’T IS hard to say if greater want of skill | |
| Appear in writing or in judging ill; | |
| But of the two less dangerous is th’ offence | |
| To tire our patience than mislead our sense: | |
| Some few in that, but numbers err in this; | 5 |
| Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss; | |
| A fool might once himself alone expose; | |
| Now one in verse makes many more in prose. | |
| ’T is with our judgments as our watches, none | |
| Go just alike, yet each believes his own. | 10 |
| In Poets as true Genius is but rare, | |
| True Taste as seldom is the Critic’s share; | |
| Both must alike from Heav’n derive their light, | |
| These born to judge, as well as those to write. | |
| Let such teach others who themselves excel, | 15 |
| And censure freely who have written well; | |
| Authors are partial to their wit, ’t is true, | |
| But are not Critics to their judgment too? | |
| Yet if we look more closely, we shall find | |
| Most have the seeds of judgment in their mind: | 20 |
| Nature affords at least a glimm’ring light; | |
| The lines, tho’ touch’d but faintly, are drawn right: | |
| But as the slightest sketch, if justly traced, | |
| Is by ill col’ring but the more disgraced, | |
| So by false learning is good sense defaced: | 25 |
| 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, | 30 |
| 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. | 35 |
| Some have at first for Wits, then Poets pass’d; | |
| Turn’d Critics next, and prov’d plain Fools at last. | |
| 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, | 40 |
| As half-form’d insects on the banks of Nile; | |
| 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. | 45 |
| But you who seek to give and merit fame, | |
| And justly bear a Critic’s noble name, | |
| 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, | 50 |
| 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; | 55 |
| 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; | 60 |
| So vast is Art, so narrow human wit: | |
| Not only bounded to peculiar arts, | |
| But oft in those confin’d to single parts. | |
| Like Kings we lose the conquests gain’d before, | |
| By vain ambition still to make them more: | 65 |
| Each might his sev’ral 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, | 70 |
| 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. | 75 |
| 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. | |
| Some, to whom Heav’n in wit has been profuse, | 80 |
| Want as much more to turn it to its use; | |
| For Wit and Judgment often are at strife, | |
| Tho’ meant each other’s aid, like man and wife. | |
| ’T is more to guide than spur the Muse’s steed, | |
| Restrain his fury than provoke his speed: | 85 |
| The winged courser, like a gen’rous 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 | 90 |
| 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, | |
| And pointed out those arduous paths they trod; | 95 |
| Held from afar, aloft, th’ immortal prize, | |
| And urged the rest by equal steps to rise. | |
| Just precepts thus from great examples giv’n, | |
| She drew from them what they derived from Heav’n. | |
| The gen’rous Critic fann’d the poet’s fire, | 100 |
| And taught the world with reason to admire. | |
| Then Criticism the Muse’s handmaid prov’d, | |
| To dress her charms, and make her more belov’d: | |
| But following Wits from that intention stray’d: | |
| Who could not win the mistress woo’d the maid; | 105 |
| Against the Poets their own arms they turn’d, | |
| 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, | 110 |
| 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; | 115 |
| 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 ancient’s proper character; | |
| His fable, subject, scope in every page; | 120 |
| Religion, country, genius of his age: | |
| Without all these at once before your eyes, | |
| Cavil you may, but never criticise. | |
| Be Homer’s works your study and delight, | |
| Read them by day, and meditate by night; | 125 |
| 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 | 130 |
| A work t’ 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 t’ examine ev’ry part he came, | |
| Nature and Homer were, he found, the same. | 135 |
| 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. | 140 |
| Some beauties yet no precepts can declare, | |
| For there ’s a happiness as well as care. | |
| Music resembles poetry; in each | |
| Are nameless graces which no methods teach, | |
| And which a master-hand alone can reach. | 145 |
| If, where the rules not far enough extend, | |
| (Since rules were made but to promote their end) | |
| Some lucky license answer to the full | |
| Th’ intent proposed, that license is a rule. | |
| Thus Pegasus, a nearer way to take, | 150 |
| 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, | |
| And snatch a grace beyond the reach of Art, | 155 |
| Which, without passing thro’ the judgment, gains | |
| The heart, and all its end at once attains. | |
| In prospects thus some objects please our eyes, | |
| Which out of Nature’s common order rise, | |
| The shapeless rock, or hanging precipice. | 160 |
| But tho’ 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; | 165 |
| 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, ev’n in them, seem faults. | 170 |
| Some figures monstrous and misshaped appear, | |
| Consider’d singly, or beheld too near, | |
| Which, but proportion’d to their light or place, | |
| Due distance reconciles to form and grace. | |
| A prudent chief not always must display | 175 |
| His powers in equal ranks and fair array, | |
| But with th’ occasion and the place comply, | |
| Conceal his force, nay, seem sometimes to fly. | |
| Those oft are stratagems which errors seem, | |
| Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream. | 180 |
| Still green with bays each ancient altar stands | |
| Above the reach of sacrilegious hands, | |
| Secure from flames, from Envy’s fiercer rage, | |
| Destructive war, and all-involving Age. | |
| See from each clime the learn’d their incense bring! | 185 |
| Hear in all tongues consenting pæans ring! | |
| In praise so just let ev’ry voice be join’d, | |
| And fill the gen’ral chorus of mankind. | |
| Hail, Bards triumphant! born in happier days, | |
| Immortal heirs of universal praise! | 190 |
| Whose honours 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! | |
| O may some spark of your celestial fire | 195 |
| 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, | |
| T’ admire superior sense, and doubt their own. | 200 |
| |
