Some are bewilder'd 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 defence:
Each burns alike, who can, or cannot write,
Or with a rival's, or an eunuch's spite.
All fools have still an itching to deride,
And fain would be upon the laughing side.
If Mævius scribble in Apollo's spite,

There are who judge still worse than he can write.
Some have at first for wits, then poets pass'd,
Turn'd critics next, and proved plain fools at last.1
Some neither can for wits nor critics pass,
As heavy mules are neither horse nor ass.
Those half-learn'd witlings, numerous in our isle,
As half-form'd insects on the banks of Nile ; 5
Unfinish'd things, one knows not what to call,
Their generation's so equivocal:
To tell them would a hundred tongues require,
Or one vain wit's, that might a hundred tire.
But you who seek to give and merit fame,
And justly bear a critic's noble name,

Tutors, like virtuosos, oft inclined

By strange transfusion to improve the mind,
Draw off the sense we have, to pour in new;

Which yet, with all their skill, they ne'er could do."

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35

40

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4 [Pope tells an anecdote respecting these lines, which Ayre inserted in his life as an actual occurrence. Dennis, he says, on the 27th of March, 1712, finding on Mr. Lintot's counter a book called an Essay on Criticism, just then published (it had been published ten months before), read a page or two with much frowning, till coming to these two lines, the 36th and 37th, he flung down the book in a terrible fury, and cried, " By G―d, he means me." See Dr. Norris's Narrative.]

5 [Fenton, in his edition of Waller, says wittily, that the Nile has been as fruitful of English similes as the sun; "from both which it would be as severe to restrain a young poet, as forbidding the use of fire and water was esteemed among the Romans." Pope has employed it very happily, and the whole of this passage is a fine piece of satire. Warton cites the lines as the first that indicated that species of poetry to which Pope's talent was most powerfully bent; but his short satire on Elkanah Settle's "Successio,' written when he was only fourteen, shows how early he had manifested this 'ruling passion."]

Be sure yourself and your own reach to know,
How far your genius, taste, and learning go;
Launch not beyond your depth, but be discreet,
And mark that point where sense and dulness meet.
Nature to all things fix'd the limits fit,
And wisely curb'd proud man's pretending wit.
As on the land while here the ocean gains,
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 memory's soft figures melt away.
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 gain'd before,
By vain ambition still to make them more:
Each might his servile 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 :
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;
Works without show, and without pomp presides:
In some fair body thus th' informing soul
With spirits feeds, with vigour fills the whole,
Each motion guides, and every nerve sustains;
Itself unseen, but in th' effects remains.

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- 55

60

65

70

75

Some, to whom Heaven in wit has been profuse,6
Want as much more to turn it to its use;

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6 The two lines originally stood thus:

"There are whom Heaven has blest with store of wit,
Yet want as much again to manage it."

[On which Warburton remarks:-"In the first line, wit is used in the modern sense, for the effort of fancy; in the second line it is used in the ancient sense, for the result of judgment. This trick played the reader, he endeavoured to keep out of sight by altering the lines as they now stand."

For wit and judgment often are at strife,

Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife.

'Tis more to guide, than spur the Muse's steed; Restrain his fury, than provoke his speed:

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The winged courser, like a generous horse,

Shows most true mettle when you check his course.
Those rules of old discover'd, not devised,

Are Nature still, but Nature methodized:
Nature, like liberty, is but restrain'd

By the same laws which first herself ordain'd.
Hear how learn'd Greece her useful rules indites,
When to repress, and when indulge our flights:
High on Parnassus' top her sons she show'd,

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And pointed out those arduous paths they trod;
Held from afar, aloft, the immortal prize,
And urged the rest by equal steps to rise.

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Just precepts thus from great examples given,7

She drew from them what they derive from Heaven.

The generous critic fann'd the poet's fire,

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And taught the world with reason to admire.

Then criticism the Muse's handmaid proved,

To dress her charms, and make her more beloved:
But following wits from that intention stray'd,
Who could not win the mistress, woo'd the maid;
Against the poets their own arms they turn'd,

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Sure to hate most the men from whom they learn'd.
So modern 'pothecaries, taught the art

By doctors' bills to play the doctor's part,

Bold in the practice of mistaken rules,

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Prescribe, apply, and call their masters fools.
Some on the leaves of ancient authors prey,

Nor time nor moths e'er spoil'd so much as they:

Some drily plain, without invention's aid,

Write dull receipts how poems may be made.

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These leave the sense, their learning to display,
And those explain the meaning quite away.

The alteration did not, however, remove the inconsistency; the poet still confounds judgment with wit. Dennis first pointed out the error.]

7 "Nec enim artibus editis factum est ut argumenta inveniremus, sed dicta sunt omnia antequam præciperentur; mox ea scriptores observata et collecta ediderunt."-Quintil.

You then whose judgment the right course would steer,

Know well each Ancient's proper character:

His fable, subject, scope in every page;
Religion, country, genius of his age:
Without all these at once before your eyes,

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Cavil you may, but never criticise.8

Be Homer's works your study and delight,

Read them by day, and meditate by night;

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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.

When first young Maro in his boundless mind?

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A work to outlast immortal Rome design'd,
Perhaps he seem'd above the critic's law,

And but from Nature's fountains scorn'd to draw:
But when to examine every part he came,

Nature and Homer were, he found, the same.

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8 The author after this verse originally inserted the following, which he

has, however, omitted in all the editions,

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Zoilus, had these been known, without a name

Had died, and Perault ne'er been damn'd to fame;

The sense of sound Antiquity had reign'd,
And sacred Honour yet been unprofaned.

None e'er had thought his comprehensive mind

To modern customs, modern rules confined;

Who for all ages writ, and all mankind."

[The last line is an echo of Ben Jonson's praise of Shakspeare-" He was not for an age, but for all time."]

9 Virg. Ecl. vi.—

"Cum canerem reges et prælia, Cynthius aurem
Vellit."

It is a tradition preserved by Servius, that Virgil began with writing a poem of the Alban and Roman affairs; which he found above his years, and descended first to imitate Theocritus on rural subjects, and afterwards to copy Homer in Heroic poetry.

9 [The above couplet was originally,—

"When first young Maro sung of kings and wars, Ere warning Phoebus touch'd his trembling ears;" which was not only a bad rhyme, but a theft from Milton, who, in his Lycidas, has

"Phoebus replied, and touch'd my trembling ears."]

Convinced, amazed, he checks the bold design ;
And rules as strict his labour'd work confine,
As if the Stagyrite o'erlook'd each line.
Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem;
To copy nature is to copy them.

Some beauties yet no precepts can declare,
For there's a happiness as well as care.
Music resembles poetry, in each

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Are nameless graces which no methods teach,

And which a master-hand alone can reach.

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If, where the rules not far enough extend,10

(Since rules were made but to promote their end)
Some lucky license answer to the full
The intent proposed, that license is a rule.
Thus Pegasus, a nearer way to take,

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May boldly deviate from the common track.
Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend,11
And rise to faults true critics dare not mend;
From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part,
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.

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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.

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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, ne'er transgress its end;

Let it be seldom, and compell'd by need;

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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, even in them, seem faults.

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Some figures monstrous and misshaped appear,

Consider'd singly, or beheld too near,

10" Neque enim rogationibus plebisve scitis sancta sunt ista præcepta, sed hoc, quicquid est, Utilitas excogitavit. Non negabo autem sic utile esse plerumque; verum si eadem illa nobis aliud suadebit Utilitas, hanc, relictis magistrorum autoritatibus, sequemur."-Quintil. lib. ii. cap. 13.

11 ["Mean soul, and dar'st not gloriously offend!"-Dryden's Aurengzebe.]