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In prospects thus, some objects please our eyes,
Which out of nature's common order rise,
The shapeless rock, or hanging precipice.
Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend1,
And rise to faults true Critics dare not mend.
But tho' the Ancients thus their rules invade,
(As Kings dispense with laws themselves have made)
Moderns, beware! or if you must offend
Against the precept, ne'er transgress its End;
Let it be seldom, and compell'd by need;
And have, at least, their precedent to plead.
The Critic else proceeds without remorse,
Seizes your fame, and puts his laws in force.

I know there are, to whose presumptuous thoughts
Those freer beauties, ev'n in them, seem faults,
Some figures monstrous and mis-shap'd appear,
Consider'd singly, or beheld too near,
Which, but proportion'd to their light, or place,
Due distance reconciles to form and grace.
A prudent chief not always must display2
His pow'rs in equal ranks, and fair array.
But with th' occasion and the place comply,
Conceal his force, nay seem sometimes to fly.
Those oft are stratagems which error seem,
Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream3.

Still green with bays each ancient Altar stands,
Above the reach of sacrilegious hands;

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Secure from Flames, from Envy's fiercer rage',

Destructive War, and all-involving Age.

See, from each clime the learn'd their incense bring!

And fill the gen'ral chorus of mankind.

Hail, Bards triumphant! born in happier days;
Immortal heirs of universal praise !

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Whose honours with increase of ages grow,

As streams roll down, enlarging as they flow;
Nations unborn your mighty names shall sound,
And worlds applaud that must not yet be found!
Oh may some spark of your celestial fire,
The last, the meanest of your sons inspire,

(That on weak wings, from far, pursues your flights;
Glows while he reads, but trembles as he writes)

1 Dryden's Aurungzebe:
'Mean soul, and dar'st not gloriously offend!'
Stevens.

2 A prudent chief, &c.] Olóv TI TOLOVσi oi φρόνιμοι στρατηλάται κατὰ τὰς τάξεις τῶν στρατευMárov. Dion. Hal. De struct. orat. Warburton. 3 Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream.] 'Modeste, ac circumspecto judicio de tantis viris pronunciandum est, ne quod (quod plerisque accidit) damnent quod non intelligunt. Ac si necesse est in alteram errare partem, omnia eorum le

gentibus placere, quam multa displicere maluerim.' Quint. P.

Secure from flames, from envy's fiercer rage, Destructive war, and all-involving age.] The poet here alludes to the four great causes of the ravage amongst ancient writings. The destruction of the Alexandrine and Palatine libraries by fire; the fiercer rage of Zoilus and Mævius and their followers against wit; the irruption of the barbarians into the empire; and the long reign of ignorance and superstition in the cloisters. Warburton.

To teach vain Wits a science little known,
T'admire superior sense, and doubt their own!

OF all the Causes which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is Pride, the never-failing voice of fools.
Whatever nature has in worth denied,

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She gives in large recruits of needful pride;
For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find

What wants in blood and spirits, swell'd with wind:

Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence,

And fills up all the mighty Void of sense.

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If once right reason drives that cloud away,
Truth breaks upon us with resistless day.
Trust not yourself; but your defects to know,
Make use of ev'ry friend-and ev'ry foe.

A little learning is a dang'rous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain3,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fir'd at first sight with what the Muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of Arts,
While from the bounded level of our mind

Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind;
But more advanc'd, behold with strange surprise
New distant scenes of endless science rise!
So pleas'd at first the tow'ring Alps we try,

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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 prospects tires our wand'ring eyes,
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!

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A perfect Judge will read each work of Wits
With the same spirit that its author writ:
Survey the WHOLE, nor seek slight faults to find
Where nature moves, and rapture warms the mind;
Nor lose, for that malignant dull delight,

The gen'rous pleasure to be charm'd with Wit.
But in such lays as neither ebb, nor flow,
Correctly cold, and regularly low,
That shunning faults, one quiet tenour keep;
We cannot blame indeed- -but we may sleep.

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can "drink deep" enough to be, in truth, anything more than very superficial; and every human being, that is not a downright idiot, must taste.']

3 A perfect judge, &c.] 'Diligenter legendum est, ac pæne ad scribendi sollicitudinem: Nec per partes modo scrutanda sunt omnia, sed perlectus liber utique ex integro resumendus.' Quintil. Warburton.

In wit, as nature, what affects our hearts
Is not th' exactness of peculiar parts;
'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call,

But the joint force and full result of all.

Thus when we view some well-proportion'd dome,

(The world's just wonder1, and ev'n thine, O Rome!)
No single parts unequally surprize,

All comes united to th' admiring eyes;

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No monstrous height, or breadth, or length appear;

The Whole at once is bold, and regular.
Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,

Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.
In every work regard the writer's End,
Since none can compass more than they intend ;
And if the means be just, the conduct true,
Applause, in spight of trivial faults, is due;
As men of breeding, sometimes men of wit,
T'avoid great errors, must the less commit:
Neglect the rules each verbal Critic lays,
For not to know some trifles, is a praise.
Most Critics, fond of some subservient art,
Still make the Whole depend upon a Part:
They talk of principles, but notions prize,
And all to one lov'd Folly sacrifice.

Once on a time, La Mancha's Knight', they say,

A certain bard encount'ring on the way,

Discours'd in terms as just, with looks as sage,

As e'er could Dennis3 of the Grecian stage;

Concluding all were desp'rate sots and fools,
Who durst depart from Aristotle's rules.

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Our Author, happy in a judge so nice,

Produc'd his Play, and begg'd the Knight's advice

Made him observe the subject, and the plot,

The manners, passions, unities; what not?

All which, exact to rule, were brought about,

Were but a Combat in the lists left out.

"What! leave the Combat out?" exclaims the Knight;

Yes, or we must renounce the Stagirite.

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"Not so by Heav'n" (he answers in a rage),

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'Knights, squires, and steeds, must enter on the stage."
So vast a throng the stage can ne'er contain.
"Then build a new, or act it in a plain."
Thus Critics, of less judgment than caprice,
Curious not knowing, not exact but nice,
Form short Ideas; and offend in arts
(As most in manners) by a love to parts.

The Pantheon, I would suppose; perhaps St Peter's; no matter which; the observation is true of both. Warburton.

2 The incident is taken from the Second Part of Don Quixote, first written by Don Alonzo

Fernandez de Avellanada, and afterwards translated, or rather imitated and new-modelled, by no less an author than the celebrated Le Sage.

Warton.

3 Dennis], see Introductory Memoir.

Some to Conceit alone their taste confine,
And glitt'ring thoughts struck out at ev'ry line;
Pleas'd with a work where nothing's just or fit;
One glaring Chaos and wild heap of wit.

Poets like painters, thus, unskill'd to trace
The naked nature and the living grace,
With gold and jewels cover ev'ry part,

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And hide with ornaments their want of art1.

True Wit is Nature to advantage dress'd,

What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express 'd2;

Something, whose truth convinc'd at sight we find,

That gives us back the image of our mind.

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As shades more sweetly recommend the light,

So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit.

For works may have more wit than does 'em good,

Their praise is still, the Style is excellent :
The Sense, they humbly take upon content.

Words are like leaves; and where they most abound,

Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found,

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False Eloquence, like the prismatic glass,

Its gaudy colours spreads on ev'ry place;
The face of Nature we no more survey,
All glares alike, without distinction gay:
But true expression, like th' unchanging Sun,
Clears and improves whate'er it shines upon,
It gilds all objects, but it alters none.
Expression is the dress of thought, and still
Appears more decent, as more suitable;
A vile conceit in pompous words express'd,
Is like a clown in regal purple dress'd:
For diff'rent styles with diff'rent subjects sort,
As several garbs with country, town, and court.
Some by old words to fame have made pretence3,
Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense;
Such labour'd nothings, in so strange a style,
Amaze th' unlearn'd, and make the learned smile.
Unlucky, as Fungoso in the play,
These sparks with awkward vanity display
What the fine gentleman wore yesterday;

1 [This class of poets and style of poetry have probably never been so well illustrated and exposed, as, in the case of the English Fantastic school, by Dr Johnson in his life of Cowley.]

2 [Warburton commends, while Johnson with much success impugns, this definition. The term wit, as observed above, is very loosely and variously applied in this poem.]

['Humour is all; wit should be only brought To turn agreeably some proper thought.' Buckingham's Essay on Poetry.]

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3 Some by old words, &c.] 'Abolita et abrogata retinere, insolentiæ cujusdam est, et frivolæ in parvis jactantiæ.' Quintil. lib. 1. cap. 6. P.

'Opus est ut verba a vetustate repetita neque crebra sint, neque manifesta, quia nil est odiosius affectatione, nec utique ab ultimis repetita temporibus. Oratio cujus summa virtus est perspicuitas, quam sit vitiosa, si egeat interprete? Ergo ut novorum optima erunt maxime vetera, ita veterum maxime nova.' Idem. P.

4 Unlucky as Fungoso, &c.] See Ben Jonson's

And but so mimic ancient wits at best,

As apes our grandsires, in their doublets drest.
In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold;
Alike fantastic, if too new, or old:

Be not the first by whom the new are try'd,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

But most by Numbers judge a Poet's song1;
And smooth or rough, with them is right or wrong:
In the bright Muse though thousand charms conspire,
Her voice is all these tuneful fools admire;
Who haunt Parnassus but to please their ear,

Not mend their minds; as some to Church repair,
Not for the doctrine, but the music there.
These equal syllables alone require,

Tho' oft the ear the open vowels tire2;
While expletives their feeble aid do join3;
And ten low words oft creep in one dull line:
While they ring round the same unvary'd chimes,
With sure returns of still expected rhymes;
Where-e'er you find "the cooling western breeze,"
In the next line, it "whispers through the trees:"
If crystal streams "with pleasing murmurs creep,'
The reader's threaten'd (not in vain) with "sleep"
Then, at the last and only couplet fraught
With some unmeaning thing they call a thought,
A needless Alexandrine ends the song

}

That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
Leave such to tune their own dull rhymes, and know
What's roundly smooth or languishingly slow;
And praise the easy vigour of a line,

Where Denham's strength, and Waller's sweetness join3.
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,

As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence,
The sound must seem an Echo to the sense":

2 Though oft the ear, &c.] 'Fugiemus crebras vocalium concursiones, quæ vastam atque hiantem orationem reddunt. Cic. ad Heren. lib. iv. Vide etiam, Quintil. lib. ix. c. 4. P.

3 While expletives their feeble aid do join, And ten low words oft creep in one dull line.] From Dryden. "He creeps along with ten little words in every line, and helps out his numbers with [for] [to] and [unto] and all the pretty exple

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tives he can find, while the sense is left half tired behind it." Essay on Dramatic Poetry. Warburton.

[The beauty of Waller's versification, as Dr Johnson has pointed out, is impaired by the very frequent use of the expletive do.]

4 [It has been pointed out that Pope's Messiah is open to the objection of the introduction of Alexandrines, at the close of the poem and elsewhere. His later poems contain very few Alexandrines. Dr Johnson believes that 'Cowley was the first poet that mingled Alexandrines at pleasure with the common heroic of ten syllables; and from him Dryden borrowed the practice, whether ornamental or licentious.']

5 [The master-pieces of these two poets are similarly linked in Buckingham's Essay on Poetry: 'But not an Elegy, nor writ with skill, No Panegyrick, nor a Cooper's Hill.'] 6 The sound must seem an Echo to the sense,]