must not contribute*: as in the most regular gardens, Art can only reduce the beauties of Nature to more regularity, and fuch a figure, which the common eye may better take in, and is therefore more entertained with. And perhaps the reason why common criticks are inclined to prefer a judicious and methodical genius to a great and fruitful one, is, because they find it easier for themselves to pursue their obfervations through an uniform and bounded walk of Art, than to comprehend the vast and various extent of Nature. "in this example, and the ftatuary's art is Learning: one fashions, "the other is fashioned. Art is nothing without materials: but “materials, even without art, have their value. Confummate Art, however, is preferable to the very beft materials." Editor. *The paffage ftood thus in the first edition :-there is not even a fingle beauty in them but is owing to the invention as in the moft regular gardens, however Art may carry the greatest appearance, there is not a plant or flower, but is the gift of Nature. The first can only reduce the beauties of the latter into a more obvious figure, which the common eye——— This obfervation may appear to favour of fatirical cenforiousnefs, but I believe it to be extremely juft. That wild and exuberant genius, Dryden, has been of late years much undervalued amidst the public admiration of more regular and chaftifed writers; but has invariably commanded the veneration of confummate judges.. See Dr. Johnson's incomparable parallel of him and our poet in OUR author's work is a wild paradise * where if we cannot fee all the beauties fo diftinctly as in an ordered Garden, it is only because the number of them is infinitely greater. It is like a copious nursery which contains the feeds and first productions of every kind, out of which those who followed him have but felected fome particular plants, each according to his fancy, to cultivate and the life of Pope, and letter li. in the 4th section of Gray's Memoirs by Mason. * Some no lefs beautiful remarks of Addison, in the 417th Spectator, are appofite, and will gratify the reader. "Reading the Iliad is like travelling through a country unin"habited, where the fancy is entertained with a thousand favage "profpects of vaft deferts, wide uncultivated marshes, huge forefts, "misshapen rocks, and precipices. On the contrary, the Æneid is like a well-ordered garden, where it is impoffible to find out any part unadorned, or to caft our eyes upon a single spot, that does "not produce fome beautiful plant or flower." And here it may not be unseasonable to remind the reader, that the fobriety of Addifon's imagination and the chaftifed accuracy of his judgement inclined his affection in a great degree towards Virgil, whom Pope was induced to disparage in competition with his master, in confequence of a venial and unavoidable predilection for an author, with whom he had been fo peculiarly connected; thus engaged by felf-love, to the aggrandifement of a poem, effentially interwoven with the merit and reputation of his own labours. beautify. If fome things are too luxuriant, it is owing to the richness of the foil*; and if others are not arrived to perfection or maturity, it is only because they are over-run and opprest by those of a stronger nature. It is to the strength of this amazing invention we are to attribute that unequaled fire and rapture, which is fo forcible in Homer, that no man of a true poetical spirit is master of himfelf while he reads him†. What he writes, * Quod, ut vitium eft, ità copiæ vitium: "Which, though it "be a fault, is the fault of innate fertility," fays Quintilian: an author, with whom our poet appears, no lefs from this preface, than from his Effay on Criticifm, to have cultivated an attachEditor. ment. + Let me for once prefume to inftruct the times, And Longinus fays very elegantly of Demofthenes, in his 34th fection on the fublime: θαττον αν τις κεραυνοις φιρομενοις αν αντανοίξαι τα ομματα δύναιτο, η αντοφθαλμησαι τοις επαλληλοις εκεινες πάθεσιν : Lightning itself were more fupportable to the fight, than the fuc"ceffive flashes of his empaffioned eloquence." Editor. is of the most animated nature imaginable; every thing moves, every thing lives, and is put in action. If a council be called, or a battle fought, you are not coldly informed of what was faid or done as from a third perfon; the reader is hurried out of himself by the force of the Poet's imagination, and turns in one place to a hearer, in another to a spectator *. The courfe of his verfes resembles that of the army he describes, Οἱ δ' αρ' ἴσαν, ὡσει τε πυρὶ χθῶν πᾶσα νέμοιο They pour along like a fire that fweeps the whole * Our poet has not delivered his conceptions in this place with fufficient diftin&tnefs and conformation. A paffage from Longinus, which is intended to convey a parallel remark, may be employed as a feasonable illuftration of the fentiment before us. It occurs in the 26th chapter of his treatise. "A very powerful dramatic efficacy arifes from a change of "perfons, which frequently makes the hearer, or reader, imagine "himself engaged in the very midst of danger : Thou would't have thought, fo furious was their fire! No force could tame them, and no toil could tire: Iliad xv. 844. "where the difcourfe is addreffed to an individual; as in this "example alfo : Thou hadft not known with whom Tydides fought : Iliad v. 85. earth before it*. It is however remarkable that his fancy, which is every where vigorous, is not discovered immediately at the beginning of his poem in its fulleft fplendor: it grows in the progress both upon himself and others, and becomes on fire like a chariot-wheel, by its own rapidity. Exact difpofition, just thought, correct elocution, polished numbers, may have been found in a thousand; but this "The paffions of the reader are more excited, his attention raised, " and a deeper intereft in the tranfactions of the poem is produced, by the vivacity of these personal appeals." Editor. 66 * This is a very inadequate representation of the Greek verse, which occurs in Iliad ii. ver. 780. Under a previous folicitation of the reader's indulgence, I fhall attempt a more exact resemblance : With wafting fury, as a flood of flame Rolls o'er the ground it's waves, the fquadrons came. In my apprehenfion, the leading impreffions of Homer's comparison are the vigour, the compactnefs, and formidable afpect of this "moving hoft:" and the peculiar image of fire naturally directs our attention to the refulgence of their armour; fo that this circumftance had probably a place alfo in the intention of the poet. It will amuse the reader to compare the various executions of this unadorned verfe by the tranflators. Pope himfelf has generated no less than four verses from it; which are grand and noble, but confiderably impaired by the previous introduction of an extraneous fimile of his own, which counteracts and deadens the efficacy of his author's: Now, like a deluge, covering all around, The fhining armies fwept along the ground: |