence. A continued elevation of this kind no author ever came up to. Nay, if we consider that variety, which in all arts is necessary to keep up attention, we may per|haps affirm with truth, that INEQUALITY makes a part of the character of excellence: that something ought to be thrown into shades, in order to make the lights more

• ...

  striking. And, in this respect, Marcello is truly excellent: if ever he seems to FALL, it is only to RISE with more astonishing majesty and greatness."* 1.42

  It may be pertinent to subjoin Roscommon's remark on the same subject.

  —Far the greatest part Of what some call neglect, is study'd art. When Virgil seems to trifle in a line, 'Tis but a warning piece, which gives the sign To wake your fancy, and prepare your sight To reach the noble height of some unusual flight. † 1.43

• 14.

  Hail Bards triumphant born in happier days. ‡ 1.44

  DOCTOR Warburton is of opinion, that

  "there is a pleasantry in this title, which al|ludes to the state of WARFARE, that all true genius must undergo while here on earth."

  Is not this interpretation of the word trium|phant very far-fetched, and foreign to the author's meaning? Who, I conceive, used the word, to denote merely the TRIUMPH, which arose from superiority.

• ...

• 15.

  The last, the meanest of your sons inspire. * 1.45

  "THIS word last, says the same commen|tator, spoken in his early youth, as it were by chance, seems to have been OMINOUS."

  I am not persuaded that all true genius died with POPE: and presume that the Seasons of Thomson, the Pleasures of Imagination, and Odes, of Akenside, the Night-thoughts of Young, the Leonidas of Glover, the Elegy of Gray, together with many pieces in Dodsley's Miscellanies, were not published when Dr. Warburton delivered this insinuation of a failure of poetical abilities.

• 16.

  So pleas'd at first the towring Alps we try, Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky, Th' eternal snows appear already past, And the first clouds, and mountains seem the last: But, those attain'd, we tremble to survey The growing labours of the lengthen'd way; Th' increasing prospect tires our wand'ring eyes, Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise. † 1.46

• ...

  THIS comparison is frequently mentioned, as an instance of the strength of fancy. The images however appear too general and indis|tinct, and the last line conveys no new idea to the mind. The following picture in Shaftesbury, on the same sort of subject, ap|pears to be more full and striking.

  "Beneath the mountain's foot, the rocky country rises into hills, a proper basis of the ponderous mass above: where huge embodied rocks lie piled on one another, and seem to prop the high arch of heaven. See! with what trem|bling steps poor mankind tread the narrow brink of the deep precipices! From whence with giddy horror they look down, mistrust|ing even the ground that bears them; whilst they hear the hollow sound of torrents under|neath, and see the ruin of the impending rock; with falling trees, which hang with their roots upwards, and seem to draw more ruin after them."* 1.47

  See Livy's picturesque description of Annibal passing the Alps.

• ...

• 17.

  A perfect judge will read each work of wit, With the same spirit, that it's author writ. * 1.48

  To be able to judge of poetry, says Vol|taire, a man must feel strongly, must be born with some sparks of that fire, which animates the poet whom he criticises. As in deciding upon the merit of a piece of music, it is not enough, it is indeed nothing, to calculate the proportion of sounds as a mathematician, but we must have an ear and a soul for music. † 1.49

• 18.

  Thus when we view some well-proportion'd dome, (The world's just wonder, and ev'n thine, O Rome!) No single parts unequally surprise, All comes united to th' admiring eyes; No monstrous height, or breadth, or length appear, The Whole at once is bold, and regular. ‡ 1.50

  THIS is justly and elegantly expressed; and though it may seem difficult to speak of the same subject after such a description, yet Akenside has ventured, and nobly succeeded.

• ...

  Mark, how the dread PANTHEON stands, Amid the domes of modern hands! Amid the toys of idle state, How simply, how severely great! Then pause! * 1.51 —

• 19.

  Once on a time, La Mancha's knight, they say, A certain bard encountring on the way. § 1.52 —

  BY this short tale POPE has shewed us, how much he could have excelled in telling a story of humour. The incident is taken from the se|cond part of Don Quixote, first written by Don Alonzo Fernandez de Avellanada, and after|wards translated, or rather imitated and new|modelled, by no less an author than the cele|brated Le Sage. † 1.53 The book is not so con|temptible as some authors insinuate; it was well received in France, and abounds in many

• ...

  of humour and character worthy Cervantes himself. The brevity to which POPE's narration was confined, would not permit him to insert the following humorous dialogue at length.

  "I am satisfied you'll compass your design, said the other scholar, provided you omit the combat in the lists. Let him have a care of that, said Don Quixote interrupting him, that is the best part of the plot. But Sir, quoth the Batchelor, if you would have me adhere to Aristotle's rules, I must omit the combat. Aristotle, replied the Knight, I grant was a man of some parts; but his capacity was not unbounded: and give me leave to tell you, his authority does not extend over combats in the list, which are far above his narrow rules. Would you suffer the chaste Queen of Bohe|mia to perish? For how can you clear her in|nocence? Believe me, COMBAT is the most honourable method you can pursue; and, besides, it will add such grace to your play, that all the rules in the universe must not stand in competition with it. Well, Sir Knight, replied the Batchelor, for your sake, and for

• ...

  the honour of chivalry, I will not leave out the combat: and that it may appear the more glorious, all the court of Bohemia shall be present at it, from the princes of the blood, to the very footmen. But still one difficulty remains, which is, that our common theatres are not large enough for it. There must be one erected on purpose, answered the Knight; and, in a word, rather than leave out the combat, the play had better be acted in a field or plain."* 1.54

• 20.

  Some to conceit alone their taste confine, † 1.55 And glitt'ring thoughts struck out at every line.

  SIMPLICITY, with elegance and propriety, is the perfection of style in every composition. Let us, on this occasion, compare two passages from Theocritus and Ovid upon the same subject. The Cyclops, in the former, addresses Galatea with comparisons, natural, obvious, and drawn from his situation.

• ...

  〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉§ 1.56

  These simple and pastoral images were the most proper that could occur to a Cyclops, and to an inhabitant of Sicily. Ovid could not restrain the luxuriancy of his genius, on the same occasion, from wandering into an endless variety of flowery and unappropriated similitudes, and equally applicable to any other person or place.

  Candidior nivei folio, Galatea, ligustri; Floridior pratis; longâ procerior alno; Splendidior vitro; tenero lascivior haedo; Laevior assiduo detritis aequore conchis; Solibus hybernis, aestivâ gratior umbrâ; Nobilior pomis; platano conspectior altâ; Lucidior glacie; maturâ dulcior uvâ; Mollior & cygni plumis, & lacte coacto; Et, si non fugias, riguo formosior horto. * 1.57

  There are seven more lines of comparison.

• 21.

  False eloquence, like the prismatic glass, In gaudy colours spreads on every place: The face of nature we no more survey, All glares alike without distinction gay. † 1.58

• ...

  THE nauseous affectation of expressing every thing pompously and poetically, is no where more visible, than in a poem lately published, entitled AMYNTOR and THEO|DORA. The following instance may be al|leged amongst many others. Amyntor hav|ing a pathetic tale to discover, and being at a loss for utterance, uses these ornamental and unnatural images.

  —O could I steal From harmony her softest warbled strain Of melting air! or Zephire's vernal voice! Or Philomela's song, when love dissolves To liquid blandishment his evening lay, All nature smiling round. * 1.59 —

  Voltaire says very comprehensively, with re|spect to every species of composition,

  "Il ne faut rechereher, ni les penseés, ni les tours, ni les expressions, & que l'art, dans tous les grand ovrages, est de bien raisonner, sans trop faire d'argumens; de bien peindre, sans vouloir tout peindre; d'émouvoir, sans vouloir toujours exciter les passions."† 1.60

• ...

• 22.

  Some by old words to fame have made pretence. * 1.61

  QUINTILIAN's advice on this subject is as follows.

  "Cùm sint autem verba propria, ficta, translata; propriis dignitatem dat anti|quitas. Namque & sanctiorem, & magis admirabilem reddunt orationem, quibus non quilibet fuit usurus: eoque ornamento acer|rimi judicii Virgilius unice est usus. Olli enim, & quianam, & mis, & pone, pellu|cent, & aspergunt illam, quae etiam in pictu|ris est gratissima, vetustatis inimitabilem arti auctoritatem. Sed utendum modo, nec ex ultimis tenebris repetenda."† 1.62

• 23.

  Where'er you find the cooling western breeze, In the next line it whispers through the trees. § 1.63

  UNVARIED rhymes highly disgust readers of a good ear. We have not many composi|tions where NEW and uncommon rhymes are introduced. One or two writers however I cannot forbear mentioning, who have been studious of this beauty. They are Parnelle,

• ...

  Pitt in his Translations from Vida, West in his Pindar, Thomson in the Castle of Indo|lence, and the author of an elegant Ode TO SUMMER, published in a Miscellany entitled the UNION." * 1.64

• 24.

  A needless Alexandrine ends the song. † 1.65

  ALTHOUGH the Alexandrine may be sup|posed to be a modern measure, yet I would remark, that it was first used or invented by Robert of Glocester, whose poem consists entirely of Alexandrine verses, with the addi|tion of two syllables; as does that of Warner's ALBION's ENGLAND, with many of the lives in the MIRROR of MAGISTRATES, and Dray|ton's POLYOLBION. Most of the psalms of Sternhold and Hopkins are really written § 1.66 in this measure, though commonly printed other|wise. Dryden was the first who introduced it in our English heroic, for we do not ever find it in Sandys or Waller.

• ...

• 25.

  And praise the easy vigor of a line, Where Denham's strength and Waller's sweetness join. * 1.67

  FENTON, in his entertaining observations on Waller, has given us a curious anecdote concerning the great industry and exactness with which Waller published even his smallest compositions.

  "When the court was at Windsor, these verses † 1.68 were writ in Tasso of her Royal Highness, at Mr. Waller's request, by the late Duke of Buckingham|shire; and I very well remember to have heard his Grace say, that the author employed the GREATEST PART OF A SUMMER, in com|posing, and correcting them. So that how|ever he is generally reputed the parent of those swarms of insect-wits, who affect to be thought easy writers, it is evident that he be|stowed much time and care on his poems, before he ventured them out of his hands."‡ 1.69

• ...

• 26.

  True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance. * 1.70

  IT is well known, that the writings of Voi|ture, of Sarassin, and Fontaine, cost them much pains, and were laboured into that fa|cility for which they are so famous, with re|peated alterations, and many rasures. Moliere is reported to have past whole days in fixing upon a proper epithet or rhyme, although his verses have all the flow and freedom of conversation. This happy facility, said a man of wit, may be compared to garden|terraces: the expence of which does not ap|pear; and which, after the cost of several millions, yet seem to be a mere work of chance and nature. I have been informed, that Addison was so extremely nice in polish|ing his prose compositions, that, when almost a whole impression of a Spectator was worked off, he would stop the press, to insert a new preposition or conjunction.

• ...

• 27.

  Soft is the stream, when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar; When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labours, and the words move slow; Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er th'unbending corn, and skims along the main. * 1.71

  THESE lines are usually cited as fine ex|amples of adapting the sound to the sense. But that POPE has failed in this endeavour, has been lately demonstrated by the RAM|BLER.

  "The verse intended to represent the whisper of the vernal breeze must surely be confessed not much to excell in softness or volubility; and the smooth stream runs with a perpetual clash of jarring consonants. The noise and turbulence of the torrent, is indeed, distinctly imaged; for it requires very little skill to make our language rough. But in the lines which mention the effort of Ajax, there is no particular heaviness or delay. The swiftness of Camilla is rather contrasted than exemplified. Why the verse should be

• ...

  lengthened to express speed, will not easily de discovered. In the dactyls, used for that purpose by the ancients, two short syllables were pronounced with such rapidity, as to be equal only to one long; they therefore natu|rally exhibit the act of passing through a long space in a short time. But the Alexandrine, by its pause in the midst, is a tardy and stately measure; and the word unbending, one of the most sluggish and slow which our language affords, cannot much accelerate its motion."† 1.72

• 28.

  Be thou the first true merit to befriend, His praise is lost, who stays 'till all commend. ‡ 1.73

  WHEN Thomson published his WINTER, it lay a long time neglected, 'till Mr. Spense made honourable mention of it in his Essay on the Odyssey; which becoming a popular book, made the poem universally known. Thomson always acknowledged the use of this early recommendation; and from this circum|stance, an intimacy commenced between the

• ...

  critic and the poet, which lasted 'till the la|mented death of the latter, who was of a most amiable benevolent temper.

• 29.

  And such as Chaucer is shall Dryden be. * 1.74

  WALLER has an elegant copy of verses on the mutability of the English tongue, which bears a strong resemblance to this passage of POPE.

  Poets that lasting marble seek, Must carve in Latin or in Greek; We write in sand; our language grows, And like the tide, our work o'erflows. Chaucer his SENSE can only boast, The glory of his numbers lost! Years have defac'd his matchless strain, And yet HE DID NOT SING IN VAIN. † 1.75

  TO fix a language has been found, among the most able undertakers, to be a fruitless project. The style of the present French Novels and Memoirs, for the French at pre|sent produce little besides, is visibly different

• ...

  from that of Boileau and Bossuet, notwith|standing the strict and seasonable injunctions of the Academy: and the diction, even of such a writer as Maffei, is corrupted with many words, not to be found in Machiavel or Ariosto.

• 30.

  So when the faithful pencil has design'd Some bright idea of the master's mind, When a new world leaps out at his command, And ready nature waits upon his hand; When the ripe colours soften and unite, And sweetly melt into just shade and light; Where mellowing years their full perfection give, And each bold figure just begins to live, The treacherous colours the fair art betray, And all the bright creation fades away. * 1.76

  I HAVE quoted these beautiful lines at lenth, as I believe nothing was ever so happily expressed on the art of painting: a subject of which POPE always speaks con amore. Of all poets whatever, Milton has spoken most feelingly of music, and POPE of painting.

• ...

  The reader may however compare the fol|lowing passage of Dryden, on the same subject.

  More cannot be by mortal art express'd, But venerable age shall add the rest, For Time shall with his ready pencil stand, Retouch your figures with his ripening hand; Mellow your colours, and imbrown the tint, Add ev'ry grace, which Time alone can grant. To future ages shall your same convey, And give more beauties than he takes away. * 1.77

  IF POPE has so much excelled in speaking in the properest terms of this art, it may per|haps be ascribed to his having practised it; the same may be said of Milton, with respect to music. It may perhaps be wondered at, that a proficiency in these arts is not now frequently found in the same person. I can|not at present recollect any painters that were good poets; except Salvator Rosa, and Charles Vermander of Mulbrac in Flanders, whose comedies are much esteemed. But the satires of the former contain no strokes of that fervid and wild imagination, so visible in his landschapes.

• ...

• 31.

  If wit so much from ign'rance undergo. * 1.78

  THE inconveniencies that attend wit are well enumerated in this excellent passage. Poets, who imagine they are known and admired, are frequently mortified and hum|bled. Boileau going one day to receive his pension, and the treasurer reading these words in his Order,

  "The pension we have granted to Boileau, on account of the satisfaction his works have given us,"

  asked him, of what kind were his works:

  "Of Masonry, replied the poet, I am a BUILDER."

  Racine always reckoned the praises of the ignorant among the chief sources of chagrin: and used to relate, that an old magistrate, who had never been at a play, was carried, one day, to his Andromaque. This magistrate was very attentive to the tragedy, to which was added the Plaideurs; and going out of the theatre, he said to the author,

  "I am extremely pleased, Sir, with your Andro|maque, I am only amazed that it ends so

• ...

  gaily; J'avois d'abord en quelque envie de pleurer, mais la vue des petits chiens m'a fait rire."

• 32.

  Now they who reach Parnassus' lofty crown, Employ their pains to spurn some others down. * 1.79

  THE arts used by Addison to suppress the rising merit of POPE, which are now fully laid open, give one pain to behold, to what mean artifices envy and malignity will com|pel a gentleman and a genius to descend. It is certain, that Addison discouraged POPE from inserting the machinery in the Rape of the Lock: that he privately insinuated that POPE was a Tory and a Jacobite; and had a hand in writing the Examiners: that Addison himself translated the first book of Homer, published under Tickel's name: and that he secretly encouraged Gildon to abuse POPE in a virulent pamphlet, for which Addison paid Gildon ten guineas. This usage extorted from POPE the famous character of Atticus,

• ...

  which is perhaps the finest piece of satire extant. It is said, that when Racine read his tragedy of Alexander to Corneille, the latter gave him many general commendations, but advised him to apply his genius, as not being adapted to the drama, to some other species of poetry. Corneille, one would hope, was incapable of a mean jealousy, and if he gave this advice, thought it really proper to be given.

• 33.

  When love was all an easy monarch's care, Seldom at council, never in a war. * 1.80

  THE dissolute reign of Charles II. justly deserved the satirical proscription in this pas|sage. Under the notion of laughing at the absurd austerities of the Puritans, it became the mode to run into the contrary extreme, and to ridicule real religion and unaffected virtue. The King, during his exile, had seen and admired the splendor of the court of Louis XIV. and endeavoured to introduce the same luxury into the English court. The

• ...

  common opinion, that this was the Augustan age in England, is excessively false. A just taste was by no means yet formed. What was called SHEER WIT, was alone studied and applauded. Rochester, it is said, had no idea that there could be a better poet than Cowley. The King was perpetually quoting HUDIBRAS. The neglect of such a poem as the Paradise Lost, will for ever remain a monu|ment of the bad taste that prevailed. It may be added, that the progress of philological learning, and of what is called the belle lettres, was perhaps obstructed by the insti|tution of the Royal Society; which turned the thoughts of men of genius to physical enquiries. Our style in prose was but begin|ning to be polished: although the diction of Hobbes is sufficiently pure; which philoso|pher, and not the FLORID Spratt, was the classic of that age. If I was to name a time, when the arts and polite literature, were at their height in this nation, I should mention the latter end of King William, and the reign of Queen Anne.

• ...

• 34.

  With mean complacence ne'er betray your trust, Nor be so civil as to prove unjust. * 1.81

  OUR poet practised this excellent precept, in his conduct towards Wycherley; whose pieces he corrected, with equal freedom and judgment. But Wycherley, who had a bad heart, and an insufferable share of vanity, and who was one of the professed WITS of the last-mentioned age, was soon disgusted at this candour and ingenuity of POPE; in|somuch, that he came to an open and unge|nerous rupture with him.

• 35.

  Fear not the anger of the wise to raise; Those best can bear reproof who merit praise. † 1.82

  THE freedom and unreservedness, with which Boileau and Racine communicated their works to each other, is hardly to be pa|rallelled: of which many amiable instances appear in their letters, lately published by the son of the latter: particularly in the follow|ing.

  "J'ai trouve que la TROMPETTE &

• ...

  LES SOURDS etoient trop joues, & qu'il ne falloit point trop appuyer sur votre incommo|dite, moins encore chercher de l'esprit sur ce sujet."* 1.83

  Boileau communicated to his friend the first sketch of his ode on the Taking Na|mur. It is entertaining to contemplate a rude draught by such a master; and is no less pleasing to observe the temper, with which he receives the objections of Racine. † 1.84

  "J'ai deja retouche a tout cela; mais je ne veux point l'achever que ja n'aie reçû vos re|marques, qui surement m'eclaireront encore l'esprit."

  The same volume informs us of a curious anecdote, that Boileau generally made the second verse of a couplet before the first; that he declared it was one of the grand secrets of poetry to give, by this means, a greater energy and meaning to his verses; that he advised Racine to follow the same method, and said on this occasion,

  "I have taught him to rhyme difficilement."

• ...

• 36.

  No place so sacred from such fops is barr'd, Nor is Paul's church more safe than Paul's church-yard; Nay, fly to altars; there they'll talk you dead: For fools rush in where angels fear to tread. * 1.85

  THIS stroke of satire is literally taken from Boileau.

  Gardez-vous d'imiter ce rimeur furieux, Qui de ses vains ecrits lecteur harmonieux Aborde en recitant quiconque le salüe, Et poursuit de ses vers les passans dans la rüe, Il n'est Temple si saint des Anges respecte, Qui soit contre sa muse un lieu du surete. † 1.86

  Which lines allude to the impertinence of a French poet, called Du Perrier; who, find|ing Boileau one day at church, insisted upon repeating to him an ode, during the elevation of the host; and desired his opinion, whe|ther or no it was in the manner of Malherbe. Without this anecdote, the pleasantry of the satire would be overlooked. It may here be occasionally observed, how many beauties in this species of writing are lost, for want of

• ...

  knowing the facts to which they allude. The following passage may be produced as a proof. Boileau, in his excellent Epistle to his Gar|dener at Anteuil, says,

  Mon maitre, dirois-tu, passe pour un Docteur, Et parle quelquefois mieux qu'un Predicateur. † 1.87

  IT seems, our * 1.88 author and Racine returned one day in high spirits from Versailles with two honest citizens of Paris. As their con|versation

• ...

  was full of gaiety and humour, the two citizens were vastly delighted: and one of them, at parting, stopt Boileau with this compliment,

  "I have travelled with Doctors of the Sorbonne, and even with Religious; but I never heard so many fine things said before; en verite vous parlez cent fois mieux qu'un PREDICATEUR."

• ...

  IT is but justice to add, that the fourteen succeeding verses in the poem before us, con|taining the character of a TRUE CRITIC, are superior to any thing in Boileau's Art of Poetry: from which, however, POPE has borrowed many observations.

• ...

• 37.

  The mighty STAGYRITE first left the shore, Spread all his sails, and durst the deep explore. He steer'd securely, and discover'd far, Led by the light of the Maeonian star. * 1.89

  A NOBLE and just character of the first and the best of critics! And sufficient to repress the fashionable and nauseous petulance of se|veral impertinent moderns, who have at|tempted to discredit this great and useful writer! Whoever surveys the variety and per|fection of his productions, all delivered in the chastest style, in the clearest order, and the most pregnant brevity, is amazed at the im|mensity of his genius. His logic, however at present neglected for those redundant and verbose systems, which took their rise from Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, is a mighty effort of the mind: in which are discovered the principal sources of the art of reasoning, and the dependencies of one thought on another; and where, by the different combinations he hath made of all the forms

• ...

  the understanding can assume in reasoning, which he hath traced for it, he hath so closely confined it, that it cannot depart from them, without arguing inconsequentially. His Physics contain many useful observations, particularly his History of Animals; to assist him in which, Alexander gave orders, that creatures of different climates and countries should, at a great expence, be brought to him, to pass under his inspection. His Mo|rals are perhaps the purest system in antiquity. His Politics are a most valuable monument of the civil wisdom of the ancients; as they preserve to us the description of several go|vernments, and particularly of Crete and Car|thage, that otherwise would have been un|known. But of all his compositions, his Rhetoric and Poetics are most complete. No writer has shewn a greater penetration into recesses of the human heart, than this philoso|pher, in the second book of his Rhetoric; where he treats of the different manners and passions, that distinguish each different age and condition of man; and from whence Horace

• ...

  plainly took his famous description, in the Art of Poetry. * 1.90 La Bruyere, Rochefoucault, and Montaigne himself, are not to be com|pared to him in this respect. No succeeding writer on eloquence, not even Tully, has added any thing new or important on this subject. His Poetics, which I suppose are here by POPE chiefly referred to, seem to have been written for the use of that prince, with whose education Aristotle was honoured, to give him a just taste in reading Homer and the tragedians: to judge properly of which, was then thought no unnecessary accomplish|ment in the character of a prince. To at|tempt to understand poetry without having diligently digested this treatise, would be as absurd and impossible, as to pretend to a skill in geometry, without having studied Euclid. The fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth chap|ters, wherein he has pointed out the properest methods of exciting TERROR and PITY, con|vince us, that he was intimately acquainted with those objects, which most forcibly affect the

• ...

  heart. The prime excellence of this precious treatise is the scholastic precision, and philo|sophical closeness, with which the subject is handled, without any address to the passions, or imagination. It is to be lamented, that the part of the Poetics in which he had given precepts for comedy, did not likewise descend to posterity.

• 38.

  HORACE still charms with graceful negligence, And without method talks us into sense. * 1.91

  THE vulgar notion, that Horace wrote his Epistle to the Pisos without method, has been lately confuted, as we hinted before. † 1.92 It is equally false that, that epistle contains a com|plete Art of Poetry; it being solely confined to the state and defects of the Roman drama. The transitions in the writings of Horace, are some of the most exquisite strokes of his art: many of them pass at present unobserved; and that his cotemporaries were equally blind to this beauty, he himself complains, though with a seeming irony,

• ...

  Cum lamentamur, non APPARERE labores Nostros, et TENUI deducta poemata filo. * 1.93

  It seems also to be another common mistake, that one of Horace's characteristics is the SUBLIME: of which indeed he has given a very few strokes, and those taken from Pin|dar, and, probably, from Alcaeus. His excel|lence lay in exquisite observations on human life, and in touching the foibles of mankind with delicacy and urbanity. 'Tis easy to perceive this moral turn in all his compo|sitions: the writer of the epistles is discerned in the odes. Elegance, not sublimity, was his grand characteristic. Horace is the most popular author of all antiquity; the reason is, because he abounds in images drawn from familiar life, and in remarks, that

  "come home to mens business and bosoms."

  Hence he is more frequently quoted and alluded to, than any poet of a higher cast.

• 39.

  See DIONYSIUS Homer's thoughts refine, And call new beauties forth from ev'ry line. † 1.94

• ...

  THESE prosaic lines, this spiritless elogy, are much below the merit of the critic whom they are intended to celebrate. POPE seems here rather to have considered Dionysius, as the author only of his little Treatise concern|ing Homer; and to have in some measure overlooked, or at least not to have sufficiently insisted on, his most excellent book, ΠΕΡΙ ΣΥΝΘΗΣΕΩΣ ΟΝΟΜΑΤΩΝ, in which he has unfolded all the secret arts that render composition harmonious. One part of this discourse, I mean from the beginning of the twenty-first to the end of the twenty|fourth Section, is perhaps one of the most useful pieces of criticism extant. He there discusses the three different species of compo|sition; which he divides into the NERVOUS and AUSTERE, the SMOOTH and FLORID, and the MIDDLE, which partakes of the nature of the two others. As examples of the first species, he mentions Antimachus and Empe|docles in heroics, Pindar in lyric, Aeschylus in tragic poetry, and Thucydides in history. As examples of the second, he produces Hesiod

• ...

  as a writer in heroics; Sappho, Anacreon, and Simonides, in lyric; Euripides ONLY, among tragic writers; among the historians, Ephorus, and Theopompus; and Isocrates among the rhetoricians: all these, says he, have used words that are ΛΕΙΑ, χαι ΜΑΛΑΚΑ, χαι ΠΑΡΘΕΝΩΠΑ. The writers which he al|leges as instances of the third species, who have happily blended the two other species of composition, and who are the most complete models of style, are Homer, in epic poetry; Stesichorus and Alcaeus in lyric; in tragic, Sophocles; in history, Herodotus; in elo|quence, Demosthenes; in philosophy, Demo|critus, Plato, and Aristotle.

• 40.

  Fancy and art in gay PETRONIUS please, The scholar's learning with the courtier's ease. * 1.95

  FOR what merit Petronius should be placed among useful critics, I could never discern. There are not above two or three pages, con|taining critical remarks, in his work: the chief merit of which is that of telling a story

• ...

  with grace and ease. His own style is more affected than even that of his cotemporaries, when the Augustan simplicity was laid aside. Many of his metaphors are far-fetched, and mixed; of which this glaring instance may be alleged.

  "Neque concipere aut edere partum mens potest, nisi ingenti flumine literarum inundata:"* 1.96

  where animal con|ception and delivery, are confounded with vegetable production. His character of Ho|race however celebrated,

  "Horatii curiosa fae|licitas,"

  is surely a very unclassical in|version; for he ought to have called it the happy carefulness of Horace, rather than his careful happiness. I shall observe by the way, that the copy of this author found some years ago, bears many signatures of its spuriousness, and particularly of its being forged by a French|man. For we have this expression,

  "ad CAS|TELLA sese receperunt,"

  that is,

  "to their CHATEAUX,"

  instead of

  "ad Villas."

• 41.

  In grave QUINTILIAN's copious work we find The justest rules, and clearest method join'd.

• ...

  TO commend Quintilian barely for his me|thod, and to insist merely on this excellence, is below the merit of one of the most rational and elegant of Roman writers. Considering the nature of Quintilian's subject, he afforded copious matter, for a more appropriated and poetical character. No author ever adorned a scientifical treatise with so many beautiful metaphors. Quintilian was found in the bot|tom of a tower of the monastery of St. Gal, by Poggius; as appears by one of his letters dated 1417, written from Constance, when the council was then sitting. The mo|nastery was about twenty miles from that city. Silius Italicus was found at the same time and place.

• 42.

  Thee bold LONGINUS all the Nine inspire, And bless their critic with a poet's fire. * 1.97

  THIS abrupt address to Longinus is more spirited and striking, and more suitable to the character of the person addressed, than if he had coldly spoken of him in the third person.

• ...

  The taste and sensibility of Longinus were exquisite, but his observations are too general, and his method too loose. The precision of the true philosophical critic is lost in the decla|mation of the florid rhetorician. Instead of shewing for what reason a sentiment or image is SUBLIME, and discovering the secret power by which they affect a reader with pleasure, he is ever intent on producing something SUBLIME himself, and strokes of his own elo|quence. Instead of pointing out the founda|tion of the grandeur of Homer's imagery, where he describes the motion of Neptune, the critic is endeavouring to rival the poet, by saying that,

  "there was not room enough in the whole earth, to take such another step."

  He should have shewn why the speech of Phaeton to his son, in a fragment of Euripides, was so lively and picturesque: in|stead of which, he ardently exclaims,

  "would not you say, that the soul of the writer as|cended the chariot with the driver, and waS whirled along in the same flight and danger with the rapid horses?"

  We have lately

• ...

  seen a just specimen of the genuine method of criticising, in Mr. Harris's accurate Discourse on Poetry, Painting, and Music. I have fre|quently wondered, that Longinus, who men|tions Tully, should have taken no notice of Virgil. I suppose he thought him only a servile copier of the Greeks.

• 43.

  From the same foes, at last, both felt their doom, And the same age saw learning fall and Rome. * 1.98

  "'TWAS the fate of Rome to have scarce an intermediate age, or single period of time, between the rise of arts and fall of liberty. No sooner had that nation begun to lose the roughness and barbarity of their manners, and learn of Greece to form their heroes, their orators, and poets on a right model, than by their unjust attempt upon the liberty of the world, they justly lost their own. With their liberty, they lost not only their force of eloquence, but even their style and language itself. The poets who afterwards

• ...

  arose among them, were mere unnatural and forced plants. Their TWO most finished, who came last, and closed the scene, were plainly such as had seen the days of liberty, ann felt the sad effects of its departure."* 1.99

  SHAFTESBURY proceeds to observe, that when despotism was fully established, not a statue, picture, or medal, not a tolerable piece of architecture, afterwards appeared.—And it was, I may add, the opinion of Lon|ginus, and Addison, who adopted it from him, that arbitrary governments were perni|cious to the fine arts, as well as to the sci|ences. Modern history, however, has afford|ed an example to the contrary. Painting sculpture, and music, have been seen to ar|rive to a high perfection in Rome, notwith|standing the slavery and superstition that reign there: nay, superstition itself has been highly productive of these fine arts; for with what enthusiasm must a popish painter work for an altar-piece? Neither Dante, Ariosto, or

• ...

  Tasso, flourished in free governments; and it seems * 1.100 chimerical to assert, that Milton would never have written his Paradise Lost, if monar|chy had then remained. Michael Angelo, Ra|phael, and Julio Romano, lived in despotic states. The fine arts, in short, are naturally attendant upon power and luxury. But the sciences require unlimited freedom, to raise them to their full vigour and growth. In a MONARCHY, there may be poets, painters, and musicians; but orators, historians, and philosophers, can exist in a REPUBLIC alone.

• 44.

  A second deluge learning thus o'er-run, And the monks finish'd what the Goths begun. † 1.101

  EVERY custom and opinion that can de|grade and deform humanity, was to be found in the times here alluded to. The most cruel tyranny, and the grossest superstition, reigned without controul. Men seemed to have lost not only the light of learning, but

• ...

  of their common reason. Duels, divinations, the ordeal, and all the oppressive customs of the feudal laws, were universally practiced: witchcraft, possessions, revelations, and astro|logy, * 1.102 were generally believed. The † 1.103 cler|gy were so ignorant, that in some of the most solemn acts of synods, such words as these are to be found.

  "As my lord bishop cannot write himself, at his request I have subscribed."

  They were at that time so profligate, as to publish Absolutions for any one who had killed his father, mother, sister, or wife; or had committed the most enormous pollutions. On a survey of these absurd abominations, one is apt to cry out in the emphatical words of Lucretius,

• ...

  Quae procul a NOBIS flectat Fortuna gubernans!

  But we may rest secure, if the observation of an acute writer be true, who says,

  "Europe will perhaps behold ages of a bad taste, but will never again relapse into barbarism. The sole invention of printing has forbidden that event."* 1.104

  The only sparks of literature that then remained, were to be found among the mahometans, and not the christians. It was from the ARABIANS that we received astro|nomy, chemistry, medicine, algebra, and arithmetic. Albategni, a Saracen, made astro|nomical observations in the 880. Our Alma|nack, AL-MANAC, is an Arabic word. The great church at Cordova in Spain, where the Saracens kept a magnificent court, is a monu|ment of their skill in architecture. The game of chess, that admirable effort of the human mind, was by them invented; as were tilts and turnaments. Averroes translated, and com|mented upon, the greatest part of Aristotle's works, and was the introducer of that au|thor's

• ...

  philosophy into the * 1.105 west. It was Gerbert, who in the reign of Hugh Capet, is said to have introduced into France, the Arabian or Indian cypher: for the Arabians had borrowed from the Indians this manner of computing, and Gerbert learned it from the Saracens, when he made a journey into Spain. Gerbert also undertook to make the first clock, the motion of which was regu|lated by a balance; which method was made use of till the year 1650, when they began to place a pendulum instead of the balance.

  "Can it scarcely be believed, says Mr. He|nault, that there ever was so little intercourse between the provinces of France, that an abbot of Clugni, being invited by Bouchard Count of Paris, to bring his Religious to St Maur|des-Fossés, excused himself from making so long a journey, into a country UNKNOWN, and to which he was so much a STRANGER?"

  Charlemagne, indeed, two centuries before this last mentioned time, had endeavoured to

• ...

  bring civility and learning into France: he introduced the Gregorian chant, and esta|blished a * 1.106 school in his palace, where the fa|mous Alcuin, whom he invited from England, instructed the Youth. Each of the members of this academy took a particular name; and Charlemagne himself, who did it the honour to become one of it's members, assumed that of David. This attempt to civilize his bar|barous subjects, was as arduous, and worthy his great genius, as his noble project to open a communication between the Ocean and the Euxine Sea, and to join the Rhine to the Da|nube by a canal.

• 45.

  At length ERASMUS, that great, injur'd name, (The glory of the priesthood, and the shame!) Stem'd the wild torrent of a barb'rous age, And drove those holy Vandals off the stage. † 1.107

  IT were to be wished, our author had drawn a larger and fuller portrait of this won|derful man, of whom he appears to have been

• ...

  so fond, as to declare in the Letters, * 1.108 that he had some design of writing his life in latin. I call Erasmus a wonderful man, not only on account of the variety, and classical purity of his works, but of that penetration, that strong and acute sense, which enabled him to pierce through the absurdities of the times, and expose them with such poignant ridicule, and attic elegance. A work of hu|mour, and of humour directed to expose the priests, in that age, was indeed a prodigy. The irony of the Encomium on Folly has never been excelled. Erasmus, though a commentator, had taste; and though a catho|lic, had charity. His learning was enlivened with wit; and his orthodoxy was tempered with moderation. He was never dazzled with what was called ERUDITION; or misled by that blind and undistinguishing veneration which was naturally paid to the antients, on the first discovery of their writings. By his CICERONIANUS, he repressed the affectation of imitating Tully's manner of expression, in

• ...

  every species of composition. In his ECCLE|SIASTES, very excellent rules are laid down for preaching. In his DIALOGUES, the super|stitions of the Romish church are exposed with all the pleasantry of Lucian: an author, to whom his genius bore great resemblance; and some of whose dialogues he has translated with their original spirit. Indeed, among the many translators of Greek authors who flou|rished at that time, Erasmus seems to have been in all respects the most eminent. To him was the restoration of literature princi|pally owing. More than one prince sollicited his friendship, and invited him to their courts. We see in a letter of Erasmus, written in the year 1516, that Francis I. who shared with Leo X. the glory of reviving sciences and arts in Europe, having declared to Petit his con|fessor, that he intended to bring into France the most learned men he could find, Petit had charged Budaeus, and Cop the royal physician, to write to Erasmus, to engage him to settle in France: that Stephen Poncher, embassador from the king at Brussels, pres|sed

• ...

  him still more; but that Erasmus made his excuses, because his catholic majesty Charles V. had retained him in the Low-countries. The life of Erasmus, which deserves the finest pen, has been wretchedly and frigidly written by Knight; although, indeed, the materials he has collected are curious and useful.

• 46.

  But see! each muse in Leo's golden days, Starts from her trance, and trims her wither'd bays: Rome's ancient Genius, o'er its ruins spread, Shakes off the dust, and rears his rev'rend head. * 1.109

  HISTORY has recorded five ages of the world, in which the human mind has ex|erted itself in an extraordinary manner; and in which it's productions in literature and the fine arts have arrived at a perfection, not equalled in other periods. The FIRST, is the age of Philip and Alexander; about which time flourished Socrates, Plato, Demosthenes, Aristotle, Lysippus, Apelles, Phidias, Prax|iteles, Thucydides, Xenophon, Aeschylus, Eu|ripides, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Menander,

• ...

  Philemon. The SECOND age, which has ne|ver yet been sufficiently taken notice of, was that of Ptolomy Philadelphus, king of Aegypt; in which appeared Lycophron, Aratus, Ni|cander, Apollonius Rhodius, Theocritus, Cal|limachus, Eratosthenes, Philichus, Erisistratus the physician, Timaeus the historian, Clean|thes, Diogenes the painter, and Sostrates the architect. This prince, from his love of learning, commanded the Old Testament to be translated into Greek. The THIRD age is that of Julius Caesar, and Augustus; marked with the illustrious names of Laberius, Ca|tullus, Lucretius, Cicero, Livy, Varro, Vir|gil, Horace, Propertius, Tibullus, Ovid, Phae|drus, Vitruvius, Dioscorides. The FOURTH age was that of Julius II. and Leo X. which produced, Ariosto, Tasso, Fracastorius, San|nazarius, Vida, Bembo, Sadolet, Machiavel, Guiccardin, Michael Angelo, Raphael, Titian. The FIFTH age, is that of Louis XIV. in France, and of king William and queen Anne in England: in which, or thereabouts, are to be found, Corneille, Moliere, Racine, Boi|leau,

• ...

  Fontaine, Bossuet, Rochefoucault, Pas|chal, Bourdaloüe, Patru, Malbranche, De Retz, Bruyere, St. Real, Fenelon, Lully, Le Saeur, Poussin, Le Brun, Puget, Theo|don, Gerardon, Edelinck, Nanteuill, * 1.110 Per|rault, Dryden, Tillotson, Temple, POPE, Addison, Garth, Congreve, Rowe, Prior, Lee, Swift, Bolingbroke, Atterbury, Boyle, Locke, Newton, Clarke, Kneller, Thornill, Jervas, Dahl, Purcell, Mead, Friend.

  CONCERNING the particular encouragement given by Leo X. to polite literature, and the fine arts, I forbear to enlarge; because a friend of mine is at present engaged in writing, THE HISTORY OF THE AGE OF LEO X. It is a noble period, and full of those most important events, which have had the greatest influence on human affairs. Such as the discovery of the West-Indies, by the Spaniards, and of a passage to the East, by the Portugueze; the invention of printing; the reformation of reli|ligion; with many others: all which will be

• ...

  insisted upon at large, and their consequences displayed. I shall only here transiently ob|serve, that some efforts to emerge from bar|barity had long before this time appeared in Italy. Dante wrote his sublime * 1.111 and origi|nal poem, which is a kind of satirical epic, and which abounds in images and senti|ments equal to the best of Homer, but whose works he had never seen, about the year 1310. Giotto the disciple of Cimabue, the friend of Dante, and subject of his praises, was employed, about the same time, by Benedict XI.; and a picture of mosaic work done by him, over the gate of St. Peter's church at Rome, is still remaining. A Tuscan, called Guy of Arezzo, invented the musical notes in use at present: and Bruneleschi built palaces at Florence, in the style of ancient architecture. Soon afterwards, Boccace and Petrarch polished, and fixed the standard of the Italian language. † 1.112 To Petrarch the ho|nour

• ...

  is generally attributed of having resto|red the elegance of the Latin tongue; parti|cularly in poetry. But a late acute searcher into antiquity, whose death is justly lamented, the learned Scipio Maffei, has informed us * 1.113 in a curious passage, that this was not so much owing to Petrarch, as to Albertino Mussato, a native of Padua: with whose me|rit the learned seem not to be sufficiently ac|quainted. Mussato died very old, after having borne the greatest offices in his country, in the year 1329, that is to say, thirty-five years before Petrarch. He wrote not only many books of a history of his own times, but also an heroic poem on the siege of Padua by the

• ...

  Veronese, under the great Can; together with eclogues, elegies, epistles in verse, and an Ovidian Cento. However, to form a full judgment in this case, one need only peruse his two latin tragedies entitled ECCERINIS, and ACHILLES, which he composed in the style and manner of Seneca: and which were the first regular and perfect dramas, that are to be found since the barbarous and obscure ages.

• 47.

  Immortal VIDA; on whose honour'd brow The Poet's bays, and Critic's ivy grow. * 1.114

  THE merits of Vida seem not to have been particularly attended to in England, 'till POPE had bestowed this commendation upon him: although the Poetics had been correctly pub|lished at Oxford, by Basil Kennet, some time before. The SILKWORMS of Vida are written with classical purity, and with a just mixture of the styles of Lucretius and Virgil. It was a happy choice to write a poem on

• ...

  CHESS* 1.115; nor is the execution less happy. The various stratagems, and manifold intri|cacies of this ingenious game, so difficult to be described in latin, are here expressed with the greatest perspicuity and elegance; so that perhaps the game might be learnt from this description. Amidst many prosaic flat|nesses, there are many fine strokes in the CHRISTIAD: particularly, his angels, with respect to their persons and insignia, are drawn with that dignity which we so much admire in Milton, who seems to have had his eye on those passages. † 1.116 Gravina applauds Vida, for having found out a method to introduce the whole history of our Saviour's life, by putting it into the mouth of St. Joseph and St. John, who relate it to Pilate. But surely this speech, consisting of as many lines as that of Dido to Aeneas, was too long to be made on such an occasion; when Christ was brought before

• ...

  the tribunal of Pilate, to be judged and con|demned to death. The Poetics are perhaps the most perfect of his compositions: they are excellently translated by Pitt. Vida had formed himself upon Virgil, who is therefore his hero: he has too much depreciated Homer. Although his precepts principally regard epic poetry, yet many of them are applicable to every species of composition. † 1.117 This poem has the praise of being one of the first, if not the very first, pieces of criticism, that appeared in Italy, since the revival of learning: for it was finished, as is evident from a short adver|tisement prefixed to it, in the year MDXX. It is remarkable, that most of the great poets about this time, wrote an Art of Poetry. Trissino, a name respected for giving to Eu|rope the first regular epic poem, and for first daring to throw off the bondage of rhyme, published at Vicenza, in the year MDXXIX, DELLA POETICA, divisioni quattro, several

• ...

  years before his Italia Liberata. We have of Fracastorius, NAUGERIUS, sive de Poetica dialogus, Venetiis MDLV. Minturnus, DE POETA, libri sex, appeared at Venice, MDLIX. Bernardo Tasso, the father of Torquato, and author of an epic poem entitled L'Amadigi, wrote RAGIONAMENTO della Poesia, printed at Venice, MDLXII. And to pay the highest honour to criticism, the great Torquato Tasso himself wrote DISCORSI del Poema Eroico, printed at Venice, MDLXXXVII. These dis|courses are full of learning and taste. But I must not omit a curious anecdote, which * 1.118 Menage has given us in his Anti-Baillet; namely, that Sperone claimed these discourses as his own: for he thus speaks of them in one of his letters to Felice Paciotto;

  "Laudo voi infinitamente di voler scrivere della poetica; della quale interrogato molte fiate dal Tasso, † 1.119 e rispondendogli io liberamente, si come sog|lio,

• ...

  egli n'a fatto un volume, e mandato al Signior Scipio Gonzaga per cosa sua, e non mia: ma io ne chiarirò il mondo."

• 48.

  And BOILEAU still in right of Horace sways. ‡ 1.120

  MAY I be pardoned for declaring it as my opinion, that Boileau's is the best * 1.121 Art of Poetry extant? The brevity of his precepts, enlivened by proper imagery, the justness of his metaphors, the harmony of his numbers, as far as alexandrine lines will admit, the ex|actness of his method, the perspicacity of his remarks, and the energy of his style, all duly considered, may render this opinion not unreasonable. It is scarcely to be conceived, how much is comprehended in four short cantos. † 1.122 He that has well digested these, cannot be said to be ignorant of any important rule of poetry. The tale of the physician turn|ing architect, in the fourth canto, is told with vast pleasantry. It is to this work Boileau

• ...

  owes his immortality: which was of the high|est utility to his nation, in diffusing a just way of thinking and writing, banishing every spe|cies of false wit, and introducing a general taste for the manly simplicity of the ancients, on whose writings this poet had formed his taste. Boileau's chief talent was the DIDACTIC. His fancy was not the predominant faculty of his mind. Fontenelle has thus characterised him.

  "Il etoit grand et excellent versificateur, pourvû cependant que cette louange se ren|ferme dans ses beaux jours, dont la difference avec les autres est bien marquée, et faisoit souvent dire Helas! et Hola! mais il n'etoit pas grand poete, si l'entend par ce mot, comme on le doit, celui qui FAIT, qui IN|VENTE, qui CREE."* 1.123

• 49.

  Such was the muse, whose rules and practice tell, " Nature's chief master-piece is writing well." † 1.124

  THIS high panegyric procured to POPE the acquaintance, and afterwards, the con|stant

• ...

  friendship of the duke of Buckingham: who, in his ESSAY here alluded to, has fol|lowed the method of Boileau, in discoursing on the various species of poetry, to no other purpose than to manifest his own inferiority. The piece is, indeed, of the satyric, rather than of the preceptive, kind. The coldness and neglect with which this writer, formed only on the French critics, speaks of Milton, must be considered as proofs of his want of critical discernment, or of critical courage. I can recollect no performance of Buck|ingham, that stamps him a true genius. His reputation was owing to his rank. In read|ing his poems, one is apt to exclaim with our author,

  What woful stuff this madrigal would be, In some starv'd hackney sonnetteer or me? But let a LORD ONCE OWN the happy lines, How the wit brightens! how the style refines! Before his sacred name flies every fault, And each exalted stanza teems with thought.

  THE best part of Buckingham's ESSAY is that, in which he gives a ludicrous account

• ...

  of the plan of a modern tragedy. I should add, that his compliment to POPE, prefixed to his poems, contains a pleasing picture of the sedateness and retirement proper to age, after the tumults of public life; and by it's moral turn, breathes the spirit, if not of a poet, yet of an amiable old man.

• 50.

  Such was ROSCOMMON. * 1.125 —

  AN ESSAY on Translated Verse seems at first sight to be a barren subject; yet Ros|common has decorated it with may precepts of utility and taste, and enlivened it with a tale in imitation of Boileau. It is indisputably better written than the last-mentioned ESSAY. Roscommon was more learned than Buck|ingham. He was bred under Bochart at Caen in Normandy. He had laid a design of forming a society for the refining, and fixing the standard of, our language: in which project, his intimate friend Dryden was a principal assistant. This was the first attempt of that sort; and, I fear, we shall never see

• ...

  another set on foot in our days: even though Mr. Johnson has lately given us so excellent a dictionary. It may be remarked to the praise of Roscommon, that he was the first critic who had taste and spirit enough, pub|licly to praise the Paradise Lost; with a noble encomium of which, and a rational recommendation of blank verse, he concludes his performance. Fenton, in his Observations on Waller, has accurately delineated his cha|racter.

  "His imagination might have pro|bably been more fruitful, and sprightly, if his judgment had been less severe: but that severity, delivered in a masculine, clear, suc|cinct style, contributed to make him so emi|nent in the didactical manner, that no man with justice can affirm, he was ever equalled by any of our own nation, without confessing, at the same time, that he is inferior to none. In some other kinds of writing his genius seems to have wanted fire to attain the point of perfection: but who can attain it?"* 1.126

• ...

• 51.

  Such late was WALSH, the muse's judge and friend. * 1.127

  IF POPE has here given too magnificent an elogy to Walsh, it must pardonably be attri|buted to friendship, rather than to judgment. Walsh was in general a flimzy and frigid writer. The Rambler calls his works PAGES OF INANITY. His three letters to POPE, however, are well written. His remarks on the nature of pastoral poetry, on borrowing from the ancients, and against florid conceits, are worthy perusal† 1.128. POPE owed much to Walsh: it was he who gave him a very im|portant piece of advice, in his early youth; for he used to tell our author, that there was one way still left open for him, by which he might excell any of his predecessors, which was, by CORRECTNESS; that though indeed we had several great poets, we as yet could boast of none that were perfectly CORRECT; and that therefore, he advised him to make this quality his particular study.

• ...

  CORRECTNESS is a vague term, frequently used without meaning and precision. It is per|petually the nauseous cant of the French cri|tics, and of their advocates and pupils, that the English writers are generally INCORRECT. If CORRECTNESS implies an absence of petty faults, this perhaps may be granted. If it means, that because their tragedians have avoided the irregularities of Shakespeare, and have observed a juster oeconomy in their fables, that therefore the Athalia, for instance, is preferable to Lear, the notion is groundless and absurd. The Henriade is free from any very gross faults; but who will dare to rank it with the Paradise Lost? The declamations with which some of their most perfect trage|dies abound, may be reckoned as contrary to the nature of that species of poetry, and as destructive of it's end, as the fools or grave|diggers of Shakespeare. That the French may boast some excellent critics, particularly, Bossu, Boileau, Fenelon, and Brumoy, cannot be denied; but that they are sufficient to form a taste upon, without having recourse to the

• ...

  genuine fountains of all polite literature, I mean the Grecian writers, no one but a super|ficial sciolist can allow.

I CONCLUDE these reflections with a remark|able fact. In no polished nation, after criticism has been much studied, and the rules of wri|ting established, has any very extraordinary work ever appeared. This has visibly been the case, in Greece, in Rome, and in France, after Aristotle, Horace, and Boileau, had writ|ten their ARTS OF POETRY. In our own country, the rules of the drama, for instance, were never more completely understood than at present: yet what UNINTERESTING, though FAULTLESS, tragedies, have we lately seen? So much better is our judgment than our exe|cution. How to account for the fact here mentioned, adequately and justly, would be attended with all those difficulties that await discussions relative to the productions of the human mind, and to the delicate and secret causes that influence them. Whether or no, the natural powers be not confined and debi|litated

by that timidity and caution which is occasioned by a regard to the dictates of art: or whether, that philosophical, that geome|trical, and systematical spirit so much in vogue, which has spread itself from the sciences even into polite literature, by consulting only REASON, has not diminished and destroyed SENTIMENT; and made our poets write from and to the HEAD rather than the HEART: or whether, lastly, when just models, from which the rules have necessarily been drawn, have once appeared, succeeding writers, by ambitiously endeavouring to surpass those just models, and to be original and new, do not become distorted and unnatural, in their thoughts and diction.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Spectator, N^o. 253.
• * 1.2

  Quintil. l. xi. c. 1.
• † 1.3

  Sect. x. 2.
• * 1.4

  Bacon's Essays. 44.
• * 1.5

  Essay on Man. ep. ii. v. 185.
• † 1.6

  Boileau. Art Poet. c. 4.
• ‡ 1.7

  See Works. ver. 4. 212.
• * 1.8

  He afterwards acquired a considerable fortune by his translation of the Iliad, which was published for his own bene|fit, by a subscription so large, that it does honour to this king|dom. Mr. Warburton informs us, that he sold it to Lintot the bookseller, on the following terms, twelve hundred pounds paid down, and all the books for his subscribers. The Odyssey was published in the same manner, and sold on the same con|ditions, except only, that instead of twelve, he had but six hundred pounds. He was assisted in this latter work, by Broome and Fenton, to the first of whom he gave six hundred pounds, and to the latter, three hundred. This translation has proved a good estate to the bookseller.
• * 1.9

  The Adventurer, N^o. 50.
• * 1.10

  Poetic. lib. 1. ver. 75.
• † 1.11

  Ver. 11.
• * 1.12

  Miscell. Essay 4. part 2.
• ‡ 1.13

  v. 12.
• † 1.14

  v. 15.
• * 1.15

  Louis 14. p. 354.
• ‡ 1.16

  Characteristics. v. 3. p. 190.
• * 1.17

  v. 38.
• * 1.18

  v. 56.
• * 1.19

  Essay concerning Human Understanding. chap. 10. sect. 5.
• * 1.20

  Page 40.
• † 1.21

  v. 60.
• * 1.22

  I cannot forbear subjoining a passage of an excellent writer and accomplished scholar, which is so very apposite to the pre|sent purpose, that one would think the author had Bolingbroke in his eye, if his valuable work had not been published before the world was blessed with the First Philosophy.

  "He who pretends to discuss the sentiments of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, or any one of the ancient philosophers, or even to cite and translate him, (except in trite and obvious sentiments) without accurately knowing the Greek tongue in general; the nice differences of many words apparently synonymous; the peculiar stile of the author whom he presumes to handle; the new coined words, and new significations given to old words, used by such author and his sect; the whole philoso|phy of such sect; together with the connections and depen|dencies of its several parts, whether Logical, Ethical, or Physical; he, I say, that without this previous preparation, attempts what I have said, will shoot in the dark; will be liable to perpetual blunders; will explain, and praise, and cen|sure, merely by chance; and tho' HE MAY POSSIBLY TO FOOLS APPEAR AS A WISE MAN, WILL CERTAINLY AMONG THE WISE EVER PASS FOR A FOOL. Such a man's intellect comprehends antient philosophy, as his eye comprehends a distant prospect. He may see perhaps enough to know mountains from plains, and seas from woods; but for an accurate discernment of particulars and their character, this, without farther helps, 'tis impossible he should attain." HER|MES, by HARRIS: book 2. chap. 3. pag. 270.
• * 1.23

  B. 3. v. 310. In the notes.
• * 1.24

  Ver. 88.
• † 1.25

  N^o. 156.
• * 1.26

  N^o. 158.
• * 1.27

  Essay sur la poesie Epique, pag. 339. Tom. 1.
• * 1.28

  Ver. 92.
• * 1.29

  Characteristics, vol. I. 12mo. pag. 163.
• * 1.30

  Ver. 119.
• † 1.31

  〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉
• * 1.32

  Iliad 23. Note I.
• † 1.33

  Perroniana & Thuana, a Cologne, 1695, pag. 431.
• ‡ 1.34

  Ver. 128.
• * 1.35

  J. Vincentii Gravinae de POESI, ad S. Maffeium EPIST. Added to his treatise entitled, Della Ragion Poetica. In Na|poli, 1716, pag. 249, 250.
• † 1.36

  Ver. 141.
• * 1.37

  Essay xliii. On BEAUTY.
• † 1.38

  Ver. 150.
• * 1.39

  Ver. 171.
• * 1.40

  Voltaire, Essay sur la Poesie Epique. Les Oeuvres. Tom. ii. pag. 354, 355. This Essay is very different from what for|merly appeared in England.
• † 1.41

  Ver. 175.
• * 1.42

  Avison's Essay on Musical Expression, edit. ii. pag. 103.
• † 1.43

  Essay on Transl. Verse.
• ‡ 1.44

  Ver. 189.
• * 1.45

  Ver. 196.
• † 1.46

  Ver. 225.
• * 1.47

  The MORALISTS. Characteristics, vol. II. pag. 253.
• * 1.48

  Ver. 233.
• † 1.49

  Ubi supra, pag. 361.
• ‡ 1.50

  Ver. 247.
• * 1.51

  Ode to L. Huntingdon.
• § 1.52

  Ver. 267.
• † 1.53

  Le Sage generally took his plans from the Spanish writers, the manners of which nation he has well imitated. Le Diable Boiteux was drawn from the Diabolo Cojuelo of Guevara; his Gil Blas from Don Gusman D'Alfarache. Le Sage made a journey into Spain to acquaint himself with the Spanish cus|toms. He is a natural writer, of true humour. He died in a little house near Paris, where he supported himself by writing, 1747.
• * 1.54

  Continuation of Hist. of Don Quixote, b. iii. ch. 10.
• † 1.55

  Ver. 289.
• § 1.56

  Idyll. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• * 1.57

  Metam. 13. 789.
• † 1.58

  Ver. 311.
• * 1.59

  Cant. iii. ver. 92.
• † 1.60

  Oeuvres, tom. iii. pag. 332.
• * 1.61

  Ver. 324.
• † 1.62

  Inst. Orat. lib. vii. c. 3.
• § 1.63

  Ver. 350.
• * 1.64

  Edinburgh, 1753, pag. 81.
• † 1.65

  Ver. 356.
• § 1.66

  The man is blest who hath not lent, to wicked read his ear.
• * 1.67

  Ver. 360.
• † 1.68

  Only ten in number.
• ‡ 1.69

  Fenton's Waller, edit. 12mo. OBSERVATIONS, pag. 148.
• * 1.70

  Ver. 362.
• * 1.71

  Ver. 367.
• † 1.72

  N^o. 92.
• ‡ 1.73

  Ver. 474.
• * 1.74

  Ver. 483.
• † 1.75

  Of ENGLISH VERSE. Fenton's edit pag. 147. 12mo.
• * 1.76

  Ver. 484.
• * 1.77

  Dryden to Kneller.
• * 1.78

  Ver. 508.
• * 1.79

  Ver. 514.
• * 1.80

  Ver. 537.
• * 1.81

  Ver. 581.
• † 1.82

  Ver. 583.
• * 1.83

  Pag. 197. See also pag. 245. 191.
• † 1.84

  Pag. 217.
• * 1.85

  Ver. 622.
• † 1.86

  Art. Poet. Chant. iv.
• † 1.87

  Epitre 11.
• * 1.88

  The names of Corneille and Racine being often mentioned in this work, it will not be improper to add an ingenious Pa|rallel of their respective merits, written by Fontenelle.

  • I. Corneille had no excellent author before his eyes, whom he could follow: Racine had Corneille.
  • II. Corneille found the French stage in a barbarous state, and advanced it to great perfection: Racine has not supported it in the perfection in which he found it.
  • III. The characters of Corneille are true, though they are not common: The characters of Racine are not true, but only so far forth as they are common.
  • IV. Sometimes the characters of Corneille, are, in some re|spects, false and unnatural, in that they are noble and singular: Those of Racine are often, in some respects, low, on account of their being natural and ordinary.
  • V. He that has a noble heart would chuse to resemble the heroes of Corneille: He that has a little heart is pleased to find his own resemblance in the heroes of Racine.
  • VI. We carry, from hearing the pieces of the One, a desire to be virtuous: And we carry the pleasure of finding men like ourselves in foibles and weaknesses, from the pieces of the Other.
  • VII. The Tender and the Graceful of Racine is sometimes to be found in Corneille: The Grand and Sublime of Corneille is never to be found in Racine.
  • VIII. Racine has painted only the French and the present age, even when he designed to paint another age, and other nations: We see in Corneille, all those ages and all those na|tions, that he intended to paint.
  • IX. The number of the pieces of Corneille is much greater than that of Racine: Corneille, notwithstanding, has made fewer tautologies and repetitions than Racine has made.
  • X. In the passages where the versification of Corneille is good, it is more bold, more noble, and, at the same time, as pure and as finished as that of Racine; but it is not preserved in this degree of beauty: and that of Racine is always equally supported.
  • XI. Authors inferior to Racine have written successfully after him, in his own way: No author, not even Racine him|self, dared to attempt, after Corneille, that kind of writing which was peculiar to him.

  This comparison, of the justness of which the reader is left to judge, is said greatly to have irritated Boileau, the invariable friend and defender of Racine. It may be remarked, that Boileau had mentioned Fontenelle with contempt, in a stanza that originally concluded his Ode to the King, at present omitted. These were the lines.

  J'aime mieux nouvel Jcare Dans les airs cherchant Pindare Tomber du ciel le plus haut; Que louè de Fontenelle, Razer, craintive Hirondelle, La terre, comme Perault.

  This ode was parodied in France; but not with such incom|parable humour, as by our Prior, in England.

  To these remarks of Fontenelle may be added what Voltaire says, with his usual vivacity and brevity;

  "Corneille alone formed himself; but Louis XIV. Colbert, Sophocles, and Euripides, all of them contributed to form Racine."
• * 1.89

  Ver. 646.
• * 1.90

  Ver. 157.
• * 1.91

  Ver. 654.
• † 1.92

  Pag. 10••.
• * 1.93

  Epist. I. ver. 224. lib. 2.
• † 1.94

  Ver. 666.
• * 1.95

  Ver. 668.
• * 1.96

  Pag. 109. Ed. Amstael. 1663.
• * 1.97

  Ver. 676.
• * 1.98

  Ver. 686.
• * 1.99

  ADVICE to an Auth. Vol. i. 148. Edit. 12mo.
• * 1.100

  See ENQUIRY into the Life and Writings of Homer, Sect. iv.
• † 1.101

  Ver. 692.
• * 1.102

  Even so late as the reign of Charles V. we are informed by Christina of Pisa, that her father, who was the king's astrologer, foretold his death to a moment, in the year 1380. This astro|loger was so highly in favour, and esteemed of such importance, as to have a monthly pension of an hundred livres; a conside|rable sum for that time.
• † 1.103

  They celebrated in many churches, particularly at Rouen, what was called, the FEAST OF THE ASS. On this occasion, the ASS, finely drest, was brought before the altar, and they sung before him this elegant anthem,

  "Eh eh eh Sire ANE! eh eh eh Sire ANE!"
• * 1.104

  Mes PENSÉES, par M. Beaumelle. CCCLXV.
• * 1.105

  From Sadi, an Arabian Poet, Milton took the grand idea of the bridge over chaos.
• * 1.106

  He is said to have founded the university of Paris. Twyne's Antiq. Acad. Oxon. Apolog. edit. 1608. pag. 158, et seq.
• † 1.107

  Ver. 694.
• * 1.108

  Vol. 7. Pag. 232.
• * 1.109

  Ver. 698.
• * 1.110

  The Architect.
• * 1.111

  See particularly the beginning of the third Canto of the INFERNO, as also the beginning of the sixth.
• † 1.112

  "Veggiamo in un medesimo progresso di tempo (dal regno principalmente dell'una, e dell'altra Sicilia, e poi dalla Lom|bardia, e de vari, e distinti luoghi d'Italia) sorgere scrittori, i quali anno favella con Dante, Petrarcha, Boccacio, ed altri Toscani autori commune, e con loro anche commune l'autorità, da ogni regolator della lingua riconosciuta, i quali, tra molti altri, furrono Guidotto Bolognese, Marco Polo Veneziano, Pier Crescenzia da Bologna, Guido Giudice Messinese, Giacopo Colonna Romano, Federico II. imperadore, Pier delle Vigne Capoano, Benvenuto da Imola, Fra Jacopone da Todi, Onesto Bolognese, Guido Guislieri, Semprebene, Fabrovio, Guido Guislieri, Jacopo della Lana, Giotto Mantovano." Gravina della Rag. Poet. lib. ii. pag. 170.
• * 1.113

  TEATRO Italiano. In Verona, 1723. tom. i. pag. 4.
• * 1.114

  Ver. 706.
• * 1.115

  Qu'est ce qu'un grand capitaine? Un homme admiré, de beaucoup inferieur a un grand JOUEUR D'ECHECHS qui ne l'est pas. MES PENSEES. CCXLII.
• † 1.116

  Della Ragion. Poet. pag. 127.
• † 1.117

  Victorius's latin translation of Aristotle's poetics, was published at Florence, 1560. Castlevetro's Italian one at Vi|enna, 1570.
• * 1.118

  Tom. i. pag. 353.
• † 1.119

  It may be remarked, as an instance of Tasso's JUDGMENT, that he himself did not approve the episode of Sophronia and Olindo, so commonly censured.
• ‡ 1.120

  Ver. 715.
• * 1.121

  It was translated into Portugueze verse by Count d'Ericeyra.
• † 1.122

  It is remarkable, Boileau declared he had never read Vida.
• * 1.123

  Oevres de Fontenelle. Tom. 3. pag. 376. à Paris, 1752.
• † 1.124

  Ver. 724.
• * 1.125

  Ver. 726.
• * 1.126

  Edit. 12mo. pag. 136.
• * 1.127

  Ver. 730.
• † 1.128

  Vol. 7. pag. 65, &c.