Without Good Breeding, truth is disapprov'd;
That only makes superior sense belov'd.

Be niggards of advice on no pretence;
For the worst avarice is that of sense.
With mean complacence ne'er betray your trust,
Nor be so civil as to prove unjust.
Fear not the anger of the wise to raise;
Those best can bear reproof, who merit praise.
'Twere well might critics still this freedom take,
But Appius reddens at each word you speak,
And stares, tremendous, with a threat'ning eye1,
Like some fierce Tyrant in old tapestry.
Fear most to tax an Honourable fool,
Whose right it is, uncensur'd, to be dull;
Such, without wit, are Poets when they please,
As without learning they can take Degrees.
Leave dang'rous truths to unsuccessful Satires,
And flattery to fulsome Dedicators",

Whom, when they praise, the world believes no more,

Than when they promise to give scribbling o'er.

'Tis best sometimes your censure to restrain,

And charitably let the dull be vain :
Your silence there is better than your spite,
For who can rail so long as they can write?
Still humming on, their drowsy course they keep,
And lash'd so long, like tops, are lash'd asleep.
False steps but help them to renew the race,
As, after stumbling, Jades will mend their pace.
What crowds of these, impenitently bold,
In sounds and jingling syllables grown old,
Still run on Poets, in a raging vein,

Ev'n to the dregs and squeezings of the brain,

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6co

Strain out the last dull droppings of their sense,

And rhyme with all the rage of Impotence.
Such shameless Bards we have; and yet 'tis true,

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There are as mad abandon'd Critics too.
The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,
With loads of learned lumber in his head,
With his own tongue still edifies his ears,
And always list'ning to himself appears.

And stares, tremendous, &c.] This picture was taken to himself by John Dennis, a furious old critic by profession, who, upon no other provocation, wrote against this essay and its author, in a manner perfectly lunatic: for, as to the mention made of him in v. 270, he took it as a compliment, and said it was treacherously meant to cause him to overlook this abuse of his person. P. [Dennis is alluded to by the name of Appius in consequence of his tragedy of Appius and Virginia which was damned in 1709. The thunder employed in it being both good and ex

pensive was to the author's indignation 'stolen' for the representation of Macbeth. See Dibdin's History of the Stage, IV. 357. He is the Sir Tremendous' of Pope and Gay's farce, Three Hours after Marriage.]

2 As without learning they can take Degrees.] [Referring to a barbarous privilege of which the relics still remain at our ancient Universities.]

3 [See on this subject Bacon's maxims (contradicted by his practice) in the first book of the Advancement of L.]

All books he reads, and all he reads assails,
From Dryden's Fables down to Durfey's Tales1.
With him, most authors steal their works, or buy;
Garth did not write his own Dispensary2.

Name a new Play, and he's the Poet's friend,

Nay show'd his faults-but when would Poets mend?

No place so sacred from such fops is barr'd,

Nor is Paul's church more safe than Paul's churchyard 3:
Nay, fly to Altars; there they'll talk you dead:
For Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread4.
Distrustful sense with modest caution speaks,

It still looks home, and short excursions makes;
But rattling nonsense in full volleys breaks,
And never shock'd, and never turn'd aside,
Bursts out, resistless, with a thund'ring tide.

But where's the man, who counsel can bestow,
Still pleas'd to teach, and yet not proud to know?
Unbiass'd, or by favour, or by spite;

Not dully prepossess'd, nor blindly right;

Tho' learn'd, well-bred; and tho' well-bred, sincere,
Modestly bold, and humanly severe :

Who to a friend his faults can freely show,
And gladly praise the merit of a foe?
Blest with a taste exact, yet unconfin'd;

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A knowledge both of books and human kind:
Gen'rous converse; a soul exempt from pride;
And love to praise, with reason on his side?

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Such once were Critics; such the happy few,
Athens and Rome in better ages knew.
The mighty Stagirite first left the shore,

Spread all his sails, and durst the deeps explore :
He steer'd securely, and discover'd far,
Led by the light of the Mæonian Star.
Poets, a race long unconfin'd, and free,
Still fond and proud of savage liberty,

1 [Durfey or D'Urfey; a writer in whom the art of versification probably reached its nadir; one of those poets who in Pope's times usually attached themselves to the chariot-wheels of some noble patron, and in our own are occasionally provided for out of the Royal Bounty Fund. Durfey's Mæcenas was that Wharton to whom according to Pope the attachment of women and fools was a condition of existence. Besides a sequel in 5 acts to the Rehearsal and some 'original' dramas, elegies and panegyrical pieces, D. wrote the Tales on which his literary infamy chiefly rests. These versified stories, partly 'comick' and partly 'moral,' abound in every description of offence against the laws of taste, grammar, and rhyme, but are otherwise comparatively harmless.]

2 Garth did not write, &c.] A common slander at that time in prejudice of that deserving author. Our poet did him this justice, when that

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slander most prevailed; and it is now (perhaps the sooner for this very verse) dead and forgotten. P.

[So Johnson was publicly reported to be the author of a considerable part of Goldsmith's Traveller, of which he wrote exactly nine lines, and Goethe of a considerable part of Schiller's Camp of Wallenstein, of which he wrote two lines. But the crowning discovery of this class, that Shakspere did not write his own plays, has been reserved for the present generation.]

3 [Before the Fire of London, St Paul's Churchyard was the headquarters of the booksellers, who have never wholly deserted it.]

4 [Compare the noble passage in the Dunciad III. 213 ff. Johnson's famous line about the female atheist seems to have been suggested by the lines in the Essay.]

As to Garth v. ante, note to p. 17.

Receiv'd his laws; and stood convinc'd 'twas fit1,
Who conquer'd Nature, should preside o'er Wit.
Horace still charms with graceful negligence,
And without method talks us into sense,
Will, like a friend, familiarly convey
The truest notions in the easiest way.
He, who supreme in judgment, as in wit,
Might boldly censure, as he boldly writ,

Yet judg'd with coolness, tho' he sung with fire;

His Precepts teach but what his works inspire.
Our Critics take a contrary extreme,

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They judge with fury, but they write with fle'me:
Nor suffers Horace more in wrong Translations
By Wits, than Critics in as wrong Quotations.
See Dionysius Homer's thoughts refine2,
And call new beauties forth from ev'ry line!
Fancy and art in gay Petronius please3,
The scholar's learning, with the courtier's ease.
In grave Quintilian's copious work, we find
The justest rules, and clearest method join'd:
Thus useful arms in magazines we place,
All rang'd in order, and dispos'd with grace,
But less to please the eye, than arm the hand,
Still fit for use, and ready at command.

Thee, bold Longinus! all the Nine inspire,
And bless their Critic with a Poet's fire.
An ardent Judge, who zealous in his trust,
With warmth gives sentence, yet is always just;
Whose own example strengthens all his laws;
And is himself that great Sublime he draws.

Thus long succeeding Critics justly reign'd,
Licence repress'd, and useful laws ordain'd.
Learning and Rome alike in empire grew;
And Arts still follow'd where her Eagles flew ;

From the same foes, at last, both felt their doom,
And the same age saw Learning fall, and Rome".
With Tyranny, then Superstition join'd,
As that the body, this enslav'd the mind;
Much was believ'd, but little understood,
And to be dull was constru'd to be good;
A second deluge Learning thus o'er-run,
And the Monks finish'd what the Goths begun.
At length Erasmus, that great injur'd name7,
(The glory of the Priesthood, and the shame!)
Stemm'd the wild torrent of a barb'rous age,
And drove those holy Vandals off the stage.
[In his Natural History and in his Poetics
respectively.]

See Dionysius] Of Halicarnassus. P. [B. C. 30 circ., author of treatise de compositione verborum and Ars Rhetorica.]

3 [T. Petronius Arbiter, the reputed author of the Satiricon, lived in the time of Nero, at whose court he was revered as elegantiæ arbiter.]

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690

4 [M. Fabius Quintilianus, author of the Institutiones Oratoria, born 42 A. D.]

5 [Cassius Longinus, author of the Treatise on the Sublime, born 210, put to death 273 A. D.] 6 Rome.] [Shakspere used both pronunciations of this word.]

7 [Born at Rotterdam 1467; died at Basle

1536.]

But see! each Muse, in LEO's golden days1,
Starts from her trance, and trims her wither'd bays,
Rome's ancient Genius, o'er its ruins spread,
Shakes off the dust, and rears his rev'rend head.
Then Sculpture and her sister-arts revive;
Stones leap'd to form, and rocks began to live;
With sweeter notes each rising Temple rung 2;
A Raphael painted, and a Vida sung3.
Immortal Vida: on whose honour'd brow
The Poet's bays and Critic's ivy grow:
Cremona now shall ever boast thy name,
As next in place to Mantua, next in fame!

But soon by impious arms from Latium chas'd",
Their ancient bounds the banish'd Muses pass'd;
Thence Arts o'er all the northern world advance,
But Critic-learning flourish'd most in France:
The rules a nation, born to serve, obeys;
And Boileau still in right of Horace sways®.
But we, brave Britons, foreign laws despis'd,
And kept unconquer'd, and unciviliz'd;
Fierce for the liberties of wit, and bold,
We still defy'd the Romans, as of old.

Yet some there were, among the sounder few
Of those who less presum'd, and better knew,
Who durst assert the juster ancient cause,
And here restor'd Wit's fundamental laws.
Such was the Muse, whose rules and practice tell7,
"Nature's chief Master-piece is writing well."

[The papacy of Leo X. lasted from 1513 to 1521. The rebuilding of St Peter's was commenced under his predecessor Julius II.; for whom also some of Raphael's greatest works were executed.]

2'I have the best authority, that of the learned, accurate, and ingenious Dr Burney, for observing that, in the age of Leo X., music did not keep pace with poetry in advancing towards perfection. Costantio Festa was the best Italian composer during the time of Leo, and Pietro Aaron the best theorist. Palestrina was not born till eight years after the death of Leo.'

Warton. 3 [Vida is as a critical writer chiefly known by his Art of Poetry, subsequently, and probably in consequence of Pope's encomium, translated into English by Christopher Pitt. This Art of Poetry, written about 1520, is chiefly directed to a consideration of the rules of Epic Poetry; and was the first of many similar discourses by Italian poets, Torquato Tasso among the number.]

As next in place to Mantua,] Alluding to 'Mantua væ miseræ nimium vicina Cremona." Virg. This application is made in Kennet's edition Warton.

of Vida.

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710

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[Boileau's (1636—1711) Art Poétique, in four cantos, like Pope's essay itself, heralds no new literary era; it is rather a summary by an independent critic of precepts which apply to poetic literature in general, though they are frequently pointed by special and even personal application. Nicolas Despréaux Boileau was born in 1636 and lived till 1711. Besides the A.P. his Epistles and Lutrin are his most noteworthy productions; as a satirist he is of the school of Horace rather than of Juvenal; as a critic he is distinguished by incisiveness rather than breadth. His Odes have no exceptional merit.]

7 Such was the Muse]-Essay on Poetry by the Duke of Buckingham. Our poet is not the only one of his time who complimented this Essay, and its noble author. Mr Dryden had done it very largely in the dedication to his translation of the Eneid; and Dr Garth in the first edition of his Dispensary says,

'The Tiber now no courtly Gallus sees, But smiling Thames enjoys his Normanbys.' Though afterwards omitted, when parties were carried so high in the reign of Queen Anne, as to allow no commendation to an opposite in politics. The Duke was all his life a steady adherent to the Church-of-England party, yet an enemy to the extravagant measures of the court in the reign of Charles I. On which account after having strongly patronized Mr Dryden, a cool

Such was Roscommon1, not more learn'd than good,
With manners gen'rous as his noble blood;

To him the wit of Greece and Rome was known,
And ev'ry author's merit, but his own.

Such late was Walsh 2-the Muse's judge and friend,
Who justly knew to blame or to commend;

To failings mild, but zealous for desert;
The clearest head, and the sincerest heart.
This humble praise, lamented shade! receive,
This praise at least a grateful Muse may give:
The Muse, whose early voice you taught to sing,
Prescrib'd her heights, and prun'd her tender wing,
(Her guide now lost) no more attempts to rise,
But in low numbers short excursions tries:

Content, if hence th' unlearn'd their wants may view,
The learn'd reflect on what before they knew:
Careless of censure, nor too fond of fame;
Still pleas'd to praise, yet not afraid to blame,
Averse alike to flatter, or offend;

Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend3.

ness succeeded between them on that poet's
absolute attachment to the court, which carried
him some lengths beyond what the Duke could
approve of. This nobleman's true character had
been very well marked by Mr Dryden before,
'the Muse's friend,

Himself a Muse. In Sanadrin's debate
True to his prince, but not a slave of state.'
Abs. and Achit.
Our Author was more happy, he was honour'd
very young with his friendship, and it continued
till his death in all the circumstances of a
familiar esteem. P.

1 An Essay on Translated Verse, seems, at first sight, to be a barren subject; yet Roscommon has decorated it with many precepts of utility and taste, and enlivened it with a tale in imitation of Boileau. It is indisputably better written, in a closer and more vigorous style, than the last-mentioned essay. Roscommon was more learned than Buckingham. He was bred under Bochart, at Caen in Normandy. He had laid a design of forming a society for the refining and fixing the standard of our language; in which project his intimate friend Dryden was a principal assistant. Warton.

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740

of Normanby by creation of William and Mary, and duke of Buckinghamshire by creation of Queen Anne, was born in 1649 and died in 1722. His Essay on Poetry, to which Pope has given an undeserved immortality, is a short and tolerably meagre performance, in which a variety of disjointed rules are applied to the principal species of poetic composition. It contains however some vigorous lines and some sensible observations of individual criticism. Compare note to p. 51.)

2 If Pope has here given too magnificent an eulogy to Walsh, it must be attributed to friendship, rather than to judgment. Walsh was, in general, a flimsy and frigid writer. The Rambler calls his works pages of inanity. His three letters to Pope, however, are well written.. Pope owed much to Walsh; it was he who gave him a very important piece of advice, in his early youth; for he used to tell our author, that there was one way still left open for him by which he might excel any of his predecessors, which was, by correctness; that though, indeed, we had several great poets, we as yet could boast of none that were perfectly correct; and that therefore he advised him to make this quality his particular study. Warton.

[As to Walsh's suggestion with reference to the Fourth Pastoral, see Pope's note to p. 11. William Walsh was born in 1663 and died about 1709; his poems and imitations shew him to have been an elegant and pleasing writer, who, however, in Dr Johnson's words, 'is known more by his familiarity with greater men, than by anything done or written by himself.']

[Wentworth Dillon earl of Roscommon, nephew of the great earl of Strafford, was born about 1632 and died in 1684. His muse was chaste at a dissolute court; but in his habits of life he participated in one at least of the vices of the age. As to his design of founding an English Academy, it was revived by De Foe and probably plagiarised from the latter by Swift, and also found favour with Prior and Tickell. It has been again advanced, upon a broader basis, by a brilliant critic of our own days. See Matthew Arnold's essay on The Literary In-Censeur un peu facheux, mais souvent nécessaire, fluence of Academies.] Plus enclin à blâmer, que savant à bien faire.'

[John Sheffield earl of Mulgrave and marquis

3 These concluding lines bear a great resemblance to Boileau's conclusion of his Art of Poetry, but are perhaps superior:

Warton.