English Poets of the Eighteenth Century. Various

precipice.

       Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend,

       And rise to faults true critics dare not mend.

       But tho' the ancients thus their rules invade,

       (As kings dispense with laws themselves have made)

       Moderns, beware! or if you must offend

       Against the precept, ne'er transgress its end;

       Let it be seldom and compelled by need;

       And have, at least, their precedent to plead.

       The critic else proceeds without remorse,

       Seizes your fame, and puts his laws in force.

      I know there are, to whose presumptuous thoughts

       Those freer beauties, e'en in them, seem faults.

       Some figures monstrous and misshaped appear,

       Considered singly, or beheld too near,

       Which, but proportioned to their light or place,

       Due distance reconciles to form and grace.

       A prudent chief not always must display

       His powers in equal ranks, and fair array,

       But with th' occasion and the place comply,

       Conceal his force, nay, seem sometimes to fly.

       Those oft are stratagems which errors seem,

       Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream.

      * * * * *

      A little learning is a dangerous thing;

       Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:

       There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

       And drinking largely sobers us again.

       Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts,

       In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts,

       While from the bounded level of our mind,

       Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind;

       But more advanced, behold with strange surprise

       New distant scenes of endless science rise!

       So pleased at first the towering Alps we try,

       Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky,

       Th' eternal snows appear already past,

       And the first clouds and mountains seem the last;

       But, those attained, we tremble to survey

       The growing labours of the lengthened way,

       Th' increasing prospects tire our wandering eyes,

       Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!

      A perfect judge will read each work of wit

       With the same spirit that its author writ:

       Survey the whole, nor seek slight faults to find

       Where nature moves, and rapture warms the mind;

       Nor lose, for that malignant dull delight,

       The gen'rous pleasure to be charmed with wit.

       But in such lays as neither ebb, nor flow,

       Correctly cold, and regularly low,

       That shunning faults, one quiet tenor keep;

       We cannot blame indeed—but we may sleep.

       In wit, as nature, what affects our hearts

       Is not th' exactness of peculiar parts:

       'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call,

       But the joint force and full result of all.

       Thus when we view some well-proportioned dome,

       (The world's just wonder, and e'en thine, O Rome!)

       So single parts unequally surprise,

       All comes united to th' admiring eyes;

       No monstrous height, or breadth, or length appear;

       The whole at once is bold, and regular.

      Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,

       Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.

       In every work regard the writer's end,

       Since none can compass more than they intend;

       And if the means be just, the conduct true,

       Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due;

       As men of breeding, sometimes men of wit,

       T' avoid great errors, must the less commit:

       Neglect the rules each verbal critic lays,

       For not to know some trifles, is a praise.

       Most critics, fond of some subservient art,

       Still make the whole depend upon a part:

       They talk of principles, but notions prize,

       And all to one loved folly sacrifice.

      Once on a time, La Mancha's knight, they say,

       A certain bard encountering on the way,

       Discoursed in terms as just, with looks as sage,

       As e'er could Dennis of the Grecian stage;

       Concluding all were desperate sots and fools,

       Who durst depart from Aristotle's rules.

       Our author, happy in a judge so nice,

       Produced his play, and begged the knight's advice;

       Made him observe the subject, and the plot,

       The manners, passions, unities, what not?

       All which, exact to rule, were brought about,

       Were but a combat in the lists left out.

       'What! leave the combat out?' exclaims the knight;

       Yes, or we must renounce the Stagirite.

       'Not so, by Heaven' (he answers in a rage),

       'Knights, squires, and steeds, must enter on the stage.'

       So vast a throng the stage can ne'er contain.

       'Then build a new, or act it in a plain.'

      Thus critics, of less judgment than caprice,

       Curious not knowing, not exact but nice,

       Form short ideas; and offend in arts

       (As most in manners) by a love to parts.

      Some to conceit alone their taste confine,

       And glitt'ring thoughts struck out at every line;

       Pleased with a work where nothing's just or fit;

       One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit.

       Poets like painters, thus unskilled to trace

       The naked nature and the living grace,

       With gold and jewels cover every part,

       And hide with ornaments their want of art.

       True wit is nature to advantage dressed,

       What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed;

       Something, whose truth convinced at sight we find,

       That gives us back the image of our mind.

       As shades more sweetly recommend the light,

       So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit.

       For works may have more wit than does 'em good,

       As bodies perish through excess of blood.

      Others for language all their care express,