The British Controversialist and Literary Magazine

his way coastwise by Carrara, the next halting-place was Pisa, with its splendid necropolis, adorned with so many triumphs of the Italian chisel. To Florence the beautiful a larger space was devoted, though not more than enough to indicate the treasures of art it contains, and the monuments of the illustrious dead that grace the Florentine Pantheon. Rome, Naples, Herculaneum, Pompeii, Palermo, Messina, the fertile Abruzzi, the Roman States, Ancona, Bologna, the Adriatic and Venice, the Lakes Como and Maggiore, were all sketched with marvellous skill, before giving a brief résumé of the early history of Italian civilization, long before the first band of outlaws formed Imperial Rome. Showing the connection of Italy, through Pythagoras, Eschylus, and Archimedes, with the early history of philosophy and mathematics, he passed to the Roman period, and cited the famous names of Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Cicero, to show the debt which modern civilization owes to ancient Italian wisdom. To the Romans also the world owed a system of jurisprudence, the influence of which was still felt in the law and procedure of all civilized states. After the fall of the Roman Empire the whole commerce of Europe had been carried on for ages by Venice and Genoa, Florence and Pisa, and we owe to the Lombards the introduction of banking. Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio were duly catalogued, and their influence on the literature of their country shown. Reference was made to the Amalfian inventor of the mariner's compass, and the Genoan discoverer of America. The famous Italian painters and sculptors of the 14th and 15th centuries were pointed out; the Gregorian reform of the calendar, in the 16th century, referred to. The first sparks of the Reformation were traced to the poetic freedom of Dante, Galileo occupied a large share of the lecturer's attention. The discoveries of that illustrious man in reference to gravitation and motion, the barometer, the telescope, and the microscope, and his de

fence and development of the Copernican doctrine of the motion of the earth, were briefly but graphically sketched, together with the treatment he had received from the Pope and the Inquisition. The lecturer referred to the discovery of the thermometer, and the progress made by the Paduan professors in astronomy, not overlooking the fact that to two Italian anatomists belongs the honour of having discovered, simultaneously with Sir Charles Bell in this country, the existence of a double set of nerves in the human system-one for sensation, the other for motion. The claim of Volta and Galvani to be identified with electricity was briefly enunciated, and Piatti's great services to astronomy explained. He specified a host of artists, literary men, statesmen, and philosophers, whose eminence had shed lustre upon Italy. Cavour and Garibaldi were placed in the ranks of Italian statesmen-the former as the Sir Robert Peel of Italy, the latter as a great and good man, by whose valour and skill the Austrians had been dislodged from Lombardy, and the family of Bomba for ever removed from Naples. The lecturer concluded with some observations on the Italian language and literature. Of the former he said it was soft, yet not wanting in strength and pointedness, while from its harmony and cadences it was supremely fitted to be the universal language of music. Though not so nervous as the English or so graceful as the French, it was peculiarly favourable to harmonious sentences, to sustained figures and metaphors, and to epic and lyric poetry. Pointing out what Italy had contributed to musical science, the lecturer concluded by expressing regret that in morals and religion Italy had not risen to a height equal to that which she had attained in science and art, and impressing on his hearers that, however enthusiastic they might be in the cultivation of science, and however proud of its achievements, they should never forget that it was righteousness that exalted a nation."

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STUDIES IN ENGLISH LITERATURE.

POPE'S" ESSAY ON CRITICISM."

[AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM," by Alexander Pope (1688-1744), written in 1709, and published in 1711. This work is generally regarded as unquestionably the finest piece of argumentative and reasoning poetry in the English language." "The ripeness of judgment which it displays is truly marvellous." Addison has commended this poem highly in the "Spectator;" and Bishop Warburton, in a laboured commentary, has endeavoured to show that it is a complete treatise both on the art of Criticism and Foetry. At the time of its appearance didactic poetry was popular. Boileau's "Art of Poetry" had been translated by Sir William Soane, and revised by Dryden. Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon, had produced a sort of version of Horace's "Art of Poetry," in an "Essay on Translated Verse." John Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, had published an Essay on Satire," and an "Essay on Poetry." Pope seems to have followed the style and manner of Horace more than any of these his predecessors. The poem was translated into French shortly after its issue, by Hamilton, author of "De Grammont's Memoirs."]

1st. That poets and critics are alike liable to error from deficiency of culture in their respective accomplishments; but bad critics act more injuriously than bad poets on the public taste.

""Tis hard to say if greater want of skill
Appear in writing or in judging ill;

But of the two, less dangerous is the offence
To tire our patience than mislead our sense.
Some few in that, but numbers err in this;

Ten censure (1) wrong for one who writes amiss.
A fool might once himself alone expose,
Now one in verse makes many more in prose.

MEANINGS OF WORDS IN ITALICS, AS SUGGESTIONS FOR PARAPHRASING.

6. Judge mistakenly; erroneously. 7. In former times; put in the way of contempt.

8. Becomes the occasion of.

""Tis a passing shame

That I, unworthy body as I am,

Should censure thus on lovely gentlemen."

"Two Gentlemen of Verona," Act I., Sc. 2.

2nd. Cultivated taste is as rare in critics as original genius in poets' taste is innate though capable of culture.

'Tis with our judgments (2) as our watches; none

Go just alike, yet each believes his own.

In poets as true genius (3) is but rare,

True taste (4) as seldom is the critic's share;
10. Precisely similar; trusts in.

11. Real; only seldom met with.

12. Reliable; rarely; possession.

(2) Judgment." In some cases its meaning seems to approach to that of understanding; as in the nearly synonymous phrases 'a sound understanding,' and a sound judgment.' If there be any difference between these two modes of expression, it appears to me to consist chiefly in this, that the former implies a greater degree of positive ability than the latter; which indicates rather an exemption from those biases which lead the mind astray, than the possession of any uncommon reach of capability. To understanding we employ the epithets strong, vigorous, comprehensive, profound; to judgment those of correct, cool, unprejudiced, impartial, solid. It was in this sense that the word seems to have been understood by Pope in the following couplet:-"'Tis with our judgments,' &c.

"For this meaning of the word, its primitive and literal application to the judicial decision of a tribunal accounts sufficiently. Agreeably to the same fundamental idea, the name of judgment is given with peculiar propriety to those acquired powers of discernment which characterized a skilful critic in the fine arts; powers which depend in a very great degree on a temper of mind free from the undue influence of authority and of casual associations. The power of taste itself is frequently denoted by the appellation of judgment; and a person who possesses a more than ordinary share of it is said to be a judge in those matters which fall under its cognizance."- "Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind," by Dugald Stewart, Part II., Preliminary Observations.

(3) "The true genius is a mind of large general powers accidentally determined in some particular direction."-Dr. S. Johnson's "Life of Cowley."

"Talent convinces-genius but excites;

This tasks the reason, that the soul delights.
Talent from sober judgment takes its birth,
And reconciles the pinion to the earth;
Genius unsettles with desires the mind,
Contented not till earth be left behind.
Talent, the sunshine on a cultured soil,
Ripens the fruit by slow degrees for toil;
Genius, the sudden iris of the skies,

On cloud itself reflects its wondrous dyes;
And to the earth in tears and glory given,
Clasps in its airy arch the pomp of heaven!
Talent gives all that vulgar critics need-
From its plain horn-book learns the dull to read;
Genius, the Pythian of the Beautiful,
Leaves its large truths a riddle to the dull.

From eyes profane a veil the Isis screens,

And fools on fools still ask what Hamlet means."

Sir E. Bulwer Lytton's "Poems," 1842.

(4) "What, then, is taste, but those internal powers,
Active and strong, and feeling alive

13. In the capacity.

Both must alike from heaven derive their light,
These born to judge, as well as those to write.
Let such teach others who themselves excel,
And censure (1) freely who have written well:
Authors are partial to their wit, (5) 'tis true;

same manner; receive ;

14. Endowed with innate gifts.

15. Inform; have just claims to fame.

17. Prepossessed in favour of; certain.

To each fine impulse? a discerning sense
Of decent and sublime, with quick disgust
From things deformed, or disarranged, or gross
In species ? This nor gems, not stores of gold,
Nor purple state, nor culture can bestow,
But God alone, when first His sacred hand
Imprints the secret bias of the soul."

Akenside's "Pleasures of Imagination," III., 523, &c. (3 & 4)" Taste and genius are two words frequently joined together, and therefore by inaccurate thinkers confounded. They signify, however, two quite different things. The difference between them can be clearly pointed out, and it is of importance to remember it. Taste consists in the power of judging genius; in the power of executing. One may have a considerable degree of taste in poetry, eloquence, or any of the fine arts, who has little or hardly any genius for composition or execution in any of these arts; but genius cannot be found without including taste also. Genius, therefore, deserves to be considered as a higher power of the mind than taste. Genius always imports something inventive or creative, which does not rest in mere sensibility to beauty where it is perceived, but which can, moreover, produce new beauties, and exhibit them in such a manner as strongly to impress the minds of others. Refined taste forms a good critic, but genius is farther necessary to form the poet or orator."-Blair's “ Rhetoric,” Lect. III.

"Genius is the power of producing excellence; taste is the power of perceiving the excellence thus produced in its several sorts and degrees, with all their force, refinements, distinctions, and connections. In other words, taste (as it relates to the productions of art) is strictly the power of being properly affected by works of genius. It is the proportioning admiration to power, pleasure to beauty: it is the entire sympathy with the finest impulses of the imagination; not antipathy, not indifference to them. The eye of taste may be said to reflect the impressions of real genius, as the even mirror reflects the objects of nature in all their clearness and lustre, instead of distorting and diminishing them;

" Or, like the gate of steel

Fronting the sun, receives and renders back
His figure and his heat.'"

William Hazlitt's "Men and Manners," Essay X., on

(5) Knowledge; e. g.,—

"For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,
Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech," &c.

"Taste."

"Julius Caesar,” III., 2.

"Wit is the putting together in jest, i. e., in fancy, or in bare supposition, ideas between which there is a serious, i. e., a customary incompatibility, and by this pretended union or juxtaposition to point out more strongly some lurking incongruity."-William Hazlitt's "Remains," Essay III.

But are not critics to their judgment (2) too?
Yet, if we look more closely, we shall find.
Most have the seeds of judgment in their mind.
Nature affords at least a glimmering light;

The lines, though touched but faintly, are drawn right.
But as the slightest sketch, if justly traced,
Is by ill colouring but the more disgraced,
So by false learning is good sense defuced :
Some are bewildered in the maze of schools,
And some made coxcombs nature meant but fools.
In search of wit these lose their common sense, (6)
And then turn critics in their own defence;
Each burns alike, who can or cannot write,
Or with a rival's or a eunuch's spite:
All fools have still an itching to deride,
And fain would be upon the laughing side.

18. Likewise.

19. Still; inquire; carefully; perceive.

20. Elements.

21. The mind itself yields; feeble. 22. Marked; slightly; correctly. 23. Outline; accurately delineated. 24. Daubing; disfigured.

25. Incorrect acquisitions; judiciousness impaired.

26. Puzzled; perplexities; advocates of special systems.

27. Pedants; intended.

28. Quest.

29. Become; behalf.

30. Feels eagerly inclined.

31. Competitors; weakling's rage. 32. Irresistible desire; ridicule. 33. Fondly; winning,-vide "Let him laugh who wins," proverb.

"It is the design of wit to excite in the mind an agreeable surprise, and that arising not from anything marvellous in the subject, but solely from the imagery she employs or the strange assemblages of related ideas presented to the mind."— Campbell's "Philosophy of Rhetoric," chap. ii., sec. 1.

(6) "One of the first writers who introduced the phrase of common sense into the technical or appropriate language of logic was Father Buffier, in a book entitled 'Traité des Premières Vérités.' It has since been adopted by several authors of note in this country, particularly by Dr. Reid, Dr. Oswald, and Dr. Beattie. The phrase common sense, as it is generally understood, is nearly synonymous with mother wit; denoting that degree of sagacity (depending partly on original capacity, and partly on personal experience and observation) which qualifies an individual for those simple and essential occupations which all men are called upon to exercise habitually by their common nature. In this acceptation it is opposed to those mental acquirements which are derived from a regular education, and from the study of books; refers not to the speculative convictions of the understanding, but to that prudence and discretion which are the foundation of successful conduct. Such is the idea which Pope annexes to the word, when speaking of good sense (which means only a more than ordinary share of common sense). He calls it

Dugald Stewart's "Life of Reid" (Hamilton's Reid), p. 27.

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The British Controversialist and Literary Magazine, Volume 1