Nay, fly to Altars; there they'll talk you dead; VARIATIONS. VER. 623. Between this and ver. 624. In vain you shrug and sweat and strive to fly: NOTES. Il n'eft Temple fi faint, des Anges respecté, 625 Which lines allude to the impertinence of a French poet called Du Perrier, who finding Boileau one day at church, infifted upon repeating to him an ode, during the elevation of the hoft; and defired his opinion, whether or not it was in the manner of Malherbe. Without this anecdote the pleasantry of the fatire would be overlooked. It may here be occafionally obferved, how many beauties in this fpecies of writing are loft, for want of knowing the facts to which they allude. The following paffage may be produced as a proof. Boileau, in his excellent epiftle to his gardener, at Anteuil, fays, "Mon maître, dirois-tu, paffe pour un Docteur, Et parle quelquefois mieux qu'un Prédicateur." It seems our author and Racine returned one day, in high spirits, from Verfailles, with two honest citizens of Paris. As their conversation was full of gaiety and humour, the two citizens were greatly delighted; and one of them, at parting, flopt Boileau with this compliment, "I have travelled with Doctors of the Sorbonne, and even with the religious; but I never heard fo many fine things faid before; en verite vous parlez cent fois mieux qu'un Predicateur." It is but justice to add, that the fourteen fucceeding verfes in the poem before us, containing the character of a True Critic, are fuperior to any thing in Boileau's Art of Poetry; from which, however, Pope has borrowed many obfervations. And 250 And never fhock'd, and never turn'd afide, Bursts out, refiftlefs, with a thund'ring tide. 630 But where's the man, who counsel can bestow, Still pleas'd to teach, and yet not proud to know? Unbiafs'd, or by favour, or by fspite ; Not dully prepoffefs'd, nor blindly right; 634 Tho' learn'd, well-bred; and tho' well-bred, fincere ; Modeftly bold, and humanly fevere; NOTES. VER. 631. But where's the man, &c.] The poet, by his manner of afking after this character, and telling us, when he had described it, that fuch once were critics, does not encourage us to fearch for it amongst modern writers. And indeed the discovery of him, if it could be made, would be but an invidious affair. However, I will venture to name the piece of criticism in which all these marks may be found. It is entitled, Q. Hor. Fl. Ars Poetica, et ejufd. Ep. ad Aug. with an English commentary and notes. W. This commentary is founded on the idea that Horace writes, in his Art of Poetry, with fyftematic order, and the strictest method. An idea to which feveral capable critics will not accede, and which is directly contrary to Pope's own opinion. But it may be added, that Dr. Hurd was not the first who entertained this idea. A French writer, M. de Brueys, gave a paraphrase on this epiftle of Horace, in 1683, totally grounded on this fuppofition. If my partiality to my lamented friend Mr. Colman does not mislead me, I fhould think his account of the matter the most judicious of any yet published. He conceives that the elder Pifo had written or meditated a poetical work, probably a tragedy; and had communicated his piece, in confidence, to Horace; but Horace, either difapproving of the work, or doubting of the poetical faculties of the elder Pifo, or both, wifhed to diffuade him from all thoughts of publication. With this view he wrote his epiftle, addreffing it with a courtliness and delicacy, perfectly agreeable to his acknowledged character, indifferently to the whole family, the father and his two fons. Epistle to the Pifo's, with Notes by George Colman, 4to. 1783, p. 6. Who Who to a friend his faults can freely show, Bleft with a taste exact, yet unconfin'd; A knowledge both of books and human kind; 640 And love to praise, with reason on his fide? The mighty Stagirite first left the shore, Spread all his fails, and durft the deeps explore; VARIATIONS. 645 He Between yer. 646 and 649. I have found the following lines, fince fuppreft by the author: That bold Columbus of the realms of wit, A boundless empire, and that own'd no fway. NOTES. W. VER. 642. With reafon on his fide, &c.] Not only on his fide, but in actual employment. The critic makes but a mean figure, who, when he has found out the beauties of his author, contents himself with fhewing them to the world in only empty exclamations. His office is to explain their nature, fhew from whence they arise, and what effects they produce; or in the better and fuller expreffion of the poet, W. "To teach the world with reason to admire." VER. 645. The mighty Stagirite] A noble and juft character of the first and the best of critics! and fufficient to reprefs the fashionable and naufeous petulance of feveral impertinent moderns, who have attempted to difcredit this great and useful writer. Whoever He steer'd securely, and discover'd far, Led by the light of the Maeonian star. Poets, NOTES. Whoever surveys the variety and perfection of his productions, all delivered in the chafteft ftyle, in the cleareft order, and the moft pregnant brevity, is amazed at the immenfity of his genius. His logic, however at prefent neglected for thofe rudiments and verbose fyflems, which took their rife from Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, is a mighty effort of the mind; in which are difcovered the principal fources of the art of reasoning, and the dependencies of one thought on another; and where, by the different combinations he hath made of all the forms the understanding can affume in reasoning, which he hath traced for it, he hath fo closely confined it, that it cannot depart from them, without arguing inconfequentially. His Phyfics contain many useful obfervations, particularly his Hiftory of Animals, which Buffon highly praifes; to affift him in which, Alexander gave orders, that creatures of different climates and countries fhould, at a great expence, be brought to him, to pafs under his inspection. His Morals are, perhaps, the pureft fyftem of antiquity. His Politics are a most valuable monument of the civil wifdom of the ancients; as they preferve to us the defcription of feveral governments, and particularly of Crete and Carthage, that otherwise would have been unknown. But of all his compofitions, his Rhetoric and Poetics are most excellent. No writer has fhewn a greater penetration into the receffes of the human heart, than this philofopher, in the second book of his Rhetoric; where he treats of the different manners and paffions that diftinguish each different age and condition of man; and from whence Horace plainly took his famous defcription, in the Art of Poetry (ver. 157). La Bruyere, La Rochefoucault, and Montaigne himself, are not to be compared to him in this respect. No fucceeding writer on eloquence, not even Tully, has added any thing new or important on this fubject. His Poetics, which, I fuppofe, are here by Pope chiefly referred to, feem to have been written for the use of that prince, with whose education Ariftotle was honoured, to give him a just tafte in reading Homer and the tragedians; to judge properly of which, was then thought no unnecessary accomplishment in the character of a prince. To attempt to understand poetry without having diligently digefted this treatise, would Poets, a race long unconfin'd, and free, Receiv'd his laws; and stood convinc'd 'twas fit, The trueft notions in the easiest way. He, who fupreme in judgment, as in wit, 650 655 Yet judg'd with coolness, tho' he sung with fire; They judge with fury, but they write with flegm: NOTES. would be as abfurd and impoffible, as to pretend to a skill in geometry, without having ftudied Euclid. The fourteenth, fifteenth, and fixteenth chapters, wherein he has pointed out the properest methods of exciting terror and pity, convince us, that he was intimately acquainted with thofe objects which most forcibly affect the heart. The prime excellence of this precious treatise is the scholaftic precifion, and philosophical closeness, with which the fubject is handled, without any address to the paffions, or imagination. It is to be lamented, that the part of the Poetics in which he had given precepts for comedy, did not likewise defcend to pofterity. VER. 652. Who conquer'd] By conquering nature, our poet certainly meant, was a perfect master of all natural philofophy, as far as it was then underflood; in his own manufcript lines quoted above he ufes the expreffion in the very fame sense; He, when all nature was fubdu'd before. See |