A perfect judge will read each work of wit'
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 charmed 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.
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-proportioned dome,

(The world's just wonder, and ev'n thine, O Rome!") No single parts unequally surprise,

All comes united to th' admiring eyes;

been suggested by the following one in the works of Drummond :

All as a pilgrim who the Alps doth pass,
Or Atlas' temples crowned with winter's
glass,

The airy Caucasus, the Apennine,

Pyrene's cliffs where sun doth never shine,
When he some heaps of hills hath overwent,
Begins to think on rest, his journey spent,
Till mounting some tall mountain he doth
find

More heights before him than he left be-
hind.-WARTON.

The simile is undoubtedly appropriate, illustrative, and eminently beautiful, but evidently copied.— BOWLES.

1 Diligenter legendum est ac pæne ad scribendi solicitudinem: nec per partes modo scrutanda sunt omnia, sed perlectus liber utique ex integro resumendus. Quint.-POPE.

2 The Bible never descends to the mean colloquial preterites of "chid"

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for "did chide," or "writ" for "did write," but always uses the full-dress word "chode" and "wrote." Pope might have been happier had he read his Bible more, but assuredly he would have improved his English.— DE QUINCEY.

3 Boileau's Art of Poetry by Dry. den and Soame, canto i.:

A frozen style, that neither ebbs or flows,
Instead of pleasing makes us gape and doze.

4 Much in the same strain Garth's Dispensary, iv. 24:

So nicely tasteless, so correctly dull.WAKEFIELD.

5 This is an adaptation of a couplet in Dryden's Eleonora :

Nor this part musk, or civet can we call,
Or amber, but a rich result of all.

6 It is impossible to determine whether he refers to St. Peter's or the Pantheon.

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 ev'ry 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 spite 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 loved folly sacrifice.

Once on a time, La Mancha's knight, they say,"
A certain bard encount'ring on the way,

1 An impropriety of the grossest kind is here committed. Grammar requires "appears."-WAKEFIELD.

Dryden's translation of Ovid's Met. book xv.

Greater than whate'er was, or is, or e'er shall be.-HOLT WHITE.

Epilogue to Suckling's Goblins: Things that ne'er were, nor are, nor ne'er will be.-ISAAC REED.

3 Horace, Ars Poet. 351: Verum ubi plura nitent in carmine, non ego paucis

Offendar maculis.

4 Lays for lays down, but, as Warton remarks, the word thus used is very objectionable.

To the same effect Quintilian, lib. i. Ex quo mihi inter virtutes grammatici habebitur, aliqua nescire.— WAKEFIELD.

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

VOL. II. POETRY.

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265

Avellanada, and afterwards trans
lated, or rather imitated and new.
modelled, by no less an Author than
the celebrated Le Sage. "But, Sir,
quoth the Bachelor, 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 ex-
tend over combats in the list, which
are far above his narrow rules. Be-
lieve me the combat will add such
grace to your play, that all the rules
in the universe must not stand in com-
petition with it. Well, Sir Knight,
replied the Bachelor, for your sake,
and for the honour of chivalry, I will
not leave out the combat. 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

E

Discoursed in terms as just, with looks as sage,
As e'er could Dennis, of the Grecian stage;'
Concluding all were desp'rate sots and fools,
Who durst depart from Aristotle's rules.
Our author, happy in a judge so nice,

Produced his play, and begged 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 Stagyrite.

"Not so, by heav'n!" he answers in a rage,

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."

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

Knight; and in a word, rather than leave out the combat, the play had better be acted in a field or plain."WARTON.

1 In all editions till the quarto of 1743,

As e'er could D-s of the laws o' th' stage.

2 In the manuscript the reply of the knight is continued through another couplet :

In all besides let Aristotle sway,
But knighthood's sacred, and he must give
way.

The phrase "curious not know

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

And hide with ornaments their want of art.1
True wit is nature' to advantage dressed;

What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed;"
Something, whose truth convinced at sight we find,
That gives us back the image of our mind.
As shades more sweetly recommend the light,*
So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit;'

2 Naturam intueamur, hanc sequamur: id facillimè accipiunt animi quod agnoscunt. Quint. lib. 8, c. 3. -POPE.

Dryden's preface to the State of Innocence: "The definition of wit, which has been so often attempted, and ever unsuccessfully, by many poets, is only this, that it is a propriety of thoughts and words."

3 Pope's account of wit is undoubtedly erroneous; he depresses it below its natural dignity, and reduces it from strength of thought to happiness of language.-JOHNSON.

The error was in stating a partial as an universal truth; for the second line of the couplet correctly describes

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the quality which gives the charm to numberless passages both in prose and verse. Instead of "ne'er so well," the reading of the first edition was "ne'er before," which was not equally true. But Pope followed the passage in Boileau, from which the line in the Essay on Criticism was derived: "Qu'est-ce qu'une pensée neuve, brillante, extraordinaire? Ce n'est point, comme se le persuadent les ignorants, une pensée que personne n'a jamais eu, ni dû avoir. C'est au contraire une pensée qui a dû venir à tout le monde, et que quelqu'un s'avise le premier d'exprimer. Un bon mot n'est bon mot qu'en ce qu'il dit une chose que chacun pensoit, et qu'il la dit d'une manière vive, fine et nouvelle."

4 Light "sweetly recommended" by shades, is an affected form of speech. "Does 'em good," in the next couplet, offends in the opposite direction, and is meanly colloquial.

5 Two lines, which follow in the manuscript, are, from such a poet, worth quoting as a curiosity, since in the ruggedness of the metre, the badness of the rhyme, and the grossness of the metaphor, they are among the worst that were ever written: Justly to think, and readily express, A full conception, and brought forth with

ease.

For works may have more wit than does 'em good,'
As bodies perish through excess of blood.

Others for language all their care express,
And value books, as women men, for dress:
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:

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 expressed
Is like a clown in regal purple dressed:

1 "Let us," says Mr. Webb, in a passage quoted by Warton, "substitute the definition in the place of the thing, and it will stand thus: 'A work may have more of nature dressed to advantage than will do it good.' This is impossible, and it is evident that the confusion arises from the poet having annexed different ideas to the same word."

"Take upon content" for "take upon trust" was a form of speech sanctioned by usage in Pope's day. Thus Rymer says of Hart the actor, "What he delivers every one takes upon content. Their eyes are prepossessed and charmed by his action."

3 Nothing can be more just, or more ably and eloquently expressed than this observation and illustration respecting the character of false eloquence. Fine words do not make

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fine poems, and there cannot be a stronger proof of the want of real genius than those high colours and meretricious embellishments of language, which, while they hide the poverty of ideas, impose on the unpractised eye with a gaudy semblance of beauty.-BOWLES.

4 "Decent" has not here the signification of modest, but is used in the once common sense of becoming, attractive.

'Dryden's preface to All for Love: "Expressions are a modest clothing of our thoughts, as breeches and petticoats are for our bodies." Pope's couplet should have been more in accordance with his precept. "Still" is an expletive to piece out the line, and upon this superfluous word, he has thrown the emphasis of the rhyme, which, in its turn, is mean and imperfect.