'Tis now our business to show that religious subjects are capable of supplying us with more frequent and stronger enthusiasms than the profane. And in order to the clearing this, let us inquire what poetical enthusiasm s. Poetical enthusiasm is a passion guided by judgement, whose cause is not comprehended by us. That it is a passion is plain, because it moves. That the cause is not comprehended is self-evident. That it ought to be guided by judgement is indubitable. For otherwise it would be madness, and not poetical passion. But now let us inquire what the cause of poetical enthusiasm is, that has been hitherto not comprehended by us. That enthusiasm moves, is plain to sense; why, then, it moved the writer but if it moved the writer, it moved him while he was thinking. Now what can move a man while he is thinking but the thoughts that are in his mind? In short, enthusiasm as well as ordinary passions must proceed from the thoughts, as the passions of all reasonable creatures must certainly do; but the reason why we know not the causes of enthusiastic as well as of ordinary passions, is because we are not so used to them, and because they proceed from thoughts, that latently and unobserved by us carry passion along with them. Here it would be no hard matter to prove that most of our thoughts are naturally attended with some sort and some degree of passion. And 'tis the expression of this passion which gives us so much pleasure, both in conversation and in human authors. For I appeal to any man who is not altogether a philosopher, whether he is not most pleased with conversation and books that are spirited. Now how can this spirit please him, but because it moves him, or what can move him but

passion? We never speak for so much as a minute together without different inflexions of voice. Now any one will find upon reflection that these variations and those inflexions mark our different passions. But all this passes unregarded by us, by reason of long use, and the incredible celerity of our thoughts, whose motion is so swift that it is even to ourselves imperceptible; unless we come to reflect, and every one will not be at the trouble of that. Now these passions, when they grow strong, I call enthusiastic motions, and the stronger they are the greater the enthusiasm must be. If any one asks what sort of passions these are, that thus unknown to us flow from these thoughts, to him I answer, that the same sort of passions flow from the thoughts that would do from the things of which those thoughts are ideas. As for example, if the thing that we think of is great, why, then, admiration attends the idea of it; and if it is very great, amazement. If the thing is pleasing and delightful, why then joy and gaiety flow from the idea of it; if it is sad, melancholy; if it is mischievous and powerful, then the imagination of it is attended with terror; and if 'tis both great and likely to do hurt and powerful, why then the thought of it is at once accompanied with wonder, terror, and astonishment. Add to all this that the mind producing these thoughts conceives by reflection a certain pride and joy and admiration, as at the conscious view of its own excellence.

Now he who strictly examines the enthusiasm that is to be met with in the greater poetry will find that it is nothing but the fore-mentioned passions, either simple or complicated, proceeding from the thoughts from which they naturally flow, as being the thoughts or images of things that

carry those passions along with them, as we shall show by examples in the following chapter.

But these passions that attend upon our thoughts are seldom so strong as they are in those kind of thoughts which we call images. For they, being the very lively pictures of the things which they represent, set them, as it were, before our very eyes. But images are never so admirably drawn as when they are drawn in motion; especially if the motion is violent. For the mind can never imagine violent motion without being in a violent agitation itself; and the imagination being fired with that agitation sets the very things before our eyes, and consequently makes us have the same passions that we should have from the things themselves. For the warmer the imagination is, the more present the things are to us of which we draw the images; and, therefore, when once the imagination is so inflamed as to get the better of the understanding, there is no difference between the images and the things themselves; as we see, for example, in fears and madmen.

Thus have we shown that enthusiasm flows from the thoughts, and consequently from the subject from which the thoughts proceed. For, as the spirit in poetry is to be proportioned to the thought-for otherwise it does not naturally flow from it, and consequently is not guided by judgement so the thought is to be proportioned to the subject. Now no subject is so capable of supplying us with thoughts that necessarily produce these great and strong enthusiasms as a religious subject for all which is great in religion is most exalted and amazing, all that is joyful is transporting, all that is sad is dismal, and all that is terrible is astonishing.

ALEXANDER POPE

AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM

[1711]

I

'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 judgements 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.
Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true,
But are not critics to their judgement too?
Yet if we look more closely, we shall find
Most have the seeds of judgement in their mind;
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 trac'd,
Is by ill colouring but the more disgrac'd,
So by false learning is good sense defac'd': L

L

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,
Or with a rival's or a eunuch's spite.
All fools have still an itching to deride,
And fain would be upon the laughing side.
If Maevius scribble in Apollo's spite,

There are who judge still worse than he can write.
Some have at first for wits, then poets passed,
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, num'rous in our isle,
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 'em would a hundred tongues require,
Or one vain wit's, that might a hundred tire.
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,
And mark that point where sense and dullness 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;
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;
So vast is art, so narrow human wit :