Nature affords at least a glimm'ring light; So by falfe learning is good fenfe defac'd: Some are bewilder'd in the maze of fchools, 26 And fome made coxcombs Nature meant but fools. VARIATIONS. Between 25 and 26 were these lines, fince omitted by the author: Many are spoil'd by that pedantic throng, Who with great pains teach youth to reafon wrong. By strange transfufion to improve the mind, Draw off the fense we have, to pour in new; Which yet, with all their skill, they ne'er could do. P. COMMENTARY. occafioning those mifcarriages before objected to it. He owns, that the feeds of Judgment are indeed fown in the minds of most men, but by ill culture, as it fprings up, it generally runs wild: either on the one hand, by falfe knowledge, which pedants call Philology; or by falfe reafoning, which Philofophers call School-learning: Or on the other, by falfe wit, which is not regulated by fenfe; or by falfe politeness, which is folely regulated by the fafhion. Both thefe forts, who have their Judgments thus doubly depraved, the poet obferves, are naturally turned to cenfure and reprehenfion; only with this difference, that the Dunce always affects to be on the reafoning, and the Fool on the laughing fide. NOTES. VER. 25. So by falfe learning] "Plus fine doctrina prudentia, In fearch of wit thefe lofe their common fenfe, There are, who judge still worse than he can write. COMMENTARY. -And thus, at the fame time, our author proves the truth of his introductory obfervation, that the number of bad Critics is vaftly fuperior to that of bad Poets. VER. 36. Some have at firft for Wits, etc.] The poet having enumerated, in this account of the nature of Judgment and its various depravations, the feveral forts of bad Critics, and ranked NOTES. VER. 28. In fearch of wit thefe lofe their common fenfe,] This obfervation is extremely juft. Search of wit is not only the occafion, but the efficient caufe of lofs of common fenfe. For wit confifting in chufing out, and fetting together, fuch ideas from whofe likeneffes pleafant pictures may be made in the fancy; the Judgment, thro' an habitual search of Wit, lofes by degrees its faculty of feeing the true relations of things; in which confifts the exercise of common fenfe. VER. 32. All fools have still an itching to deride, And fain would be upon the laughing fide.] The fentiment is juft. And if Hobbes's account of Laughter be true, that it arifes from pride, we see the reafon of it. The expreffion too is fine, it alludes to the condition of Idiots and natural-fools, who are always on the grin. Some neither can for Wits nor Critics pass, COMMENTARY. them into two general Claffes; as the first fort, namely the men fpoiled by falfe learning, are but few in comparison of the other, and likewife come lefs within his main view (which is poetical Criticism) but keep groveling at the bottom amongit words and letters, he thought it here fufficient juft to have mentioned them, propofing to do them right hereafter. But the men spoiled by falfe tafte are innumerable; and Thefe are his proper concern: He therefore, from 35 to 46. fub-divides them again into the two claffes of the volatile and heavy: He describes in few words the quick progrefs of the One thro' Criticism, from falfe wit to plain folly, where they end; and the fixed ftation of the Other between the confines of both; who under the name of Witlings, have neither end nor measure. A kind of half formed creature from the equivocal generation of vivacity and dulness, like those on the banks of Nile, from heat and mud. NOTES. VER. 43. Their generation's fo equivocal:] It is fufficient that a principle of philofophy has been generally received, whether it be true or false, to justify a poet's use of it to fet off his wit. But to recommend his argument he should be cautious how he ufes any but the true. For falfehood, when it is fet too near, will tarnish the truth he would recommend. Befides the analogy between natural and moral truth makes the principles of true Philofophy the fitteft for his ufe. Our Poet has been careful in obferving this rule. To tell 'em, would a hundred tongues require, Or one vain wit's, that might a hundred tire. 45 Be sure yourself and your own reach to know, COMMENTARY. VER. 46. But you who feck, etc.] Our Author having thus far, by way of INTRODUCTION, explained the nature, use, and abufe of Criticifm, in a figurative defcription of the qualities and characters of Critics, proceeds now to deliver the precepts of the Art. The firft of which, from 47 to 68. is, that he who fets up for a Critic should previously examine his own ftrength, and fee how far he is qualified for the exercise of his profeflion. He puts him in a way to make this discovery, in that admirable direction given 51. AND MARK THAT POINT WHERE SENSE AND DULNESS MEET. He had fhewn above, that Judgment, without Tafte or Genius, is equally incapable of making a Critic or a Poet : In whatsoever fubject then the Critic's Taffe no longer accompanies his Judgment, there he may be affured he is going out of his depth. This our Author finely calls, that point where sense and dulness meet. And immediately adds the REASON of his precept; the Author of Nature having fo conftituted the mental faculties, that one of them can never excel but at the expence of another. NOTES. VER. 51. And mark that point where fenfe and dulnefs meet.] Befides the peculiar fenfe explained above in the comment, the words have ftill a more general meaning, and caution us against going on, when our Ideas begin to grow obfcure: as we are 55 Nature to all things fix'd the limits fit, And wifely curb'd proud man's pretending wit. As on the land while here the ocean gains, In other parts it leaves wide fandy plains; Thus in the foul while memory prevails, The folid pow'r of understanding fails; Where beams of warm imagination play, The memory's foft figures melt One science only will one genius fit; So vaft is art, fo narrow human wit: away. COMMENTARY. 60 From this ftate and ordination of the mental faculties, and the influence and effects they have one on another, our Poet draws this CONSEQUENCE, that no one genius can excell in more than one Art or Science. The confequence fhews the neceffity of the precept, just as the premises, from which the confequence is drawn, fhew the reasonableness of it. NOTES. apt to do, tho' that obscurity is a monition that we should leave off; for it arifes either thro' our fmall acquaintance with the subject, or the incomprehenfibility of its nature. In which circumftances a genius will always write as heavily as a dunce. An obfervation well worth the attention of all profound writers. VER. 56. Thus in the foul while memory prevails, The folid pow'r of understanding fails: Where beams of warm imagination play, Thefe obfervations are collected from an intimate knowledge of human nature. The caufe of that languor and heavinefs in the understanding, which is almost infeparable from a very strong and tenacious memory, feems to be a want of the proper exercife and activity of that power; the understanding being rather paffive while the memory is cultivating. As to the other ap |