So modern 'pothecaries, taught the art Nor time nor moths e'er spoiled' so much as they ; Write dull receipts how poems may be made; You then whose judgment the right course would steer, Know well each ancient's proper character; His fable, subject, scope in ev'ry page; 1 The prescription of the physician was formerly called his bill. Johnson, in his Dictionary, quotes from L'Estrange, "The medicine was prepared according to the bill," and Butler, in Hudibras, speaks of him who took the doctor's bill, And swallowed it instead of the pill. The story ran that a physician handed a prescription to his patient, saying, "Take this," and the man immediately swallowed it. 2 This is a quibble. Time and moths spoil books by destroying them. The commentators only spoiled them by explaining them badly. The editors were so far from spoiling books in the same sense as time, that by multiplying copies they assisted to preserve them. 3 Soame and Dryden's Translation of Boileau's Art of Poetry: Keep to each man his proper character; From diffrent climates diff'ring customs The principle here is general. Pope, in terms and in fact, applied it only 110 115 120 to the ancients. Had he extended the precept to modern literature he would have been cured of his delusion that every deviation from the antique type arose from unlettered tastelessness. In the first edition, You may confound, but never criticise, which was an adaptation of a line from Lord Roscommon : You may confound, but never can translate. The author, after this verse, originally inserted the following, which he has however omitted in all the editions: name Zoilus, had these been known, without a To modern customs, modern rules con- Perrault, in his Parallel between the ancients and the moderns, carped at Homer in the same spirit that Zoilus had done of old. Be Homer's works your study and delight, Thence form your judgment, thence your maxims bring, When first young Maro in his boundless mind 1 Horace, Ars Poet., ver. 268: vos exemplaria Græca Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna. Tate and Brady's version of the first psalm: But makes the perfect law of God His business and delight; Devoutly reads therein by day, And meditates by night. -WAKEFIELD. 2 Dryden, Virg. Geor. iv. 408: And upward follow Fame's immortal spring. 3 Lord Roscommon's Essay on Translated Verse: Consult your author with himself compared. 4 The word outlast is improper ; for Virgil, like a true Roman, never dreamt of the mortality of the city.WAKEFIELD. 5 Variation: When first young Maro sung of kings and Cum canerem reges et prælia, Cynthius aurem Vellit. Virg. Ecl. vi. 3. It is a tradition preserved by Servius, that Virgil began with writing a poem of the Alban and Roman affairs, which he found above his years, and descended, first to imitate Theocritus on rural subjects, and afterwards to V 125 150 135 copy Homer in heroic poetry. — POPE. The second line of the couplet in the note was copied, as Mr. Carruthers points out, from Milton's Lycidas: Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears. The couplet in the text, with the variation of "great Maro" for "young Maro," was Pope's original version, but Dennis having asked whether he intended "to put that figure called a bull upon Virgil" by saying that he designed a work "to outlast immortality," the poet wrote in the margin of his manuscript "alter the seeming inconsistency," which he did, by substituting the lines in the note. In the last edition, he reinstated the "bull." The objection of Dennis was hypercritical. The phrase only expresses the double fact that the city was destroyed, and that its fame was durable. The manuscript supplies another various reading, which avoids both the alleged bull in the text, and the bad rhyme of the couplet in the note: When first his voice the youthful Maro tried, Ere Phoebus touched his ear and checked his pride. Convinced, amazed, he checks the bold design: Some beauties yet no precepts can declare, Are nameless graces which no methods teach, Th' intent proposed, that licence is a rule. May boldly deviate from the common track. Concluding all were desp'rate sots and Who durst depart from Aristotle's rules. - The argument of Pope is sophistical and inconsistent. It is inconsistent, because if Virgil found Homer and nature the same, his work would not have been confined within stricter rules when he copied Homer than when he copied nature. It is sophistical, because though Homer may be always natural, all nature is not contained in his works. 5 Rapin's Critical Works, vol. ii. p. 173: "There are no precepts to teach the hidden graces, and all that secret power of poetry which passes to the heart." 6 Neque enim rogationibus plebisve scitis sancta sunt ista præcepta, sed hoc, quicquid est, utilitas excogitavit. Non negabo autem sic utile esse plerumque; verum si eadem illa nobis aliud suadebit utilitas, hanc, relictis magistrorum auctoritatibus, seque Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend,' } In prospects, thus, some objects please our eyes, Against the precept, ne'er transgress its end; mur. Quintil. lib. ii. cap. 13.POPE. 1 Dryden's Aurengzebe: Mean soul, and dar'st not gloriously offend! -STEEVENS. "From 2 This couplet, in the quarto of 1743, was for the first time placed immediately after the triplet which ends at ver. 160. The effect of this arrangement was that "Pegasus," instead of the " great wits," became the antecedent to the lines, vulgar bounds," &c., and the poetic steed was said to "snatch a grace." Warton commented upon the absur dity of using such language of a horse, and since it is evident that Pope must have overlooked the incongruity, when he adopted the transposition, the lines were restored to their original order in the editions of Warton, Bowles, and Roscoe. 3 So Soame and Dryden of the Ode, in the Translation of Boileau's Art of Poetry: Her generous style at random oft will part, And by a brave disorder shows her art. And again : 155 160 4 This allusion is perhaps inaccurate. The shapeless rock, and hanging precipice do not rise out of nature's common order. These objects are characteristic of some of the features of nature, of those especially that are picturesque. If he had said that amid cultivated scenery we are pleased with a hanging rock, the allusion would have been accurate.BOWLES. The criticism of Bowles does not apply to the passage in Sprat's Account of Cowley, from which Pope borrowed his comparison: "He knew that in diverting men's minds there should be the same variety observed as in the prospects of their eyes, where a rock, a precipice, or a rising wave is often more delightful than a smooth even ground, or a calm sea.' " 5 Another couplet originally followed here: But care in poetry must still be had; which is the insanire cum ratione taken from Terence by Horace, at Sat. ii. 3, 271.-WAKEFIELD. 6 Their" means "their own." -WARTON. 7 Dryden in his dedication to the Let it be seldom, and compelled by need; I know there are, to whose presumptuous thoughts Which, but proportioned to their light, or place, Eneis: "Virgil might make this anachronism by superseding the mechanic rules of poetry, for the same reason that a monarch may dispense with or suspend his own laws." 1 Pope's manuscript supplies two omitted lines: The boldest strokes of art we may despise, Viewed in false lights with undiscerning eyes. 2 A violation of grammatical propriety, into which many of our first and most accurate writers have fallen. "Mishapen" is doubtless the true participle.-Wakefield. 3 Pope took his imagery from Horace, Ars Poet., 361: Ut pictura, pocsis erit: quæ, si propiùs Te capiat magis; et quædam, si longiùs He was also indebted to the translation of Boileau's Art of Poetry by Dryden and Soame: Each object must be fixed in the due place, grace. V 165 170 175 180 4 Οἷον τι ποιοῦσιν οἱ φρόνιμοι στρατηλά ται κατὰ τὰς τάξεις τῶν στρατευμάτων. Dion. Hal. De Struct. Orat.-WARBURTON. 5 It may be pertinent to subjoin Roscommon's remark on the same subject: Far the greatest part Of what some call neglect is studied art. To wake your fancy and prepare your sight Variety and contrast are necessary, and it is impossible all parts should be equally excellent. Yet it would be too much to recommend introducing trivial or dull passages to enhance the merit of those in which the whole effort of genius might be employed.— BOWLES. 6 Modeste, et circumspecto judicio de tantis viris pronunciandum est, ne (quod plerisque accidit) damnent quod non intelligunt. Ac si necesse est in alteram errare partem, omnia |