Secure from Flames, from Envy's fiercer rage, Deftructive War, and all-involving Age. NOTES. See intaglio's, cameo's, or coins, are to be fought after, and carefully ftudied. The genius that hovers over thefe venerable reliques, may be called the Father of Modern Art. "From the remains of the works of the antients the modern arts were revived, and it is by their means that they must be restored a fecond time. However it may mortify our vanity, we must be forced to allow them our mafters; and we may venture to prophecy, that when they fhall ceafe to be ftudied, arts will no longer flourish, and we shall again relapfe into barbarism. "The fire of the artist's own genius operating upon these materials, which have been thus diligently collected, will enable him to make new combinations, perhaps, fuperior to what had ever before been in the poffeffion of the art. As in the mixture of the variety of metals, which are said to have been melted and run together in the burning of Corinth, a new, and till then unknown, metal was produced, equal in value to any of those that had contributed to its compofition. And though a curious refiner may come with his crucibles, analyse and separate its various component parts, yet Corinthian brafs would ftill hold its rank amongst the most beautiful and valuable of metals. "We have hitherto confidered the advantages of imitation, as it tends to form the taste, and as a practice by which a spark of that genius may be caught, which illumines these noble works, that ought always to be prefent to our thoughts. "We come now to fpeak of another kind of imitation; the borrowing a particular thought, an action, attitude, or figure, and tranfplanting it into your own work; this will either come under the charge of plagiarism, or be warrantable, and deserve commendation, according to the addrefs with which it is performed. There is fome difference likewife whether it is upon the ancients or the moderns that thefe depredations are made. It it generally allowed, that no man need be afhamed of copying the ancients; their works are confidered as a magazine of common property, always open to the Public, whence every man has a right to what materials he pleafes; and if he has the art of ufing them, they are fuppofed to become, to all intents and purposes, his own property. "The 186 See from each clime the learn'd their incenfe bring! And fill the gen'ral chorus of mankind. Whofe honours with increase of ages grow, The laft, the meanest of your fons infpire, 190 195 (That on weak wings, from far, pursues your flights; II. Or all the causes which confpire to blind She gives in large recruits of needful Pride; NOTES. 205 "The collection which Raffaelle made of the thoughts of the ancients with fo much trouble, is a proof of his opinion on this fubject. Such collections may be made with much more cafe,' by means of an art scarce known in his time, I mean that of engraving; by which, at an easy rate, every man may avail himself of the inventions of antiquity." Reynolds. For For as in bodies, thus in fouls, we find What wants in blood and fpirits, fwell'd with wind: If once right reafon drives that cloud away, A NOTES. VER. 209. Pride, where Wit fails, steps in to our defence, And fills up all the mighty void of sense.] 210 A little very fenfible French writer makes the following remark on this fpecies of pride. "Un homme qui fçait plufieurs Langues, qui entend les Auteurs Grecs et Latins, qui s'eleve même jusqu' à la dignité de SCHOLIASTE ; fi cet homme venoit à peser son véritable mérite, il trouveroit fouvent qu'il se réduit, avoir eu des yeux et de la mémoire; il fe garderoit bien de donner le nom respectable de science à une erudition fans lumiere. Il y a une grande difference entre s'enrichir des mots ou des chofes, entre alleguer des autorités ou des raifons. Si un homme pouvoit se furprendre à n'avoir que cette forte de mérite, il en rougiroit plûtôt que d'en être vain.” W. VER. 213. Your defects to know,] Correction is one of the most difficult tasks impofed on an author. It is hard to know how far it ought to be carried. Quintilian has many just and ufeful obfervations on this subject. Perhaps the excess of it is productive of as many mischiefs, as the total neglect of it. The file fometimes, instead of polishing, eats away the fubftance to which it is applied. Akenfide much injured his poem by too much correction. Ariosto, as eafy and familiar as he seems to be, made many and great alterations in his enchanting poem. Some of Rochefocault's Maxims were corrected and new written more than thirty times. The Provincial Letters of Pafcal, the model of good ftyle in the French language, were fubmitted to the judgement of twelve members of the Port Royal, who made many corrections in them. Voltaire fays, "That in all the books of Fenelon's Telemaque, of which he had seen the original, there were not ten rafures and alterations. All that can be A little learning is a dang'rous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There fhallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely fobers us again. Fir'd at first fight with what the Muse imparts, 215 In fearless youth we tempt the heights of Arts, 220 Short views we take, nor fee the lengths behind; So pleas'd at firft the tow'ring Alps we try, Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky, VER. 225. VARIATIONS. 225 Th' So pleas'd at firft the tow'ring Alps to try, Fill'd with ideas of fair Italy, The Traveller beholds with chearful eyes The lefs'ning vales, and seems to tread the skies. NOTES. be faid about correction, is contained in these few incomparable words of Quintilian. "Hujus operis eft, adjicere, detrahere, mutare. Sed facilius in his fimpliciufque judicium, quæ replenda vel dejicienda funt; premere verò tumentia, humilia extollere, luxuriantia aftringere, inordinata dirigere, foluta componere, exultantia coercere, duplicis operæ." Quint. Lib. x. c. 3. VER. 225. So pleas'd] Dr. Johnfon thinks this fimile the most apt, the most proper, most fublime, of any in the English language. I will own I am not of this opinion. It appears evidently to have been fuggefted by the following one in the Works of Drummond, p. 38. 4to. "Ah! as a pilgrim who the Alpes doth passe, Pyrene's cliffes where funne doth never shine, When Th' eternal fnows appear already past, And the firft clouds and mountains feem the laft: 230 A perfect Judge will read each work of Wit With the fame spirit that its author writ: Survey the WHOLE, nor seek flight faults to find 235 Where nature moves, and rapture warms the mind; Nor NOTES. When he fome heapes of hills hath overwent, See alfo Silias Italicus, Lib. iii. 528. VER. 233. A perfect Judge, &c.] "Diligenter legendum eft ac paene ad fcribendi follicitudinem: Nec per partes modo fcrutanda funt omnia, fed perlectus liber utique ex integro refumendus." Quint. P. It is obfervable that our Author makes it almoft the neceffary confequence of judging by parts, to find fault: And this not without much difcernment: For the feveral parts of a complete Whole, when feen only fingly, and known only independently, must always have the appearance of irregularity; often of deformity because the Poet's defign being to create a refultive beauty from the artful affemblage of feveral various parts into one natural whole; thofe parts must be fashioned with regard to their mutual relations in the ftations they occupy in that whole, from whence, the beauty required is to arife: But that regard will occafion fo unreducible a form in each part, when confidered fingly, as to prefent a very mis-fhapen Form. W. VER. 235. Survey the Whole, nor feek flight faults to find The second line, in apologizing for those faults which the first fays |