96 Held from afar, aloft, the immortal prize, 100 The generous critic fann'd the poet's fire, 110 107 Sure to hate most. It is amusing to see the picture of criticism, as sketched by Swift, himself the most unsparing of critics: Momus, fearing the worst, and calling to mind an ancient prophecy, which bore no very good face to his children the moderns, bent his flight to the region of a malignant deity, called Criticism. She dwelt on the top of a snowy mountain in Nova Zembla: there Momus found her extended in her den, on the spoils of numberless volumes, half devoured. At her right hand sat Ignorance, her father and husband, blind with age; at her left, Pride, her mother, dressing her up in the scraps of paper herself had torn. There was Opinion, her sister, light of foot, hoodwinked and headstrong, yet giddy, and perpetually turning. About her played her children, Noise and Impudence, Dulness and Vanity, Positiveness, Pedantry, and Ill Manners. The goddess herself had claws like a cat,' &c. &c.-Tale of a Tub. 110 Bold in the practice of mistaken rules. The abbé d'Aubignac, patronised by Richelieu, wrote a treatise on the Aristotelic rules of the drama; but this did not prevent his writing a tragedy, which was hissed off the stage. The great Condé ob Some on the leaves of ancient authors prey; You then, whose judgment the right course would steer, Know well each ancient's proper character: Be Homer's works your study and delight; 120 125 Thence form your judgment, thence your maxims bring, And trace the Muses upward to their spring. served, on this catastrophe of the critic's fame,-'Je sçais bon gré à l'abbé d'Aubignac d'avoir suivi les règles d'Aristote, mais je ne pardonne pas aux règles d'Aristote d'avoir fait faire une si mauvaise tragédie à l'abbé d'Aubignac.'— Warton. 123 Cavil you may, but never criticise. The author, after this verse, originally inserted the following, which he has however omitted in all the later editions : : Zoilus, had these been known, without a name Had died, and Perault ne'er been damn'd to fame; The sense of sound antiquity had reign'd, And sacred Homer yet been unprofaned. None e'er had thought his comprehensive mind To modern customs, modern rules confined; 131 When first young Maro in his boundless mind A work to outlast immortal Rome design'd, Perhaps he seem'd above the critic's law, And but from nature's fountain scorn'd to draw: But when to examine every part he came, Nature and Homer were, he found, the same. 135 Convinced, amazed, he checks the bold design: And rules as strict his labor'd work confine, As if the Stagyrite o'erlook'd each line. Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem: To copy nature is to copy them. Some beauties yet no precepts can declare, For there's a happiness as well as care. Music resembles poetry; in each 140 145 Are nameless graces which no methods teach, And which a master-hand alone can reach. If, where the rules not far enough extend, (Since rules were made but to promote their end) Some lucky license answer to the full 150 The intent proposed, that license is a rule. The heart, and all its end at once attains. 160 But though the ancients thus their rules invade, As kings dispense with laws themselves have made, Moderns, beware! or if you must offend 165 I know there are, to whose presumptuous thoughts Those freer beauties, ev'n in them, seem faults. 170 Which, but proportion'd to their light or place, 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! РОРЕ. II. E 185 190 195 Whose honors with increase of ages grow, II. Of all the causes which conspire to blind Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence, 205 210 204 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. |