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: 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 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 VOL. I. I your real strength lies, I hope you will not suffer that talent to lie unemployed." And Bolingbroke, speaking of his didactic works, says to Swift, Let. 44, 1729, "This flatters my judg ment; who always thought that, universal as his talents are, This is eminently and peculiarly His, above all writers I know, living or dead: I do not except Horace." * Ver. 56. comparing them together; only premising, that these two passages 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 represent to us those tombs to which we are approaching; where, though the brass and marble remain, yet the inscriptions are effaced 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 enquire; though it may seem probable, that the constitution of the body does sometimes influence 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 confusion, which seemed to be as lasting as if graved in marble."* With * Essay concerning Human Understanding, ch. x. sect. 5. All With respect to the truth of this observation of POPE, experience abundantly evinceth, that the three great faculties of the soul here spoken of, are seldom found united in the same person. There have yet existed but a few transcendent geniuses, who have been singularly blest with this rare assemblage of different talents. that I can at present recollect, who have at once enjoyed, in full vigor, a sublime and splendid imagination, a solid and profound understanding, an exact and tenacious memory, are Herodotus, Plato, Tully, Livy, Tacitus, Galilæo, Bacon, Des Cartes, Malebranche, Milton, Burnet of the Charter-house, Berkeley, and Montesquieu. Bacon, in his Novum Organum, divides the human genius into two sorts: "Men of dry distinct heads, cool imaginations, and keen application; they easily apprehend the differences of things, are masters in controversy, and excel in confutation; and these are the most common. The second sort of men, of warm fancies, elevated thought, and wide knowledge; they instantly perceive the resemblances of things, and are poets or masters in science, invent arts, and strike out new light wherever they carry their views." I 2 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; But oft in those confin'd to single parts.† 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 translations; and particularly from Bayle, from Rapin, and Thomassin, (as perhaps may be one day minutely shewn,) together with the assistances which our Cudworth and * Page 40. † Ver. 60. and Stanley happily afforded a writer confessedly ignorant of the Greek tongue, who has yet the insufferable * arrogance to vilify and censure, and to think he can confute, the best writers in that best language. I 3 When * I cannot forbear subjoining a passage of an excellent writer, and accomplished scholar, which is so very apposite to the present purpose, that one would think the author had Bolingbroke in his eye, if his valuable work had not been pub. lished 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 style of the author whom he presumeş to handle; the new-coined words, and new significations given to old words, used by such author and his sect, the whole philosophy of such sect; together with the connections and de pendencies 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 censure, merely by chance; and though HE MAY POSSIBLY TO FOOLS AP PEAR AS A WISE MAN, WILL CERTAINLY AMONG THE WISE EVER PASS FOR A FOOL. Such a man's intellect comprehends ancient 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 particu lars, and their character, this, without farther helps, 'tis impossible he should attain." HERMES, by HARRIS: Book ii, chap iii. p. 270, |