But though the ancients thus their rules invade, As kings dispense with laws themselves have made,

Moderns, beware! or if you must offend
Against the precept, ne'er transgress its end;
Let it be seldom, and compell'd by need;
And have, at least, their precedent to plead :
The critic else proceeds without remorse,
Seizes your fame, and puts his laws in force.

165

I know there are, to whose presumptuous

thoughts

Those freer beauties, ev'n in them, seem faults. 170
Some figures monstrous and mis-shaped appear,
Consider'd singly, or beheld too near,

Which, but proportion'd to their light or place,
Due distance reconciles to form and grace.
A prudent chief not always must display
His powers in equal ranks and fair array,
But with the occasion and the place comply,
Conceal his force, nay, seem sometimes to fly.
Those oft are stratagems which errors seem;
Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream.

175

180

Still green with bays each ancient altar stands, Above the reach of sacrilegious hands; Secure from flames, from envy's fiercer rage, Destructive war, and all-involving age.

See, from each clime the learn'd their incense

bring;

Hear, in all tongues consenting pæans ring!
In praise so just let every voice be join'd,
And fill the general chorus of mankind.
Hail, bards triumphant! born in happier days;
Immortal heirs of universal praise!

POPE.

II.

E

185

190

195

Whose honors with increase of ages grow,
As streams roll down, enlarging as they flow:
Nations unborn your mighty names shall sound,
And worlds applaud, that must not yet be found!
O, may some spark of your celestial fire,
The last, the meanest of your sons inspire,
That on weak wings, from far, pursues your flights;
Glows while he reads, but trembles as he writes;
To teach vain wits a science little known;

To admire superior sense, and doubt their own! 200

II.

205

Of all the causes which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is Pride, the never-failing vice of fools.
Whatever nature has in worth denied,
She gives in large recruits of needful pride;
For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find
What wants in blood and spirits, swell'd with
wind:

Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence,
And fills up all the mighty void of sense.

210

204 Pride, the never-failing vice of fools. The evil of false confidence to the poet is, that it makes him contemptuous of advice: the evil of excessive correction is, that it substitutes exactness for vigor, and replaces the impulses of the imagination by the labors of the judgment. The chief hazard of correction in poetry arises from the tameness which use throws over the noblest idea; a portion of its original brilliancy is lost at every new contemplation; until at last the mind becomes completely disqualified for a true estimate of its value; the force of words supersedes the force of sentiment; the clear, free, and salient stream of thought runs dry; and all is first, smoothness, and next, stagnation.

If once right reason drives that cloud away,
Truth breaks upon us with resistless day.
Trust not yourself; but your defects to know,
Make use
of every friend-and every foe.

A little learning is a dangerous thing:
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring :
There, shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.

215

Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts, In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts, 220 While from the bounded level of our mind,

Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind; But more advanced, behold, with strange surprise,

New distant scenes of endless science rise.

So pleased at first the towering Alps we try, 225
Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky;
The eternal snows appear already pass'd,
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last:
But, those attain'd, we tremble to survey
The growing labors of the lengthen'd way :
The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes;
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!

A perfect judge will read each work of wit
With the same spirit that its author writ :

230

232 Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise. Johnson lavishes panegyric on this simile, as the most apt, the most proper, and the most sublime of any in the English language:' he omits to mention that the simile, and of course the panegyric, belong to another. Warton gives the passage almost word for word from Drummond :—

All as a pilgrim who the Alpes doth passe

Till mounting some tall mountaine, he doth finde
More hights before him thann he left behinde.

Survey the whole, nor seek slight faults to find,

Where nature moves, and rapture warms the mind;

Nor lose for that malignant, dull delight,
The generous pleasure to be charm'd with wit:
But in such lays as neither ebb nor flow,
Correctly cold, and regularly low;
That shunning faults, one quiet tenor keep;
We cannot blame indeed-but we may sleep.
In wit, as nature, what affects our hearts
Is not the exactness of peculiar parts;
'Tis not a lip or eye we beauty call;
But the joint force and full result of all.

236

240

245

Thus when we view some well-proportion'd dome, (The world's just wonder, and ev'n thine, O Rome!)

No single parts unequally surprise;

All comes united to the admiring eyes;

250

No monstrous height, or breadth, or length ap

pear;

The whole at once is bold and regular.

255

Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be. In every work regard the writer's end, Since none can compass more than they intend; And if the means be just, the conduct true, Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due. As men of breeding, sometimes men of wit, To avoid great errors, must the less commit: 260 Neglect the rules each verbal critic lays; For not to know some trifles, is a praise. Most critics, fond of some subservient art, Still make the whole depend upon a part:

They talk of principles, but notions prize;
And all to one loved folly sacrifice.

265

270

Once on a time, La Mancha's knight, they say, A certain bard encountering on the way, Discoursed in terms as just, with looks as sage, As e'er could Dennis, of the Grecian stage; Concluding all were desperate sots and fools, Who durst depart from Aristotle's rules. Our author, happy in a judge so nice, Produced his play, and begg'd the knight's advice; Made him observe the subject, and the plot, 275 The manners, passions, unities; what not? All which, exact to rule, were brought about, Were but a combat in the lists left out.

'What! leave the combat out?' exclaims the knight.

Yes, or we must renounce the Stagirite.

280

'Not so, by Heaven!' he answers in a rage; Knights, squires, and steeds must enter on the stage.'

So vast a throng the stage can ne'er contain. 'Then build a new, or act it in a plain.'

Thus critics of less judgment than caprice, 285 Curious not knowing, not exact but nice, Form short ideas; and offend in arts,

As most in manners, by a love to parts.

289

Some to conceit alone their taste confine, And glittering thoughts struck out at every line; Pleased with a work where nothing's just or fit; One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit.

267 Once on a time La Mancha's knight. An allusion to a story in the 'Second Part of Don Quixote,' written by Alonzo Avellanada, and translated by Le Sage.