But following wits from that intention ftray'd, 104 By Doctors' bills to play the Doctor's part, ΠΙΘ Some NOTES. "Momus fearing the worft, and calling to mind an ancient prophecy, which bore no very good face to his children the moderns, bent his flight to the region of a malignant deity, called Criticism. She dwelt on the top of a fnowy mountain in Nova Zembla; there Momus found her extended in her den, upon the spoils of numberless volumes half devoured. At her right hand fat Ignorance, her father and husband, blind with age; at her left, Pride, her mother, dreffing her up in the scraps of paper herself had torn. There, was Opinion, her fister, light of foot, hoodwinked, and headstrong, yet giddy and perpetually turning. About her played her children, Noife and Impudence, Dulnefs and Vanity, Pofitiveness, Pedantry, and Ill-manners. The goddefs herself had claws like a cat; her head, and ears, and voice, resembled those of an afs; her teeth fallen out before; her eyes turned inward, as if fhe looked only upon herself; her diet was the overflowing of her own gall; her fpleen was so large, as to ftand prominent like a dug of the first rate, nor wanted excrescences in form of teats, at which a crew of ugly monsters were greedily fucking; and, what is wonderful to conceive, the bulk of fpleen encreased faster than the fucking could diminish it.” Tale of a Tub, p. 200. WARTON. VER. 112. Some on the leaves] He has too frequently expressed an idle contempt of the Heinfius's, Burmans, Gronovius's, Reifkius's, Write dull receipts how poems may be made. 115 You then whofe judgment the right courfe would fteer, Know well each ANCIENT's proper character; COMMENTARY. His VER. 118. You then whose judgment, &c.] He comes next to the ancient Poets, the other and more intimate commentators of Nature; and fhews [from ver. 117 to 141.] that the ftudy of thefe muft indifpenfibly follow that of the ancient Critics, as they furnish NOTES. Reifkius's, Marklands, and Gefners; and other fearchers into various readings, who have done fo much towards fettling the texts of ancient authors. WARTON. VER. 115. Write dull] Perhaps he glanced at Boffu's famous Treatife on Epic Poetry; which may have been too much praised. D'Aubignac, under the patronage of Richlieu, wrote a treatise on the drama; and Mambrun on the epopée; but the tragedy of the one, and the Conftantine, an epic poem, of the other, were defpicable performances, which induced the great Condé to fay, Je fais bon gré, à l'Abbé D'Aubignac d'avoir fuivi les règles d'Ariftote, mais je ne pardonne pas aux règles d'Ariftote d'avoir fait faire une fi mauvaise tragedie à l'Abbé D'Aubignac." WARTON. VER. 119. Know well each ANCIENT's proper character ;] When Perault impotently attempted to ridicule the firft ftanza of the firft Olympic of Pindar, he was ignorant that the poet, in beginning with the praises of water, alluded to the philofophy of Thales, who taught, that water was the principle of all things; and which philofophy, Empedocles the Sicilian, a cotemporary of Pindar, and a fubject of Hiero, to whom Pindar wrote, had adopted in his beautiful poem. Homer and the Greek tragedians His Fable, Subject, fcope in ev'ry page; 120 Religion, Country, genius of his Age: Without COMMENTARY. furnish us with what the Critics, who only give us general Rules, cannot fupply; while the study of a great original Poet, in "His Fable, Subject, fcope in ev'ry page; "Religion, Country, genius of his Age," will help us to those particular Rules which only can conduct us fafely through every confiderable work we undertake to examine; and, without which, we may cavil indeed, as the Poet truly obferves, but can never criticize. WARBURTON. NOTES. have been likewife cenfured, the former for protracting the Iliad after the death of Hector; and the latter, for continuing the Ajax and Phoeniffe, after the deaths of their refpective heroes. But the cenfurers did not confider the importance of burial among the ancients; and that the action of the Iliad would have been imperfect without a description of the funeral rites of Hector and Patroclus; as the two tragedies, without those of Polynices and Eteocles; for the ancients efteemed a deprivation of fepulture to be a more fevere calamity than death itself. It is obfervable, that this circumstance did not occur to Pope, when he endeavoured to justify this conduct of Homer, by only faying, that as the anger of Achilles does not die with Hector, but. perfecutes his very remains, the poet ftill keeps up to his fubject, by defcribing the many effects of his anger, till it is fully satisfied; and that for this reason, the two laft books of the Iliad may be thought not to be excrefcences, but effential to the poem. I will only add, that I do not know an author whose capital excellence suffers more from the reader's not regarding his climate and country, than the incomparable Cervantes. WARTON. Dr. Warton concludes that, to have a perfect relish for Cervantes, we ought to bear in mind, "that madness is a common diforder in Spain, at a certain time of life;" and he quotes Thuanus, who V Without all thefe at once before your eyes, Be Homer's works your study and delight, 125 Read them by day, and meditate by night; your And trace the Mufes upward to their spring. 128 When VARIATIONS. I VER. 123. Cavil you may, but never criticize.] The author after this verfe originally inferted the following, which he has however omitted in all the editions: Zoilus, had these been known, without a Name Had dy'd, and Perault ne'er been damn'd to fame; None e'er had thought his comprehenfive mind NOTES. POPE. who has these words: "Sur la fin de fes jours il devint furieux comme font d'ordinaire les Espagnols !" Surely the candid Critic and the venerable Hiftorian here go too far. VER. 128. Still with itself compar'd, &c.] Although perhaps it may feem impoffible to produce any new obfervations on Homer and Virgil, after so many volumes of criticism as have been spent upon them, yet the following remarks have a novelty and penetration in them that may entertain; especially, as the little treatife from which they are taken is extremely scarce. "Quæ variæ inter fe notæ atque imagines animorum, a principibus utriufque populi poetis, Homero et Virgilio, mirificè expri When first young Maro in his boundless mind A work t' outlaft immortal Rome deign'd, VARIATIONS. 131 Perhaps VER. 130.] When first young Maro fung of Kings and Wars, NOTES. muntur. Siquidem Homeri duces et reges rapacitate, libidine, atque anilibus queftibus, lacrymifque puerilibus, Græcam levitatem et inconftantiam referunt. Virgiliani vero principes, ab eximio poeta, qui Romanæ ferveritatis faftidium, et Latinum supercilium verebatur, et ad heroum populum loquebatur, ita componuntur ad majeftatem confularem ut quamvis ab Afiatica mollitie luxuque venerint, inter Furios atque Claudios nati educatique videantur. Neque fuam, ullo actu, Eneas originem prodidiffet, nifi, a præfactiore aliquanto pietate, fudiffet crebro copiam lacrymarum. Qua meliorem expreffione morum hac ætate, non modo Virgilius Latinorum poetarum princeps, fed quivis inflatiffimus vernaculorum, Homero præfertur: cum hic animos proceribus indurit fuos, ille vero alienos. Quamobrem varietas morum, qui carmine reddebantur, et hominum ad quos ea dirigebantur, inter Latinam Græcamque poëfin, non inventionis tantum attulit, fed et elocutionis difcrimen illud, quod præcipue inter Homerum et Virgilium deprehenditur; cum fententias et or namenta quæ Homerus fparferat, Virgilius, Romanarum aurium caufa, contraxerit ; atque ad mores et ingenia retulerit eorum, qui a poëfi non petebant publicam aut privatam inftitutionem, quam ipfi Marte fuo invenerant; fed tantum delectionem *" Blackwell, in his excellent Enquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer, has taken many obfervations from this valuable book, particularly in his twelfth fection. WARTON. VER. 30. When firft young Maro, S.] Virg. Eclog. vi. "Cum canerem reges et prælia, Cynthius aurem Vellit." It * J. Vincentii Gravina de Poefi, ad S. Maffeinno Epift. added to his treatife intitled Della Ragion Poetica. In Napoli, 17:6, page 239. 250. |