Be fure yourself and your own reach to know, Launch not beyond your depth, but be discreet, so And wifely curb'd proud man's pretending wit. COMMENTARY. 55 AND MARK THAT POINT WHERE SENSE AND DULNES MEET. He had fhewn above, that Judgment, without Taste or Génius, is equally incapable of making a Critic or a Poet: In whatsoever fubject then the Critic's, Taste no longer accompanies his Judgment, there he may be affured he is going out of his depth. This our Author finely calls, that point where fenfe and dulnefs meet. And immediately adds the REASON of his precept; the Author of Nature having fo conftituted the mental faculties, that one of them can never exccel,but at the expence of another. From this ftate and ordination of the mental faculties, and the influence and effects they have one on another, our Poet draws this CONSE QUENCE, that no one genius can excell in more than one Art of Science. The confequence fhews the neceffity of the precept, juft as the premises, from which the confequence is drawn, fhew the reasonableness of it. NOTES. VER. 51. And mark that point where fenfe and dulness meet.) Befides the peculiar fenfe explained above in the comment, the words have ftill a more general meaning, and caution us against going on, when our Ideas begin to grow obfcure: as we are apt to do, tho' that obfcurity is a monition that we fqould leave off; for it arifes either thro' our fmall acquaintance with the fubjact, or the incomprehenfibility of its nature. In which circumstances a genius will always write as heavily as a dunce. An obfervation well worth the attention of all profound writers. Thus in the foul while memory prevails, Like Kings we lose the conquefts gain'd before, 60 65 NOTES. VER. 56 to 60. Thefe obfervations are collected from an incimate knowledge of human nature. The cause of that languor and heaviness in the understanding, which is almoft infeparable from a very strong and tenacious memory, feems to be a want of the proper exercise and activity of that power; the understanding bieng rather paffive, while the memory is cultivating. As to the other appearance, the decay of memory by the vigourus exercise of Fancy, the poer himself feems to have intimated the cause of in the epither he has given to the imagination. For if, according to the Atomic Philofophy, the memory of things be preserved in a chain of ideas, produced by the animal fpirits moving in con tinued trains; the force and rapidity of the imagination perpetually binaking and diffipating the links of this chain by forming new affociations, muft neceffarily weahen and diforder the recollective faculty. The VER. 67. Womid all bat floop to what they understand.) expreffion is delicate, and implies what is very true, that most men think it a degradation of their genius to employ it in cultivating what lies level to their comprehenfion, but had rather exercife their talents in the ambition of subduing what is placed above it. Firft follow Nature, and your judgment frame By her juft ftandard, which is ftill the fame: COMMENTARY. VER. 68. First follow nature etc.) The Critic obferving the directions here given, and finding himself qualified for his office, is fhewn next how to exercise it. And as he was to attend to Nature for a Call, fo he is first and principally to follow her when called. And here again in this, as in the foregoing precept, the poet (from v67 to 88) fhews both the fitness and the neceffity of it. It's fitness. 1. Because Nature is the fource of poetic Art; that Art being only a representation of Nature, who is its great exemplar and original. 2. Because nature is the end of Art; the defign of poetry being to convey the knowedge of Nature in the most agreable manner. 3. Because Nature is the test of Art, as fhe is unerring, conftant, and ftill the fame. Hence the poet obferves, that as Nature is the fource, fhe conveys life to Art: As fhe is the end, fhe conveys force to it, for the force of any thing arifes from its being directed to its end: And, as she is the test, fhe conveys beauty to it, for every thing acquires beauty by its being reduced to its true standard. Such is the sense of thofe two important lines, Life, force, and beauty must to all impart, At once the fource, and end, and teft of Art, We come next to the neceffity of the precept. The two great con ftituent qualities of a Compofition, as fuch, are Art and Wit: But neither of these attains perfection, 'till the first be hid, and the other judicioufly restrained; this only happens when Nature is exactly followed; for then Art never makes a parade, nor can wis commit an extravagance. Art, while it adheres to Nature, and has fo large a fund in the refources which Nature fupplies, difpofes every thing with fo much eafe and fimplicity, that we fee nothing but those natural images it works with, while itself stands une obferv'd behind: But when Art leaves Nature, mifled either by the bold fallies of fancy, or the quaint odnesses of fashion, she is then obliged at every step to come forward, in a painful or pompous oftentation, in order to cover, to foften, or to regulate the fhocking disproportion of unnatural images. In the first cafe, the poet compares Art to the foul within, informing a beauteous Body; but, in the last, it is rather like an outward habit, fitted Unerring NATURE, still divinely bright, 70 76 Some, to whon Heay'n in wit has been profufe, 80 Tho' meant each other's aid, like man and wife. 85 The winged courfer, like a gen'rous horse, VER. 80. VARIATIONS. There are whom Heav'n has bleft with ftore of wit, COMMENTARY. only to hide the defects of a mis-fhapen 'one. might perhaps be imagined that this needed only Judgment to go. vern it: But, as he well obferves. wit and Judgment often are at ftrife, Tho' meant each other's aid, like Man and wife, They want there fore fome friendly Mediator or Reconciler, which is Nature: And in attending to her, to comply with the charms of Wit, fage directions of Judgment. Judgment will learn where and Wit how to obey the Thofe RULES of old discover'd, not devis'd, Are Nature ftill, but Nature methodiz'd; Nature, like Liberty, is but reftrain'd 90 By the fame Laws which firft herself ordain'd. COMMENTARY. VER. 88. Those rules of old, etc.) Having thus in his first precept, to fallow Nature, fettled Criticism on its true bottom; he proceeds to fhew what affiftance may be had from Art. But left this fhould be thought to draw the Critic from the foundation where he had before fixed him, he previoufly obferves (from v 87 to 92.) that thefe Rules of Art, which he is now about to recommend to his study, were not invented by the mind, but difcoverd in the book of Nature; and that, therefore, tho' they may feem to restrain Nature by Laws, yet, as they are Laws of her own making, the Critic is ftill properly in the very liberty of Nature. Thefe Rules the ancient Critics borrowed from the Poets, who received them immediately from Nature, Just precepts thus from great Examples giv'n Thefe drew from them what they deriv'd from Heav'n; and are both therefore to be well ftudied. VER. 92. Hear how learn'd Greece, ett.) He speaks of the ancient Critics first, and with great judgment, as the previous knowledge of them is neceffary for reading the Poets, with that fruic NOTES. VER. 88. Those Rules of old, etc.) Cicero has, beft of any one I know, explained what that is which reduces the wild and fcattered parts of human knowledge into arts. — "Nihil eft quod ,,ad artem redigi poffit, nifi ille prius, qui illa tener, quorum ar,,tem inftituere vult, habeat illam fcientiam, ut ex iis rebus, qua,,rum ars nondum fit, artem efficere poffit. Omnia fere, quæ ,,funt conclufa nunc artibus, difperfa et diffipata quondam fuerunt, ,,ut in Muficis, etc. Adhibita cft igitur ars quædam extrinfecus ,,ex alio genere quodam, quod fibi totum PHILOSOPHI affu„munt, quæ rem diffolutam divulfamque conglutinaret, es ratione ,,quadam conftringeret,,, De Orat. 1. i. t. 41, 2. VOL. I. G |