of the kind; but that God and Nature only are exempted from the infirmities of change. This might mislead many readers; but the second line must do so for who would not understand the syntax to be, that the judgment, as it exists in man, shoots at flying game? But, in fact, the meaning is, that the judgment in aiming its calculations at man, aims at an object that is still on the wing, and never for a moment stationary." This, De Quincey contends, is the worst of all possible faults in diction, since perspicuity, ungrammatical and inelegant, is preferable to conundrums of which the solution is difficult, and often doubtful. He says that there are endless varieties of the vice in Pope, and that " he sought relief for himself from half an hour's labour at the price of utter darkness to his reader." De Quincey was in error when he imputed the imperfections to indolence. There never was a more painstaking poet than Pope. His works were slowly elaborated, and diligently revised. "I corrected," he says, "because it was as pleasant to me to correct as to write," and his manuscripts attest his untiring efforts to mend his composition. Language and not industry failed him. Happy in a multitude of phrases, lines, couplets, and passages, his vocabulary and turns of expression were often unequal to the exactions of verse. Not even rhymes, dearly purchased by violations of grammar and a false order of words, nor the imperfection of the rhymes themselves, could always enable him to satisfy the double requirement of metre and clearness. Most of his usual deviations from correctness are especially prominent in the Essay on Criticism, and any one who reads it with common attention might be tempted to think that the claim which Warton and others set up for Pope, was an insidious device to injure his reputation by diverting attention from his merits, and basing his fame upon a foundation too unstable to support it. The advice of Walsh was foolish. A poet who believed originality to be exhausted, and who merely aspired to echo his predecessors, with no distinguishing quality of his own beyond some additional correctness, might have spared his pains. The correct imitator would be intolerable by the side of the fresh and vigorous genius he copied. The assumption that the domain of poetic thought had been traversed in every direction, and that no untrodden paths were left for future explorers, was itself a delusion, soon to be refuted by Pope's own Rape of the Lock. Many immortal works have since belied the shallow doctrine of Walsh, who made his dim perceptions the measure of intellectual possibilities. The aspects under which the world, animate and inanimate, may be regarded by the poet are practically endless. The latent truths of science do not offer to the philosopher a more unbounded field of novelty.

1 De Quincey's Works, vol. viii. p. 15-17.

2 Pope's Poetical Works, ed. Elwin, vol. i. p. 7.

CONTENTS.

PART I.

INTRODUCTION: That it is as great a fault to judge ill, as to write ill, and a more dangerous one to the public, ver. 1-That a true taste is as rare to be found as a true genius, ver. 9 to 18-That most men are born with some taste, but spoiled by false education, ver. 19 to 25-The multitude of critics, and causes of them, ver. 26 to 45-That we are to study our own taste, and know the limits of it, ver. 46 to 67-Nature the best guide of judgment, ver. 68 to 87-Improved by art and rules, which are but methodised nature, ver. 88-Rules derived from the practice of the ancient poets, ver. 88 to 110-That therefore the ancients are necessary to be studied by a critic, particularly Homer and Virgil, ver. 120 to 138Of licenses, and the use of them by the ancients, ver. 142 to 180-Reverence due to the ancients, and praise of them, ver. 181, &c.

PART II. VER. 201, &c.

Causes hindering a true judgment-1. Pride, ver. 208-2. Imperfect learning, ver. 215-3. Judging by parts, and not by the whole, ver. 233 to 288Critics in wit, language, versification, only, ver. 288, 305, 339, &c.4. Being too hard to please, or too apt to admire, ver. 384-5. Partiality, too much love to a sect, to the ancients or moderns, ver. 394-6. Prejudice or prevention, ver. 408-7. Singularity, ver. 424-8. Inconstancy, ver. 430-9. Party spirit, ver. 452, &c.-10. Envy, ver. 466-Against envy and in praise of good nature, ver. 508, &c.-When severity is chiefly to be used by critics, ver. 526, &c.

PART III. VER. 560, &c.

Rules for the conduct of manners in a critic-1. Candour, ver. 563-Modesty, ver. 566-Good breeding, ver. 572-Sincerity and freedom of advice, ver. 578. 2. When one's counsel is to be restrained, ver. 584-Character of an incorrigible poet, ver. 600-And of an impertinent critic, ver. 610Character of a good critic, ver. 629-The history of criticism, and characters of the best critics, Aristotle, ver. 645-Horace, ver. 653-Dionysius, ver. 665-Petronius, ver. 667-Quintilian, ver. 670-Longinus, ver. 675-Of the decay of criticism, and its revival. Erasmus, ver. 693Vida, ver. 705-Boileau, ver. 714-Lord Roscommon, &c. ver. 725Conclusion.

ESSAY

AN

ON CRITICISM.

'Tis hard to say, if greater want of skill
Appear in writing or in judging ill;
But, of the two, less dang'rous is th' offence.
To tire our patience, than mislead our sense.
Some few in that, but numbers err in this,
Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss;
A fool might once himself alone expose,
Now one in verse makes many more in prose.'

'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.
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,
And censure freely, who have written well.3

1 Dryden's Epilogue to All for Love :

This difference grows, Betwixt our fools in verse, and yours in prose.

2 An extravagant assertion. Those who can appreciate, are beyond comparison more numerous than those who can produce, a work of genius.

3 Qui scribit artificiose, ab aliis commode scripta facile intelligere proterit. Cic. ad Herenn. lib. iv. De pictore, sculptore, fictore, nisi artifex, judicare non potest. Pliny.--POPE.

VOL. II.-POETRY.

10

15

Poets and painters must appeal to the world at large. Wretched indeed would be their fate, if their merits were to be decided only by their rivals. It is on the general opinion of persons of taste that their individual estimation must ultimately rest, and if the public were excluded from judging, poets might write and painters paint for each other. ROSCOE.

The execution of a work and the appreciation of it when executed are separate operations, and all experience

D

Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis 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:1
Nature affords at least a glimm'ring light,

The lines, though touched but faintly, are drawn right;
But as the slightest sketch, if justly traced,
Is by ill-colouring but the more disgraced,❜
So by false learning is good sense defaced:"
Some are bewildered 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 :"

has shown that numbers pronounce
justly upon literature, architecture,
and pictures, though they may not
be able to write like Shakespeare,
design like Wren, or paint like Rey-
nolds. Taste is acquired by studying
good models as well as by emulating
them. Pope, perhaps, copied Addi-

son,
Tatler, Oct. 19, 1710: "It is
ridiculous for any man to criticise on
the works of another who has not
distinguished himself by his own per-
formances."

1 Omnes tacito quodam sensu, sine ulla arte aut ratione, quæ sint in artibus ac rationibus, recta et prava dijudicant. Cic. de Orat. lib. iii.POPE.

Tutors, like virtuosos, oft inclined [mind,
By strange transfusion to improve the
Draw off the sense we have, to pour in new;
Which yet, with all their skill, they ne'er
could do.-POPE.

The transfusion spoken of in the fourth verse of this variation is the transfusion of one animal's blood into another.-WAKEFIELD.

5 "Nature," it is said in the Spectator, No. 404, "has sometimes made a fool, but a coxcomb is always of a man's own making, by applying his talents otherwise than nature designed." The idea is expressed more happily by Dryden in his Hind and Panther:

For fools are doubly fools endeav'ring to be wise.

Pope contradicts himself when he says in the text that the men made coxcombs by study were meant by nature but for fools, since they are among his instances of persons upon whom nature had bestowed the "seeds of judgment," and who possessed " till it was "good sense "defaced by false learning."

6 Dryden's Medal:

The wretch turned loyal in his own de

fence.