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.

215

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. 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,

230

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:

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

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,

270

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.

295

Poets, like painters, thus, unskill'd to trace
The naked nature and the living grace,
With gold and jewels cover every part,
And hide with ornaments their want of art.
True wit is nature to advantage dress'd;
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd;
Something, whose truth convinced at sight we find,
That gives us back the image of our mind.
As shades more sweetly recommend the light,
So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit:
For works may have more wit than does them
good,

As bodies perish through excess of blood.

300

Others for language all their care express; 305
And value books, as women men, for dress:
Their praise is still, the style is excellent;'
The sense, they humbly take upon content.
Words are like leaves; and where they most
abound,

Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found: 310
False eloquence, like the prismatic glass,
Its gaudy colors spreads on every place;
The face of nature we no more survey;
All glares alike, without distinction gay:
But true expression, like the unchanging sun, 315
Clears and improves whate'er it shines upon;
It gilds all objects, but it alters none.
Expression is the dress of thought, and still
Appears more decent, as more suitable.

A vile conceit, in pompous words express'd, 320
Is like a clown in regal purple dress'd:
For different styles with different subjects sort,
As several garbs with country, town, and court.

Some by old words to fame have made pretence; Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense; Such labor'd nothings, in so strange a style,

326

Amaze the unlearn'd, and make the learned smile.
Unlucky, as Fungoso in the play,

These sparks with awkward vanity display
What the fine gentleman wore yesterday;
And but so mimic ancient wits at best,

330

As apes our grandsires, in their doublets dress'd. In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold ; Alike fantastic, if too new or old :

Be not the first by whom the new are tried, 335 Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

But most by numbers judge a poet's song, And smooth or rough with them is right or wrong: In the bright Muse though thousand charms con

spire,

Her voice is all these tuneful fools admire ; 340
Who haunt Parnassus but to please their ear,
Not mend their minds; as some to church repair,
Not for the doctrine, but the music there.
These equal syllables alone require,
Though oft the ear the open vowels tire;
While expletives their feeble aid do join ;
And ten low words oft creep in one dull line :

345

324 Some by old words to fame have made pretence. The adoption of obsolete phrases must be injurious to poetry; for that which is not capable of being understood is not capable of being felt but Gray, a true critic, pronounces that the language of the age is never the language of poetry:' he might have added, nor is the language of vulgarity the language of nature; though this dogma has been stoutly fought for.

328 Fungoso. Ben Jonson's Every Man out of his Humor.'