Alexander Pope
An Essay on Criticism
PART I. | ||
Tis hard to say if greater want of skill | ||
Appear in writing or in judging ill, | ||
But of the two less dangerous is the offense | ||
To tire our patience than mislead our sense | ||
5 | Some few in that but numbers err in this, | |
Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss, | ||
A fool might once himself alone expose, | ||
Now one in verse makes many more in prose. | ||
Tis with our judgments as our watches, none | ||
10 | Go just alike, yet each believes his own | |
In poets as true genius is but rare | ||
True taste as seldom is the critic share | ||
Both must alike from Heaven derive their light, | ||
These born to judge as well as those to write | ||
15 | Let such teach others who themselves excel, | |
And censure freely, who have written well | ||
Authors are partial to their wit, tis true | ||
But are not critics to their judgment too? | ||
Yet if we look more closely we shall find | ||
20 | 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 coloring but the more disgraced | ||
25 | So by false learning is good sense defaced | |
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 | ||
And then turn critics in their own defense | ||
30 | Each burns alike who can or cannot write | |
Or with a rivals or an eunuchs spite | ||
All fools have still an itching to deride | ||
And fain would be upon the laughing side | ||
If Maevius scribble in Apollos spite | ||
35 | There are who judge still worse than he can write. | |
Some have at first for wits then poets passed | ||
Turned critics next and proved plain fools at last | ||
Some neither can for wits nor critics pass | ||
As heavy mules are neither horse nor ass. | ||
40 | Those half-learned witlings, numerous in our isle, | |
As half-formed insects on the banks of Nile | ||
Unfinished things one knows not what to call | ||
Their generation is so equivocal | ||
To tell them would a hundred tongues require, | ||
45 | Or one vain wits that might a hundred tire. | |
But you who seek to give and merit fame, | ||
And justly bear a critics noble name, | ||
Be sure yourself and your own reach to know | ||
How far your genius taste and learning go. | ||
50 | Launch not beyond your depth, but be discreet | |
And mark that point where sense and dullness meet. | ||
Nature to all things fixed the limits fit | ||
And wisely curbed proud mans pretending wit. | ||
As on the land while here the ocean gains. | ||
55 | In other parts it leaves wide sandy plains | |
Thus in the soul while memory prevails, | ||
The solid power of understanding fails | ||
Where beams of warm imagination play, | ||
The memorys soft figures melt away | ||
60 | 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 confined to single parts | ||
Like kings, we lose the conquests gained before, | ||
65 | By vain ambition still to make them more | |
Each might his several province well command, | ||
Would all but stoop to what they understand. | ||
First follow nature and your judgment frame | ||
By her just standard, which is still the same. | ||
70 | Unerring nature still divinely bright, | |
One clear, unchanged and universal light, | ||
Life force and beauty, must to all impart, | ||
At once the source and end and test of art | ||
Art from that fund each just supply provides, | ||
75 | Works without show and without pomp presides | |
In some fair body thus the informing soul | ||
With spirits feeds, with vigor fills the whole, | ||
Each motion guides and every nerve sustains, | ||
Itself unseen, but in the effects remains. | ||
80 | Some, to whom Heaven in wit has been profuse, | |
Want as much more, to turn it to its use; | ||
For wit and judgment often are at strife, | ||
Though meant each others aid, like man and wife. | ||
Tis more to guide, than spur the muses steed, | ||
85 | Restrain his fury, than provoke his speed, | |
The winged courser, like a generous horse, | ||
Shows most true mettle when you check his course. | ||
Those rules, of old discovered, not devised, | ||
Are nature still, but nature methodized; | ||
90 | Nature, like liberty, is but restrained | |
By the same laws which first herself ordained. | ||
Hear how learned Greece her useful rules indites, | ||
When to repress and when indulge our flights. | ||
High on Parnassus top her sons she showed, | ||
95 | And pointed out those arduous paths they trod; | |
Held from afar, aloft, the immortal prize, | ||
And urged the rest by equal steps to rise. | ||
Just precepts thus from great examples given, | ||
She drew from them what they derived from Heaven. | ||
100 | The generous critic fanned the poets fire, | |
And taught the world with reason to admire. | ||
Then criticism the muses handmaid proved, | ||
To dress her charms, and make her more beloved: | ||
But following wits from that intention strayed | ||
105 | Who could not win the mistress, wooed the maid | |
Against the poets their own arms they turned | ||
Sure to hate most the men from whom they learned | ||
So modern pothecaries taught the art | ||
By doctors bills to play the doctors part. | ||
110 | Bold in the practice of mistaken rules | |
Prescribe, apply, and call their masters fools. | ||
Some on the leaves of ancient authors prey, | ||
Nor time nor moths eer spoil so much as they. | ||
Some dryly plain, without inventions aid, | ||
115 | Write dull receipts how poems may be made | |
These leave the sense their learning to display, | ||
And those explain the meaning quite away. | ||
You then, whose judgment the right course would steer, | ||
Know well each ancients proper character, | ||
120 | His fable subject scope in every page, | |
Religion, country, genius of his age | ||
Without all these at once before your eyes, | ||
Cavil you may, but never criticise. | ||
Be Homers works your study and delight, | ||
125 | Read them by day and meditate by night, | |
Thence form your judgment thence your maxims bring | ||
And trace the muses upward to their spring. | ||
Still with itself compared, his text peruse, | ||
And let your comment be the Mantuan Muse. | ||
130 | When first young Maro in his boundless mind, | |
A work to outlast immortal Rome designed, | ||
Perhaps he seemed above the critics law | ||
And but from natures fountain scorned to draw | ||
But when to examine every part he came | ||
135 | Nature and Homer were he found the same | |
Convinced, amazed, he checks the bold design | ||
And rules as strict his labored work confine | ||
As if the Stagirite oerlooked each line | ||
Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem, | ||
140 | To copy nature is to copy them. | |
Some beauties yet no precepts can declare, | ||
For theres a happiness as well as care. | ||
Music resembles poetryin each | ||
Are nameless graces which no methods teach, | ||
145 | And which a master hand alone can reach | |
If, where the rules not far enough extend | ||
(Since rules were made but to promote their end), | ||
Some lucky license answer to the full | ||
The intent proposed that license is a rule. | ||
150 | Thus Pegasus a nearer way to take | |
May boldly deviate from the common track | ||
Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend, | ||
And rise to faults true critics dare not mend, | ||
From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part, | ||
155 | And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art, | |
Which without passing through the judgment gains | ||
The heart and all its end at once attains. | ||
In prospects, thus, some objects please our eyes, | ||
Which out of natures common order rise, | ||
160 | The shapeless rock or hanging precipice. | |
But though the ancients thus their rules invade | ||
(As kings dispense with laws themselves have made), | ||
Moderns beware! or if you must offend | ||
Against the precept, neer transgress its end, | ||
165 | Let it be seldom, and compelled 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 | ||
170 | Those freer beauties, even in them, seem faults | |
Some figures monstrous and misshaped appear, | ||
Considered singly, or beheld too near, | ||
Which, but proportioned to their light, or place, | ||
Due distance reconciles to form and grace. | ||
175 | A prudent chief not always must display | |
His powers in equal ranks and fair array, | ||
But with the occasion and the place comply. | ||
Conceal his force, nay, seem sometimes to fly. | ||
Those oft are stratagems which errors seem, | ||
180 | Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream. | |
Still green with bays each ancient altar stands, | ||
Above the reach of sacrilegious hands, | ||
Secure from flames, from envys fiercer rage, | ||
Destructive war, and all-involving age. | ||
185 | See, from each clime the learned their incense bring; | |
Hear, in all tongues consenting Paeans ring! | ||
In praise so just let every voice be joined, | ||
And fill the general chorus of mankind. | ||
Hail! bards triumphant! born in happier days; | ||
190 | Immortal heirs of universal praise! | |
Whose honors 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! | ||
195 | 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), | ||
To teach vain wits a science little known, | ||
200 | To admire superior sense, and doubt their own! | |
PART II. | ||
Of all the causes which conspire to blind | ||
Mans erring judgment and misguide the mind, | ||
What the weak head with strongest bias rules, | ||
Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools. | ||
205 | Whatever nature has in worth denied, | |
She gives in large recruits of needful pride; | ||
For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find | ||
What wants in blood and spirits, swelled with wind: | ||
Pride where wit fails steps in to our defense, | ||
210 | And fills up all the mighty void of sense. | |
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 every friendand every foe. | ||
215 | A little learning is a dangerous thing | |
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring | ||
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, | ||
And drinking largely sobers us again. | ||
Tired at first sight with what the muse imparts, | ||
220 | 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 advanced behold with strange surprise, | ||
New distant scenes of endless science rise! | ||
225 | So pleased at first the towering Alps we try, | |
Mount oer the vales and seem to tread the sky, | ||
The eternal snows appear already passed | ||
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last. | ||
But those attained we tremble to survey | ||
230 | The growing labors of the lengthened way | |
The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes, | ||
Hills peep oer hills and Alps on Alps arise! | ||
A perfect judge will read each work of wit | ||
With the same spirit that its author writ | ||
235 | 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 generous pleasure to be charmed with wit | ||
But in such lays as neither ebb nor flow, | ||
240 | Correctly cold and regularly low | |
That, shunning faults, one quiet tenor keep; | ||
We cannot blame indeedbut we may sleep. | ||
In wit, as nature, what affects our hearts | ||
Is not the exactness of peculiar parts, | ||
245 | Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call, | |
But the joint force and full result of all. | ||
Thus, when we view some well proportioned dome | ||
(The worlds just wonder, and even thine, O Rome!), | ||
No single parts unequally surprise, | ||
250 | All comes united to the admiring eyes; | |
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 neer was, nor is, nor eer shall be. | ||
255 | In every work regard the writers end, | |
Since none can compass more than they intend; | ||
And if the means be just, the conduct true, | ||
Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due. | ||
As men of breeding, sometimes men of wit, | ||
260 | To 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: | ||
265 | They talk of principles, but notions prize, | |
And all to one loved folly sacrifice. | ||
Once on a time La Manchas knight, they say, | ||
A certain bard encountering on the way, | ||
Discoursed in terms as just, with looks as sage, | ||
270 | As eer could Dennis, of the Grecian stage; | |
Concluding all were desperate sots and fools, | ||
Who durst depart from Aristotles rules | ||
Our author, happy in a judge so nice, | ||
Produced his play, and begged the knights advice; | ||
275 | 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. | ||
280 | Yes, or we must renounce the Stagirite. | |
Not so, by heaven! (he answers in a rage) | ||
Knights, squires, and steeds must enter on the stage. | ||
So vast a throng the stage can neer contain. | ||
Then build a new, or act it in a plain. | ||
285 | 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. | ||
Some to conceit alone their taste confine, | ||
290 | And glittering thoughts struck out at every line; | |
Pleased with a work where nothings just or fit; | ||
One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit. | ||
Poets, like painters, thus, unskilled to trace | ||
The naked nature and the living grace, | ||
295 | With gold and jewels cover every part, | |
And hide with ornaments their want of art. | ||
True wit is nature to advantage dressed; | ||
What oft was thought, but neer so well expressed; | ||
Something, whose truth convinced at sight we find | ||
300 | That gives us back the image of our mind. | |
As shades more sweetly recommend the light, | ||
So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit | ||
For works may have more wit than does them good, | ||
As bodies perish through excess of blood. | ||
305 | Others for language all their care express, | |
And value books, as women men, for dress. | ||
Their praise is stillthe style is excellent, | ||
The sense they humbly take upon content | ||
Words are like leaves, and where they most abound | ||
310 | Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found. | |
False eloquence, like the prismatic glass. | ||
Its gaudy colors spreads on every place, | ||
The face of nature we no more survey. | ||
All glares alike without distinction gay: | ||
315 | But true expression, like the unchanging sun, | |
Clears and improves whateer 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, | ||
320 | A vile conceit in pompous words expressed, | |
Is like a clown in regal purple dressed | ||
For different styles with different subjects sort, | ||
As several garbs with country town and court | ||
Some by old words to fame have made pretense, | ||
325 | Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense; | |
Such labored nothings, in so strange a style, | ||
Amaze the unlearned, and make the learned smile. | ||
Unlucky, as Fungoso in the play, | ||
These sparks with awkward vanity display | ||
330 | What the fine gentleman wore yesterday; | |
And but so mimic ancient wits at best, | ||
As apes our grandsires in their doublets dressed. | ||
In words as fashions the same rule will hold, | ||
Alike fantastic if too new or old. | ||
335 | Be not the first by whom the new are tried, | |
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside | ||
But most by numbers judge a poets song | ||
And smooth or rough, with them is right or wrong. | ||
In the bright muse though thousand charms conspire, | ||
340 | 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, | ||
345 | Though oft the ear the open vowels tire; | |
While expletives their feeble aid do join; | ||
And ten low words oft creep in one dull line, | ||
While they ring round the same unvaried chimes, | ||
With sure returns of still expected rhymes, | ||
350 | Whereer you find the cooling western breeze, | |
In the next line it whispers through the trees | ||
If crystal streams with pleasing murmurs creep | ||
The readers threatened (not in vain) with sleep | ||
Then, at the last and only couplet fraught | ||
355 | 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 | ||
Whats roundly smooth or languishingly slow; | ||
360 | And praise the easy vigor of a line, | |
Where Denhams strength, and Wallers sweetness join. | ||
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, | ||
As those move easiest who have learned to dance | ||
Tis not enough no harshness gives offense, | ||
365 | The sound must seem an echo to the sense. | |
Soft is the strain 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, | ||
370 | When Ajax strives some rocks vast weight to throw, | |
The line too labors, and the words move slow; | ||
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain, | ||
Flies oer the unbending corn, and skims along the main. | ||
Hear how Timotheus varied lays surprise, | ||
375 | And bid alternate passions fall and rise! | |
While, at each change, the son of Libyan Jove | ||
Now burns with glory, and then melts with love; | ||
Now his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow, | ||
Now sighs steal out, and tears begin to flow: | ||
380 | Persians and Greeks like turns of nature found, | |
And the worlds victor stood subdued by sound? | ||
The power of music all our hearts allow, | ||
And what Timotheus was, is Dryden now. | ||
Avoid extremes, and shun the fault of such, | ||
385 | Who still are pleased too little or too much. | |
At every trifle scorn to take offense, | ||
That always shows great pride, or little sense: | ||
Those heads, as stomachs, are not sure the best, | ||
Which nauseate all, and nothing can digest. | ||
390 | Yet let not each gay turn thy rapture move; | |
For fools admire, but men of sense approve: | ||
As things seem large which we through mist descry, | ||
Dullness is ever apt to magnify. | ||
Some foreign writers, some our own despise, | ||
395 | The ancients only, or the moderns prize. | |
Thus wit, like faith, by each man is applied | ||
To one small sect, and all are damned beside. | ||
Meanly they seek the blessing to confine, | ||
And force that sun but on a part to shine, | ||
400 | Which not alone the southern wit sublimes, | |
But ripens spirits in cold northern climes. | ||
Which from the first has shone on ages past, | ||
Enlights the present, and shall warm the last, | ||
Though each may feel increases and decays, | ||
405 | And see now clearer and now darker days. | |
Regard not then if wit be old or new, | ||
But blame the false, and value still the true. | ||
Some neer advance a judgment of their own, | ||
But catch the spreading notion of the town, | ||
410 | They reason and conclude by precedent, | |
And own stale nonsense which they neer invent. | ||
Some judge of authors names not works, and then | ||
Nor praise nor blame the writing, but the men. | ||
Of all this servile herd the worst is he | ||
415 | That in proud dullness joins with quality | |
A constant critic at the great mans board, | ||
To fetch and carry nonsense for my lord | ||
What woful stuff this madrigal would be, | ||
In some starved hackney sonnetteer, or me! | ||
420 | 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 vulgar thus through imitation err; | ||
425 | As oft the learned by being singular. | |
So much they scorn the crowd that if the throng | ||
By chance go right they purposely go wrong: | ||
So schismatics the plain believers quit, | ||
And are but damned for having too much wit. | ||
430 | Some praise at morning what they blame at night, | |
But always think the last opinion right. | ||
A muse by these is like a mistress used, | ||
This hour shes idolized, the next abused; | ||
While their weak heads, like towns unfortified, | ||
435 | Twixt sense and nonsense daily change their side. | |
Ask them the cause, theyre wiser still they say; | ||
And still to-morrows wiser than to-day. | ||
We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow; | ||
Our wiser sons, no doubt, will think us so. | ||
440 | Once school-divines this zealous isle oerspread. | |
Who knew most sentences was deepest read, | ||
Faith, Gospel, all, seemed made to be disputed, | ||
And none had sense enough to be confuted: | ||
Scotists and Thomists now in peace remain, | ||
445 | Amidst their kindred cobwebs in Duck Lane. | |
If faith itself has different dresses worn, | ||
What wonder modes in wit should take their turn? | ||
Oft, leaving what is natural and fit, | ||
The current folly proves the ready wit; | ||
450 | And authors think their reputation safe, | |
Which lives as long as fools are pleased to laugh. | ||
Some valuing those of their own side or mind, | ||
Still make themselves the measure of mankind: | ||
Fondly we think we honor merit then, | ||
455 | When we but praise ourselves in other men. | |
Parties in wit attend on those of state, | ||
And public faction doubles private hate. | ||
Pride, malice, folly against Dryden rose, | ||
In various shapes of parsons, critics, beaux; | ||
460 | But sense survived, when merry jests were past; | |
For rising merit will buoy up at last. | ||
Might he return, and bless once more our eyes, | ||
New Blackmores and new Millbourns must arise: | ||
Nay, should great Homer lift his awful head, | ||
465 | Zoilus again would start up from the dead | |
But like a shadow, proves the substance true: | ||
Envy will merit, as its shade, pursue, | ||
For envied wit, like Sol eclipsed, makes known | ||
The opposing bodys grossness, not its own. | ||
470 | When first that sun too powerful beams displays, | |
It draws up vapors which obscure its rays, | ||
But even those clouds at last adorn its way | ||
Reflect new glories and augment the day | ||
Be thou the first true merit to befriend | ||
475 | His praise is lost who stays till all commend | |
Short is the date alas! of modern rhymes | ||
And tis but just to let them live betimes | ||
No longer now that golden age appears | ||
When patriarch wits survived a thousand years | ||
480 | Now length of fame (our second life) is lost | |
And bare threescore is all even that can boast, | ||
Our sons their fathers failing language see | ||
And such as Chaucer is shall Dryden be | ||
So when the faithful pencil has designed | ||
485 | Some bright idea of the masters mind | |
Where a new world leaps out at his command | ||
And ready nature waits upon his hand | ||
When the ripe colors soften and unite | ||
And sweetly melt into just shade and light | ||
490 | When mellowing years their full perfection give | |
And each bold figure just begins to live | ||
The treacherous colors the fair art betray | ||
And all the bright creation fades away! | ||
Unhappy wit, like most mistaken things | ||
495 | Atones not for that envy which it brings | |
In youth alone its empty praise we boast | ||
But soon the short lived vanity is lost. | ||
Like some fair flower the early spring supplies | ||
That gayly blooms but even in blooming dies | ||
500 | What is this wit, which must our cares employ? | |
The owners wife that other men enjoy | ||
Then most our trouble still when most admired | ||
And still the more we give the more required | ||
Whose fame with pains we guard, but lose with ease, | ||
505 | Sure some to vex, but never all to please, | |
Tis what the vicious fear, the virtuous shun, | ||
By fools tis hated, and by knaves undone! | ||
If wit so much from ignorance undergo, | ||
Ah! let not learning too commence its foe! | ||
510 | Of old, those met rewards who could excel, | |
And such were praised who but endeavored well: | ||
Though triumphs were to generals only due, | ||
Crowns were reserved to grace the soldiers too. | ||
Now they who reach Parnassus lofty crown, | ||
515 | Employ their pains to spurn some others down; | |
And, while self-love each jealous writer rules, | ||
Contending wits become the sport of fools: | ||
But still the worst with most regret commend, | ||
For each ill author is as bad a friend | ||
520 | To what base ends, and by what abject ways, | |
Are mortals urged, through sacred lust of praise! | ||
Ah, neer so dire a thirst of glory boast, | ||
Nor in the critic let the man be lost | ||
Good-nature and good sense must ever join; | ||
525 | To err is human, to forgive, divine. | |
But if in noble minds some dregs remain, | ||
Not yet purged off, of spleen and sour disdain; | ||
Discharge that rage on more provoking crimes, | ||
Nor fear a dearth in these flagitious times. | ||
530 | No pardon vile obscenity should find, | |
Though wit and art conspire to move your mind; | ||
But dullness with obscenity must prove | ||
As shameful sure as impotence in love. | ||
In the fat age of pleasure, wealth, and ease, | ||
535 | Sprung the rank weed, and thrived with large increase: | |
When love was all an easy monarchs care, | ||
Seldom at council, never in a war | ||
Jilts ruled the state, and statesmen farces writ; | ||
Nay, wits had pensions, and young lords had wit: | ||
540 | The fair sat panting at a courtiers play, | |
And not a mask went unimproved away: | ||
The modest fan was lifted up no more, | ||
And virgins smiled at what they blushed before. | ||
The following license of a foreign reign, | ||
545 | Did all the dregs of bold Socinus drain, | |
Then unbelieving priests reformed the nation. | ||
And taught more pleasant methods of salvation; | ||
Where Heavens free subjects might their rights dispute, | ||
Lest God himself should seem too absolute: | ||
550 | Pulpits their sacred satire learned to spare, | |
And vice admired to find a flatterer there! | ||
Encouraged thus, wits Titans braved the skies, | ||
And the press groaned with licensed blasphemies. | ||
These monsters, critics! with your darts engage, | ||
555 | Here point your thunder, and exhaust your rage! | |
Yet shun their fault, who, scandalously nice, | ||
Will needs mistake an author into vice; | ||
All seems infected that the infected spy, | ||
As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye. | ||
PART III. | ||
560 | Learn, then, what morals critics ought to show, | |
For tis but half a judges task to know. | ||
Tis not enough, taste, judgment, learning, join; | ||
In all you speak, let truth and candor shine: | ||
That not alone what to your sense is due | ||
565 | All may allow, but seek your friendship too. | |
Be silent always, when you doubt your sense; | ||
And speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence: | ||
Some positive persisting fops we know, | ||
Who, if once wrong will needs be always so; | ||
570 | But you, with pleasure, own your errors past, | |
And make each day a critique on the last. | ||
Tis not enough your counsel still be true; | ||
Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do; | ||
Men must be taught as if you taught them not, | ||
575 | And things unknown proposed as things forgot. | |
Without good breeding truth is disapproved; | ||
That only makes superior sense beloved. | ||
Be niggards of advice on no pretense; | ||
For the worst avarice is that of sense | ||
580 | With mean complacence, neer betray your trust, | |
Nor be so civil as to prove unjust | ||
Fear not the anger of the wise to raise, | ||
Those best can bear reproof who merit praise. | ||
Twere well might critics still this freedom take, | ||
585 | But Appius reddens at each word you speak, | |
And stares, tremendous with a threatening eye, | ||
Like some fierce tyrant in old tapestry | ||
Fear most to tax an honorable fool | ||
Whose right it is uncensured to be dull | ||
590 | Such, without wit are poets when they please, | |
As without learning they can take degrees | ||
Leave dangerous truths to unsuccessful satires, | ||
And flattery to fulsome dedicators | ||
Whom, when they praise, the world believes no more, | ||
595 | Than when they promise to give scribbling oer. | |
Tis best sometimes your censure to restrain, | ||
And charitably let the dull be vain | ||
Your silence there is better than your spite, | ||
For who can rail so long as they can write? | ||
600 | Still humming on, their drowsy course they keep, | |
And lashed so long like tops are lashed asleep. | ||
False steps but help them to renew the race, | ||
As after stumbling, jades will mend their pace. | ||
What crowds of these, impenitently bold, | ||
605 | In sounds and jingling syllables grown old, | |
Still run on poets in a raging vein, | ||
Even to the dregs and squeezing of the brain; | ||
Strain out the last dull droppings of their sense, | ||
And rhyme with all the rage of impotence! | ||
610 | Such shameless bards we have, and yet, tis true, | |
There are as mad abandoned critics, too | ||
The bookful blockhead ignorantly read, | ||
With loads of learned lumber in his head, | ||
With his own tongue still edifies his ears, | ||
615 | And always listening to himself appears | |
All books he reads and all he reads assails | ||
From Drydens Fables down to Durfeys Tales | ||
With him most authors steal their works or buy; | ||
Garth did not write his own Dispensary | ||
620 | Name a new play, and hes the poets friend | |
Nay, showed his faultsbut when would poets mend? | ||
No place so sacred from such fops is barred, | ||
Nor is Pauls Church more safe than Pauls Churchyard: | ||
Nay, fly to altars; there theyll talk you dead, | ||
625 | For fools rush in where angels fear to tread | |
Distrustful sense with modest caution speaks, | ||
It still looks home, and short excursions makes; | ||
But rattling nonsense in full volleys breaks, | ||
And, never shocked, and never turned aside. | ||
630 | Bursts out, resistless, with a thundering tide, | |
But wheres the man who counsel can bestow, | ||
Still pleased to teach, and yet not proud to know? | ||
Unbiased, or by favor, or in spite, | ||
Not dully prepossessed, nor blindly right; | ||
635 | Though learned, well-bred, and though well bred, sincere, | |
Modestly bold, and humanly severe, | ||
Who to a friend his faults can freely show, | ||
And gladly praise the merit of a foe? | ||
Blessed with a taste exact, yet unconfined; | ||
640 | A knowledge both of books and human kind; | |
Generous converse, a soul exempt from pride; | ||
And love to praise, with reason on his side? | ||
Such once were critics such the happy few, | ||
Athens and Rome in better ages knew. | ||
645 | The mighty Stagirite first left the shore, | |
Spread all his sails, and durst the deeps explore; | ||
He steered securely, and discovered far, | ||
Led by the light of the Maeonian star. | ||
Poets, a race long unconfined and free, | ||
650 | Still fond and proud of savage liberty, | |
Received his laws, and stood convinced twas fit, | ||
Who conquered nature, should preside oer wit. | ||
Horace still charms with graceful negligence, | ||
And without method talks us into sense; | ||
655 | Will like a friend familiarly convey | |
The truest notions in the easiest way. | ||
He who supreme in judgment as in wit, | ||
Might boldly censure, as he boldly writ, | ||
Yet judged with coolness though he sung with fire; | ||
660 | His precepts teach but what his works inspire | |
Our critics take a contrary extreme | ||
They judge with fury, but they write with phlegm: | ||
Nor suffers Horace more in wrong translations | ||
By wits than critics in as wrong quotations. | ||
665 | See Dionysius Homers thoughts refine, | |
And call new beauties forth from every line! | ||
Fancy and art in gay Petronius please, | ||
The scholars learning with the courtiers ease. | ||
In grave Quintilians copious work we find | ||
670 | The justest rules and clearest method joined: | |
Thus useful arms in magazines we place, | ||
All ranged in order, and disposed with grace, | ||
But less to please the eye, than arm the hand, | ||
Still fit for use, and ready at command. | ||
675 | Thee bold Longinus! all the Nine inspire, | |
And bless their critic with a poets fire. | ||
An ardent judge, who, zealous in his trust, | ||
With warmth gives sentence, yet is always just: | ||
Whose own example strengthens all his laws; | ||
680 | And is himself that great sublime he draws. | |
Thus long succeeding critics justly reigned, | ||
License repressed, and useful laws ordained. | ||
Learning and Rome alike in empire grew; | ||
And arts still followed where her eagles flew, | ||
685 | From the same foes at last, both felt their doom, | |
And the same age saw learning fall, and Rome. | ||
With tyranny then superstition joined | ||
As that the body, this enslaved the mind; | ||
Much was believed but little understood, | ||
690 | And to be dull was construed to be good; | |
A second deluge learning thus oerrun, | ||
And the monks finished what the Goths begun. | ||
At length Erasmus, that great injured name | ||
(The glory of the priesthood and the shame!) | ||
695 | Stemmed the wild torrent of a barbarous age, | |
And drove those holy Vandals off the stage. | ||
But see! each muse, in Leos golden days, | ||
Starts from her trance and trims her withered bays, | ||
Romes ancient genius oer its ruins spread | ||
700 | Shakes off the dust, and rears his reverent head | |
Then sculpture and her sister arts revive, | ||
Stones leaped to form, and rocks began to live; | ||
With sweeter notes each rising temple rung, | ||
A Raphael painted, and a Vida sung | ||
705 | Immortal Vida! on whose honored brow | |
The poets bays and critics ivy grow | ||
Cremona now shall ever boast thy name | ||
As next in place to Mantua, next in fame! | ||
But soon by impious arms from Latium chased, | ||
710 | Their ancient bounds the banished muses passed. | |
Thence arts oer all the northern world advance, | ||
But critic-learning flourished most in France, | ||
The rules a nation born to serve, obeys; | ||
And Boileau still in right of Horace sways | ||
715 | But we, brave Britons, foreign laws despised, | |
And kept unconquered and uncivilized, | ||
Fierce for the liberties of wit and bold, | ||
We still defied the Romans as of old. | ||
Yet some there were, among the sounder few | ||
720 | Of those who less presumed and better knew, | |
Who durst assert the juster ancient cause, | ||
And here restored wits fundamental laws. | ||
Such was the muse, whose rule and practice tell | ||
Natures chief masterpiece is writing well. | ||
725 | Such was Roscommon, not more learned than good, | |
With manners generous as his noble blood, | ||
To him the wit of Greece and Rome was known, | ||
And every authors merit, but his own | ||
Such late was Walshthe muses judge and friend, | ||
730 | Who justly knew to blame or to commend, | |
To failings mild, but zealous for desert, | ||
The clearest head, and the sincerest heart, | ||
This humble praise, lamented shade! receive, | ||
This praise at least a grateful muse may give. | ||
735 | The muse whose early voice you taught to sing | |
Prescribed her heights and pruned her tender wing, | ||
(Her guide now lost) no more attempts to rise, | ||
But in low numbers short excursions tries, | ||
Content if hence the unlearned their wants may view, | ||
740 | The learned reflect on what before they knew | |
Careless of censure, nor too fond of fame, | ||
Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame, | ||
Averse alike to flatter, or offend, | ||
Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend. |
First published 1711
Robert Clark