495 Unhappy Wit, like most mistaken things, By fools 'tis hated, and by knaves undone! 501 505 Of NOTES. VER. 494. Unhappy Wit,] "Ceux qui manient le plomb & le mercure, (fays Voltaire with his usual pleasantry), font fujets a des coliques dangereufes, & a des tremblemens de nerfs très facheux. Ceux qui fe fervent de plumes & d'encre, font attaqués d'une vermine, qu'il faut continuellement fécouer." VER. 507.-by knaves undone !] By which the poet would infinuate, a common but shameful truth, That men in power, if they got into it by illiberal arts, generally left Wit and Science -to starve. W. VER. 508. If Wit fo much from Ign'rance undergo,] The inconveniences that attend wit are well enumerated in this excellent paffage. "Poets, who imagine they are known and admired, are frequently mortified, and humbled. Boileau going one day to receive his penfion, and the treasurer reading these words in his order; "the penfion we have granted to Boileau, en account of the fatisfaction his works have given us," asked him : Of old, those met rewards who could excell, And fuch were prais'd who but endeavour'd well: NOTES.. him of what kind were his works; "Of mafonry (replied the poet), I am a builder." Racine always reckoned the praises of the ignorant among the chief fources of chagrin; and used to relate, that an old magiftrate, who had never been at a play, was carried, one day, to his Andromaque. This magiftrate was very attentive to the tragedy, to which was added the Plaideurs; and going out of the theatre, he faid to the author, “I am extremely pleased, Sir, with your Andromaque: I am only amazed that it ends fo gaily; j'avois d'abord eu quelque envie de pleurer, mais la vue des petits chiens m'a fait rire. VER. 519. Each ill Author] This might be expected. But how mortifying, that geniufes of a higher rank fhould malign and harafs each other. What fhall we fay of the difgraceful diffenfions betwixt Sophocles and Euripides; Plato and Ariftotle; Boffuet and Fenelon; Boileau and Quinault; Racine and Moliere; Taffo and the La Crufca Academicians; Corneille, Scudery, and Cardinal Richlieu; Bayle and Le Clerc; Voltaire and Crebillon; Bentley and Boyle; Clarke and Atterbury; Locke and Stillingfleet; and many others! Mr. Harte related to me, that being with Mr. Pope when he received the news of Swift's death, Harte faid to him, he thought it a fortunate circumstance for their friendship, that they had lived so distant from each other; Pope refented the reflection, but yet, said Harte, I am convinced it was true. To To what base ends, and by what abject ways, Nor in the Critic let the Man be loft. But if in noble minds fome dregs remain NOTES. 520 525 VER. 526. But if in noble minds fome dregs remain, &c.] So far as to what ought to be the true critic's principal study and employment. But if the four critical humour abounds, and must therefore needs have vent, he directs to its proper object; and fhews [from ver. 525 to 556.] how it may be innocently and ufefully pointed, This is very obfervable; our author had made fpleen and difdain the characteristic of the falfe critic, and yet here fuppofes them inherent in the true. But it is done with judgment, and a knowledge of Nature. For as bitterness and aftringency in unripe fruits of the best kind are the foundation. and capacity of that high spirit, race, and flavour, which we find in them when perfectly concocted by the warmth and influence of the fun, and which, without those qualities, would gain no more. by that influence than only a mellow infipidity: fo fpleen and difdain in the true critic, when improved by long study and experience, ripen into an exactness of judgment and an elegance of tafte: altho', in the falfe critic, lying remote from the influence of good letters, they remain in all their firft offenfive harfhnefs and acerbity. The poet therefore fhews how, after the exaltation of these qualities into their ftate of perfection, the very dregs (which, though precipitated, may poffibly, on fome occafions, rife and ferment even in a noble mind) may be usefully employed, that is to fay, in branding obfcenity and impiety. W. I have preserved this remark, to juftify the cenfure I have prefumed to pass on Warburton's manner of criticising. 4 VOL. I. R No No pardon vile Obfcenity should find, Tho' wit and art confpire to move your mind; 530 As fhameful fure as Impotence in love. In the fat age of pleasure, wealth, and ease, Sprung the rank weed, and thriv'd with large increase: When love was all an eafy Monarch's care; Seldom at council, never in a war: Jilts rul'd the state, and statesmen farces writ: 536 540 Nay wits had pensions, and young Lords had wit: And Virgins fmil'd at what they blush'd before. NOTES. 545 Then VER. 545.-bold Socinus] "This author (fays Dr. Jortin) seems to have had two particular antipathies; one to grammatical and verbal criticifm, the other to false doctrine and herefy. To the first we may afcribe his treating Bentley, Burman, Kuster, and Waffe, with a contempt which recoiled upon himself. To the fecond, we will impute his pious zeal against thofe divines of King William's time, whom he fuppofed to be infected with the Infidel, or the Socinian, or the Latitudinarian fpirit, and not fo orthodox as himself, and his friends Swift, Bolingbroke, &c. Thus he laid about him, and cenfured men, of whofe literary, or of whofe theological merits or defects, he was no more a judge' than his footman, John Searle. He fays, "The following licence of a foreign reign, Then unbelieving Priests reform'd the nation, 550 Left God himself fhould feem too abfolute: As all looks yellow to the jaundic'd eye. 556 NOTES. "In the third of thefe lines he had Burnet in view, and his Hiftory of the Reformation; and in the fourth, Kennet; who was accused of having said, in a funeral fermon on some nobleman, that converted finners, if they were men of parts, repented more fpeedily and effectually than dull rafcals. If his witty friend. Swift had confulted the rules of profody, he would not have begun an epigram with, Vertiginofus, inops, furdus, malè gratus amicis ; and have made a false quantity in the first word. But writing Latin, either profe or verse, was not his talent, any more than making fermons. As to the knowledge which he is faid to have acquired of the learned languages, Cràs credo, hodiè nihil." VER. 547. The author has omitted two lines which stood here, as containing a National Reflection, which in his ftricter judgment he could not but disapprove on any people whatever. VER. 559. Jaundic'd] Borrowed from an old comedy. P. |