reckons falfe learning, false reasoning, falfe wit, and falfe politeness: on which he farther expatiates in the fecond part. Against falfe wit, which is the most frequent caufe of a perverfion of judgment, he is particularly fevere.

"Some have at first for Wits, then Poets paft, "Turn'd Critics next, and prov'd plain fools "at laft.

Some neither can for Wits nor Critics pafs, "As heavy mules are neither horse nor ass. "Those half-learn'd witlings, num'rous in ❝our isle,

"As half-form'd infects on the banks of Nile; "Unfinish'd things, one knows not what to call, "Their generation's fo equivocal."

Nothing can be more keen and farcaftic than thefe lines, in which the images are most happily chofen to heighten the fatire.

He next proceeds to deliver the precepts of criticism, recommending it to the critic in the first place to examine his own ftrength nature he observes has fet fixed limits to the human faculties-The lines by which he expreffes this sentiment are incomparable.

"Nature to all things fix'd the limits fit, “And wifely curb'd proud man's pretending

" wit.

"As on the land while here the ocean gains, "In other parts it leaves wide fandy plains;

"Thus

"Thus in the foul while memory prevails,
"The folid pow'r of understanding fails;
"Where beams of warm imagination play,
"The memory's foft figures melt away.
"One fcience only will one genius fit;
"So vaft is art, fo narrow human wit.”

The poetry as well as the philofophy of this paffage, can scarcely be too much admired. How chafte and elegant, yet how ftrong and lively, is the imagery by which he illuftrates the tendencies of the different faculties! There is peculiar beauty in representing the beams of warm imagination, as melting away the foft figures of memory. Every epithet is fo happily adapted, that it is impoffible to change a word, without doing prejudice to the image.

Having fhewn that nature is the proper foundation on which to eftablifh criticifm, he points out the aids which may be borrowed from art. He intimates that the rules of art were not invented by the fancy, but difcovered in the book of nature and are ftill nature, though methodized. This he explains by a happy illuftration, wherein he gives a juft definition of liberty; from whence we may perceive how effentially it differs from that licentiousness, which too often ufurps its name and character.

"Nature, like Liberty, is but reftrain'd "By the fame Laws which firft herself ordain'd."

These rules of art, he obferves, the critics borrowed from the antient poets, who drew them immediately from nature.

Juft precepts thus from great examples giv❜n, "She drew from them, what they deriv'd from "Heav'n.

"The gen❜rous Critic fann'd the Poet's fire, "And taught the world with Reason to admire. "Then Criticism the Mufe's handmaid prov'd, "To drefs her charms, and make her more "belov'd:

But following wits from that intention "ftray'd,

"Who could not win the miftrefs, woo'd the "maid;

Against the Poets their own arms they turn'd, "Sure to hate moft the men from whom they "learn'd.

"So modern 'Pothecaries, taught the art

By Doctors' bills to play the Doctor's part, Bold in the practice of mistaken rules, "Prefcribe, apply, and call their mafters fools."

There is a great deal of sprightly wit and keen raillery in this paffage, in which the poet has drawn his obfervations from Quintilian; but has fkilfully enlivened them, as he feldom fails to do any trite or borrowed fentiments, with all the graces of a fplendid imagination.

Our author next obferves, that there are graces beyond the reach of precept,

"If,

"If, where the rules not far enough extend,
(Since rules are made but to promote their
end)

"Some lucky licence answers to the full
"Th' intent propos'd, that Licence is a rule.
"Thus Pegasus, a nearer way to take,

May boldly deviate from the common track. "From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part, "And fnatch a grace beyond the reach of art. "Which without paffing thro' the judgment, "gains

"The heart, and all its end at once attains."

The effayift, before mentioned, has cenfured the foregoing illuftration; where, as he observes, there is evidently a blameable mixture of metaphors, the attributes of the horse and the writer being confounded. The former, fays he, may be juftly faid "to take a nearer way," and to "deviate from a track;" but how can a horse "fnatch a grace," or "gain a heart?"

To this, however, it may be answered, that Pegafus is here used only as a generic name for poetry. And the poet evidently intended to have wrote---for Pegafus.--But by faying---thus Pegasus--he makes a fimilitude of what he only defigned for the explanation of a precept.

Our poet adds, that if we must offend against the precept, we ought never to tranfgrefs the end and that we should, at least, have the precedent of the antients to juflify u

"Let it be seldom, and compell'd by need; "And have, at least, their PRECEDENT to plead."

This must be confidered as a precept of prudence only, and to avoid cenfure: for furely it is debafing genius to fhackle it with the fetters of PRECEDENT. Irregular ftrokes, audacter fumpta, will always be juftified by the natural effects they produce, though there fhould be no precedent to plead for them. If these effects will not vindicate them, the difpenfing power of the antients will plead in vain.

It is admirably observed by a writer of true original genius that we might expect to learn the principles of the arts from the artifts themfelves; but, fays he, they have been too much. occupied in the practice, and have fought the rules of the arts in the wrong place; they have fought it among poems, pictures, &c.---" But," he continues," art can never give the rules that "make an art. This is, I believe, the reafon "why artists in general, and poets principally, "have been confined within fo narrow a circle;

they have been rather imitators of one "another, than of nature; and this with fo "faithful an uniformity, and to fo remote an

antiquity, that it is hard to say who gave the "firft model. Critics follow them, and there

The author of a Philofophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful.

"fore