550 Pulpits their facred fatire learn'd to spare, Will needs mistake an author into vice; LEARN then what MORALS Critics ought to show, Be filent always, when you doubt your fenfe; 'Tis not enough your counfel ftill be true; 565 570 Blunt truths more mischief than nice falfehoods do; That only makes fuperior fenfe belov'd. Be niggards of advice on no pretence ; For the worst avarice is that of fenfe. With mean complacence ne'er betray your truft, 580 Nor be fo civil as to prove unjust. Fear not the anger of the wife to raise; Those best can bear reproof, who merit praise. 'Twere well might Critics ftill this freedom take, Such, without wit, are Poets when they please, 585 590 Whom, when they praife, the world believes no more, Than when they promife to give fcribbling o'er. 595 'Tis beft fometimes your cenfure to restrain, And charitably let the dull be vain: Your filence there is better than your fpite, For who can rail fo long as they can write? Still humming on, their drowzy course they keep, 6c0 Ev'n to the dregs and fqueezings of the brain, 605 Such fhameless Bards we have: and yet 'tis true, 610 There are as mad, abandon'd Critics too. The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head. VER. 586. And flares, tremendous, etc.] This picture was taken to himself by John Dennis, a furious old critic by profeffion, who, upon no other provocation, wrote against this Effay, and its author, in a manner perfectly lunatic: For, as to the mention' made of him in ver. 270. he took it as a compliment, and faid it was trea cherously meant to cause him to overlook this Abufe of his Perfon. 615 With his own tongue ftill edifies his ears, 620 625 Name a new Play, and he's the Poet's friend, But where's the man, who counsel can bestow, Not dully prepoffefs'd, nor blindly right; } 630 Tho' learn'd, well-bred; and tho' well-bred, fincere; Modeftly bold, and humanly fevere: 636 VER. 619. Garth did not write, etc.] A common flander at that time in prejudice of that deferving author. Our Poet did him this juftice, when that flander moft prevailed; and it is now (perhaps the fooner for this very verfe) dead and forgotten. VER. 631. But where's the man, etc.] He anfwers, That he was to be found in the happier ages of Greece and Rome; in the perfons of Ariftotle and Horace, Dionyfius and Petronius, Quintilian VARIATIONS. VER. 623. Between this and ver. 624. In vain you shrug and sweat, and strive to fly: They'll ftop a hungry Chaplain in his grace, Who to a friend his faults can freely show, Such once were Critics; fuch the happy few, The mighty Stagyrite firft left the shore, Spread all his fails, and durft the deeps explore; Led by the Light of the Mæonian Star. 640 645 and Longinus. Whofe characters he has not only exactly drawn, but contrafted them with a peculiar elegance; the profound science and logical method of Ariftotle being oppofed to the plain common fenfe of Horace, conveyed in a natural and familiar negligence; the fudy and refinement of Dionyfius, to the gay and courtly ease of Petronius; and the gravity and minuteness of Quintilian, to the vivacity and general topics of Longinus. Nor has the Poet been lefs careful, in thefe examples, to point out their eminence in the several critical Virtues he fo carefully inculcated in his precepts. Thus, in Horace, he particularizes his Candour; in Petronius, his Good-Breeding; in Quintilian, his free and copious Inftruction: and in Longinus, his great and noble Spirit. By this queftion and answer, we fee, he does not encourage us to fearch for the true Critic amongst modern writers. And indeed the difcovery of him, if it could be made, would be but an invidious bufinefs. I will venture no farther, than to name the piece of Criticism in which these marks may be found. It is intitled, 2. Hor. Fl. Ars Poetica, et ejusd. Ep. ad Aug. with an English Commentary and Notes. 4 VER. 642. with REASON on his fide ?] Not only on his fide, but actually exercifed in the fervice of his profeffion. That Critic makes but a mean figure, who, when he has found out the excellencies of his author, contents himself in offering them to the world, with only empty exclamations on their beauties. His office is to explain the nature of those beauties, fhew from whence they arife, and what effects they produce; or, in the better and fuller expreffion of the Poet, To teach the world with reafon to admire. Poets, a race long unconfin'd, and free, Receiv'd his laws; and stood convinced 'twas fit, Yet judg'd with coolnefs, tho' he fung with fire; 650 They judge with fury, but they write with flegm: 655 660 VER. 652. Who conquer'd Nature, fhould prefide o'er Wit.] By this is not meant phyfical Nature, but moral. The force of the obfervation confifts in our understanding it in this fenfe. For the Poet not only uses the word Nature for buman nature, throughout this poem; but alfo where, in the beginning of it, he lays down the principles of the arts he treats of, he makes the knowledge of buman nature the foundation of all Criticism and Poetry. Nor is the obfervation lefs true than appofite. For, Ariftot le's natural enquiries were fuperficial and ill-made, though extenfive: But his logical and moral works are incomparable. In thefe he has unfolded the human mind, and laid open all the receffes of heart and understanding; and by his Categories not only conquered Nature, but kept her in tenfold chains: Not as Dulness kept the Muses, in the Dunciad, to filence them; but as Arifiœus held Proteus in Virgil, to deliver Oracles. VARIATIONS. Between ver. 646 and 649, I found the following lines, fince fuppreffed by the Author.. That bold Columbus of the realms of wit, Like his great Pupil, figh'd, and long'd for more: A boundless empire, and that own'd no sway. OTH |