Some few in that, but numbers err in this, Ten cenfure wrong for one who writes amifs; Now one in verse makes many more in profe. NOTES. and fpurious remarks, and many ill-grounded opinions, in a work that might have been, and was intended to have been, a manual of good tafte and judgment. Dr. Warburton, endeavouring to demonstrate, what Addison could not discover, nor what Pope himself, according to the testimony of his intimate friend Richardson, ever thought of or intended, that this effay was written with a methodical and fyftematical regularity, has accompanied the whole with a long and laboured commentary, in which he has tortured many paffages to support this groundless opinion. Warburton had certainly wit, genius, and much miscellaneous learning; but, was perpetually dazzled and misled, by the eager defire of feeing every thing in a new light unobserved before, into perverse interpretations and forced comments. His paffion being (as Longinus expreffes it) τα ξένας νοησεις αιει κινεν. It is painful to fee fuch abilities wafted on fuch unsubstantial objects. Accordingly his notes on Shakespear have been totally demolished by Edwards and Malone; and Gibbon has torn up by the roots his fanciful and vifionary interpretation of the fixth Book of Virgil. And but few readers, I believe, will be found, that will cordially subscribe to an opinion lately delivered, that his notes on Pope's Works are the very beft ever given on any claffic whatever. For to inftance no other, furely the attempt to reconcile the doctrines of the Effay on Man to the doctrines of Revelation, is the rasheft adventure in which ever critic yet engaged. This is, in truth, to divine, rather than to explain an author's meaning. For these reasons, it is not thought proper to accompany this effay with a perpetual commentary. A poem, as hath been well obferved, that confifts of precepts, is fo far arbitrary and immethodical, that many of the paragraphs may change places with no apparent inconvenience; for of two or more pofitions depending on fome remote principle, there is feldom any cogent reason, why one fhould precede the other. VER. 6. Ten cenfure] Readers more cafily perceive blemishes than beauties. Adeft ferè nemo, fays Tully, De Orator. i. quin acutiùs 'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none Go just alike, yet each believes his own. In Poets as true Genius is but rare, True Taste as feldom is the Critic's fhare; NOTES. Both acutiùs atque acriùs vitia in dicendo, quàm recta videant. Ita quidquid eft in quo offenditur, id etiam illa quæ laudanda funt obruit. La critique, fays the fenfible Abbé de S. Pierre, d'un ouvrage doit etre telle, que l'auteur critiqué foit bien aise, a tout prendre, qu'on l'ait donnée au public. Every one of Racine's tragedies were attacked by malignant critics. And Racine used to fay, that these paltry critics gave him more pain than all his applauders had given him pleasure. VER. 11. In poets as true Genius is but rare,] It is indeed fo extremely rare, that no country, in the fucceffion of many ages, has produced above three or four perfons that deserve the title. The "man of rhymes" may be eafily found; but the genuine poet, of a lively plastic imagination, the true Maker or Creator, is fo uncommon a prodigy, that one is almost tempted to fubfcribe to the opinion of Sir William Temple, where he says, "That of all the numbers of mankind that live within the compass of a thousand years, for one man that is born capable of making a great poet, there may be a thousand born capable of making as great generals, or minifters of ftate, as the most renowned in ftory." There are indeed more caufes required to concur to the formation of the former, than of the latter; which neceffarily render its production more difficult. VER. 12. True Tafte as feldom] The firft piece of criticism in our language, worthy our attention, for little can be gathered from Webbe and Puttenham, was Sir Philip Sydney's Defence of Poefie. Spenfer is said to have written a critical discourse, called The Poet; the loss of which, confidering the exquifite taste and extensive learning of Spenfer, is much to be regretted. Next came Daniel's Apology; then Ben Jonfon's Discoveries, the Preface to Gondibert, and Hobbes's Letter to D'Avenant, the Preface and Notes of Cowley, (whofe profe ftyle, by the way, is admirable), Temple's Effays, Dryden's Effay on Dramatic Poetry, and his various Prefaces and Prologues, Rhymer's Preface to Rapin, and Letter on Tragedy, and Dennis's Reformation of Poetry, and the Effays of Rofcommon and Buckingham. Both muft alike from Heav'n derive their light, NOTES. 15 Authors Buckingham. These were the critical pieces that preceded our Author's Effay, which was published without his name, May 111, about the fame time with Fenton's Epiftle to Southerne; and did not, as Lewis the bookfeller told me, fell at first, till our Author fent copies, as prefents, to several eminent perfons. It is faid, very fenfibly, by La Bruyere, "I will allow that good writers are scarce enough; but then I afk, where are the people that know to read and judge? An union of these qualities, which are feldom found in the fame perfon, feem to be indispensably neceffary to form an able critic; he ought to poffefs ftrong good fenfe, lively imagination, and exquifite fenfibility. And of thefe three qualities, the laft is the most important; fince, after all that can be faid on the utility or neceffity of rules and precepts, it must be confeffed, that the merit of all works of genius, muft be determined by tafte and fentiment. Why do you so much admire the Helen of Zeuxis?" faid one to Nicoftratus; "You would not wonder why I fo much admired it, (replied the painter), if you had my eyes." Of the three requifites to make a just critic, mentioned above, Aristotle seems to have poffeffed the first, in the highest degree; Longinus the fecond; and Addison the third; on whom, however, a celebrated writer has paffed the following cenfure: "It must not be diffembled that criticism was by no means the talent of Addison. His taste was truly elegant; but he had neither that vigour of understanding, nor chaftifed philofophical fpirit, which are fo effential to this character, and which we find in hardly any of the ancients, befides Ariftotle, and but in a very few of the moderns. For what concerns his criticifm on Milton, in particular, there was this accidental benefit arifing from it, that it occafioned an admirable poet to be read, and his excellencies to be observed. But, for the merit of the work itself, if there be any thing juft in the plan, it was because Ariftotle and Boffu had taken the fame route before him. And as to his own proper obfervations, they are for the most part fo general and indeterminate, as to afford but little instruction to the reader, and are not unfrequently altogether frivolous. They are Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true, But are not Critics to their judgment too? NOTES. Yet are of a kind with thofe, which the French critics (for I rather inftance in the defects of foreign writers than our own) fo much abound; and which good judges agree to rank in the worst fort of criticism." Thus far Dr. Hurd, Notes on the Epiftle to Auguftus, v. 210. To this cenfure on Addison Dr. Johnson replied in the following excellent words: "It is not uncommon for those who have grown wife by the labour of others, to add a little of their own, and overlook their mafters. Addison is now defpifed by fome, who, perhaps, would never have feen his defects, but by the lights which he afforded them. That he always wrote, as he would think it neceffary to write now, cannot be affirmed; his inftructions were fuch as the character of his readers made proper. That general knowledge which now circulates in common talk, was in his time rarely to be found. Men not profeffing learning, were not ashamed of ignorance; and in the female world, any acquaintance with books, was diftinguished only to be cenfured. His purpose was to infufe literary curiofity, by gentle and unfufpected conveyance, into the gay, the idle, and the wealthy; he therefore prefented knowledge in the most alluring form; not lofty and auftere, but acceffible and familiar. When he fhewed them their defects, he shewed them likewife that they might be easily fupplied; his attempt fucceeded, enquiry was awakened, and comprehenfion expanded. An emulation of intellectual elegance was excited, and from his time to our own, life has been gradually exalted, and converfation purified and enlarged. Before the profound obfervers of the prefent race repofe too fecurely on the confciousness of their fuperiority to Addifon, let them confider his Remarks on Ovid, in which may be found fpecimens of criticifm, fufficiently subtle and refined; let them perufe likewife his Effays on Wit, and on The Pleafures of Imagination, in which he founds art on the base of nature, and draws the principles of invention, from difpofitions inherent in the mind of man, with fkill and elegance, fuch as his contemners will not eafily attain." Lives of the Poets, vol. ii. page 442. Many men are to be found who can judge truly, though they may want the power of execution. And it was a proper answer VOL. I. N of Yet if we look more clofely, we shall find Most have the feeds of judgment in their mind: NOTES. 19 Nature of the Mifanthrope, in Moliere, who had blamed fome bad verfes, to the poet who defied him to make better; 66 J'en pourrois par malheur faire d'auffi mechans, VER. 15. Let fuch teach others,] " Qui fcribit artificiofe, ab aliis commode fcripta facile intelligere poterit." Cic. ad Herenn. lib. iv. "De pictore, sculptore, fictore, nifi artifex, judicare non poteft." Pliny. P. "Publish fome work of your own (faid a certain angry author to a critic) before you cenfure mine. Cum tua non edas, carpis mea carmina ; You print nothing for fear of reprisals." Regnier, the predeceffor of Boileau, in his ninth fatire, calls on his cenfors to publish fomething; and adds a ludicrous tale of a peafant who applied to the Pope, and begged he would fuffer priefts to marry; "that we laymen (faid he) may carefs their wives, as well as they carefs ours." "In the large city of Paris, (fays Voltaire), containing fix hundred thousand inhabitants, there are not three thousand who have any true taste for literature and the arts." It is remarked by Dryden, I think, that none but a poet is qualified to judge of a poet. The maxim is however contradicted by experience. Ariftotle is faid indeed to have written one ode; but neither Boffu nor Hurd are poets. The penetrating author of The Reflections on Poetry, Painting, and Mufic, will for ever be read with delight, and with profit, by all ingenious artists; "nevertheless (says Voltaire) he did not understand music, could never make verfes, and was not poffeffed of a fingle picture; but he had read, feen, heard, and reflected a great deal.” And Lord Shaftesbury fpeaks with fome indignation on this subject; "If a musician performs his part well in the hardest symphonies, he muft neceffarily know the notes, and understand the rules of harmony and mufic. But muft a man, therefore, who has an car, and has studied the rules of mufic, of neceffity have a voice, or hand? Can no one poffibly judge a fiddle, but who is himself a fiddler? Can no one judge a picture, but who is himself a layer of colours?" Quintilian and Pliny, who fpeak of the works |