Nature affords at least a glimm'ring light; The lines, tho' touch'd but faintly, are drawn right. But as the flightest sketch, if juftly trac'd, Is by ill-colouring but the more disgrac❜d, So by falfe learning is good fenfe defac'd: 25 VARIATIONS. Between ver. 25 and 26 were thefe lines, fince omitted by the author. Many are spoil'd by that pedantic throng, Who with great pains teach youth to reafon wrong. Tutors, like Virtuofo's, oft inclin'd By ftrange transfufion to improve the mind, Draw off the fenfe we have, to pour in new; Which yet, with all their skill, they neʼer could do. NOTES. P. works of the ancient painters and ftatuaries with fo much tafte and sentiment, handled not themselves either the pencil or the chiffel, nor Longinus and Dionyfius the harp. But although fuch as have actually performed nothing in the art itfelf, may not, on that account, be totally difqualified to judge with accuracy of any piece of workmanship, yet, perhaps, a judgement will come with more authority and force from an artist himfelf. Hence the connoiffeurs highly prize the treatise of Ruben's concerning the Imitation of Antique Statues, the Art of Painting by Leonardo da Vinci, and the Lives of the Painters by Vafari. As, for the fame reasons, Rameau's Differtation on The Thorough Bafs; and The Introduction to a Good Tafte in Mufic, by the excellent, but neglected, Geminiani, demand a particular regard. The prefaces of Dryden would be equally valuable, if he did not fo frequently contradict himself, and advance opinions diametrically oppofite to each other. Some of Corneille's difcourfes on his own tragedies are admirably juft. And one of the beft pieces of modern criticism, The Academy's Obfervations on the Cid, was, we know, the work of perfons who had themfelves written well. And our Author's own excellent preface to his tranflation of the Iliad, one of the best pieces of profe in the English language, is an example how well poets are qualified to be critics. Some are bewilder'd in the maze of fchools, And fome made coxcombs Nature meant but fools. NOTES. VER. 20. Moft have the feeds] "Omnes tacito quodam fenfu, fine ulla arte, aut ratione, quæ fint in artibus, ac rationibus recta et prava disjudicant." Cic. de Orat. lib. iii. P. VER. 25. So by falfe learning] "Plus fine doctrina prudentia, quam fine prudentia valet doctrina." Quint. P. VER. 27. Made coxcombs] It is hardly poffible to find an example of an affected critic fo ridiculous as the following, taken from Spence's Anecdotes. "The famous Lord Halifax was rather a pretender to tafte than really poffeffed of it. When I had finifhed the two or three first books of my tranflation of the Iliad, that Lord defired to have the pleasure of hearing them read at his house. Addison, Congreve, and Garth, were there at the reading. In four or five places Lord Halifax ftopt me very civilly, and with a speech each time, much of the fame kind, "I beg your pardon Mr. Pope, but there is fomething in that paffage which does not quite please me;-be fo good as to mark the place, and confider it a little at your leifure;-I am fure you can give it a little turn." I returned from Lord Halifax's with Dr. Garth in his chariot; and, as we were going along, was faying to the Doctor, that my Lord had laid me under a good deal of difficulty by fuch loofe and general obfervations; that I had been thinking over the paffages almost ever fince, and could not guefs at what it was that had offended his Lordfhip in either of them. Garth laughed heartily at my embarrasffment; faid, I had not been long enough acquainted with Lord Halifax to know his way yet; that I need not puzzle myself about looking those places over and over when I got home. "All you need do (fays he) is to leave them juft as they are; call on Lord Halifax two or three months hence, thank him for his kind observations on those paffages, and then read them to him, as altered. I have known him much longer than you have, and will be anfwerable for the event." I followed his advice, waited on Lord Halifax fome time after; faid, I hoped he would find his objections to those paffages removed; read them to him, exactly as they were at first: and then his Lordship was extremely pleased with them, and cried out, "Aye, now they are perfectly right; nothing can be better." In fearch of wit these lofe their common fenfe, 30 Or with a Rival's, or an Eunuch's fpite. All fools have still an itching to deride, 36 There are, who judge ftill worse than he can write. Some have at first for Wits, then Poets past, Turn'd Critics next, and prov'd plain fools at last. Some neither can for Wits nor Critics pafs, As heavy mules are neither horfe nor ass. NOTES. Thofe VER. 28. In fearch of wit thefe lofe their common fenfe,] This obfervation is extremely juft. Search of Wit is not only the occafion, but the efficient caufe of the lofs of common fenfe. For Wit confifting in chufing out, and setting together fuch Ideas from whofe affemblage pleafant pictures may be drawn on the Fancy; the Judgment, through an habitual search of Wit, loses, by degrees, its faculty of seeing the true relation of things; in which confifts the exercise of common fense. W. VER. 35. Who judge ftill worfe]" Le plus grand malheur (fays Voltaire) d'un homme des lettres, n'eft peutetre pas d'etre objet de la jaloufie de fes confreres, la victime de la cabale, le mepris de puiffans du monde, c'est d'etre jugé par des fots. L'homme de lettres, (fi on lui fait injuftice), eft fans fecours; il resemble au poiffons volantes; s'il s'éleve un peu, les oiseaux le devorent; s'il fe plonge, les poiffons le mangent. Tout homme public paye tribut à la malignité; mais il eft payé en deniers & en honneurs." Queftions fur L'Encycl. 7 T. 323. VER. 38. Some neither can for Wits nor Critics pafs,] These lines, and thofe preceding and following them, are excellently fatirical; and were, I think, the first we find in his works, that give an indication of that fpecies of poetry to which his talent was moft powerfully bent, and in which, though not as we shall fee in others, he excelled all mankind. The fimile of the mule Those half-learn'd witlings, numerous in our isle, To tell 'em would an hundred tongues require, 41 45 Launch not beyond your depth, but be discreet, 50 And wifely curb'd proud man's pretending wit. NOTES. 55 Where heightens the fatire, and is new; as is the application of the infects of the Nile. Pope never fhines fo brightly as when he is profcribing bad authors. "The Nile (fays Fenton on Waller) has been as fruitful of English fimiles as the fun; from both which it would be as fevere to restrain a young poet, as forbidding the use of fire and water was efteemed among the Romans.” VER. 56 Thus in the Soul] The beauty of imagery in thefe lines fhould not make us blind to the want of juftnefs in the thought. To reprefent ftrength of memory as incompatible with folidity of understanding, is fo obviously contrary to fact, that I prefume the author had in his eye only the cafe of extraordinary memory for names, dates, and things, which offer no ideas to the mind; which has, indeed, been often difplayed in great perfection Where beams of warm imagination play, One science only will one genius fit; So vaft is art, fo narrow human wit: NOTES. 60 Not perfection by mere idiots. For, it is difficult to conceive how the faculty of judgment, which confifts in the comparison of different ideas, can at all be exercifed without the power of ftoring up ideas in the mind, and calling them forth when required. From the fecond couplet, apparently meant to be the converse of the firft, one would fuppofe that he confulted the understanding and the imagination as the fame faculty, elfe the counterpart is defective. Further, so far is it from being true, that imagination obliterates the figures of memory, that the circumftance which causes a thing to be remembered is principally its being affociated with other ideas by the agency of the imagination. If the poet only meant, that thofe ideas about which imagination is occupied, are apt to exclude ideas of a different kind, the remark is true, but it should have been differently expreffed. Voltaire fays well," He that retains the greatest number of images in the magazine of memory, has the best imagination.” Encycl. v. xxxi. p. 187. And also in another place; "The faculty of imagination depends entirely on the memory. We fee men, animals, horfes, gardens, and other fenfible objects; thefe perceptions enter our minds by the fenfes; the memory retains them; the imagination combines them; and this is the reason why the Greeks called the Mufes the Daughters of Memory." VER.60. One fcience only will one genius fit ;] When Tully attempted poetry, he became as ridiculous as Bolingbroke when he attempted philosophy and divinity. We look in vain for that genius which produced The Differtation on Parties, in his tedious philofophical works; of which it is no exaggerated fatire to say, that the reafoning of them is fophiftical and inconclufive, the ftyle diffufe and verbofe, and the learning feemingly contained in them not drawn from the originals, but picked up and purloined from French critics and tranflations; and particularly from Bayle, Rapin, and Thomaffin, (as perhaps may be one day minutely fhewn), together with the affittances which our Cudworth and Stanley |