The mighty Stagirite firft left the fhore, Spread all his fails, and durft the deeps explore; He steer'd fecurely, and difcover'd far, 645 Led by the light of the Mæonian star. Poets, VARIATIONS. Between ver. 646 and 649. I have found the following lines, fince fuppreft by the author: That bold Columbus of the realms of wit, Whofe first difcovery's not exceeded yet. Like his great Pupil, figh'd and long❜d for more : A boundless empire, and that own'd no fway. NOTES. WARBURTON. VER. 645. The mighty Stagirite] A noble and just character of the first and the beit of critics! Whoever furveys the variety and perfection of his productions, all delivered in the chastest ftyle, in the cleareft order, and the most pregnant brevity, is amazed at the immenfity of his genius. His logic, however at prefent neglected for thofe rudiments and verbose fyftems which took their rife from Locke's Effay on the Human Understanding, is a mighty effort of the mind; in which are dif covered the principal fources of the art of reafoning, and the dependencies of one thought on another; and where, by the different combinations he hath made of all the forms the underftanding can affume in reafoning, 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 praises; to affift him in which, Alexander gave orders, that creatures of different climates and countries should, at a great expence, be brought to him, to pafs under his infpection. His Morals are, perhaps, the pureft system of antiquity. His Politics are a most valuable monument of the civil wifdom of the ancients; as Poets, a race long unconfin'd, and free, 650 Receiv'd his laws; and ftood convinc'd 'twas fit, Who conquer'd Nature, fhould prefide o'er Wit. Horace NOTES. as they preferve to us the defcription of feveral governments, and particularly of Crete and Carthage, that otherwife 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 distinguish 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 refpect. No fucceeding writer on eloquence, not even Tully, has added any thing new or important on this fubject. His Poetics, which, I suppose, are here by Pope chiefly referred to, feem to have been written for the ufe of that prince, with whose education Ariftotle was honoured, to give him a just taste in reading Homer and the tragedians; to judge properly of which, was then thought no unneceffary accomplishment in the character of a prince. To attempt to understand poetry without having diligently digested this treatife, would be as abfurd and impoffible, as to pretend to a fkill in geometry without having fludied Euclid. The fourteenth, fifteenth, and fixteenth chapters, wherein he has pointed out the propereft methods of exciting terror and pity, convince us, that he was intimately acquainted with those objects which most forcibly affect the heart. The prime excellence of this precious treatise is the fcholaftic precifion, and philofophical clofenefs, 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 likewife defcend to pofterity. WARTON. VER. 652. Who conquer'd] By conquering nature, our Poet certainly meant, was a perfect mafter of all natural philofophy, as Horace ftill charms with graceful negligence, He, who fupreme in judgment, as in wit, Yet judg'd with coolness, tho' he fung with fire; They judge with fury, but they write with flegm: 655 660 665 Fancy NOTES. as far as it was then underfood; in his own manufcript lines quoted above he ufes the expreffion in the very fame sense; He, when all nature was fubdu'd before. WARTON. VER. 65. See Dionyfius] Of Halicarnaffus. Thefe profaic lines, this fpiritlefs eulogy, are much below the merit of the critic whom they are intended to celebrate. Pope feems here rather to have confidered Dionyfius as the author only of reflections concerning Homer; and to have, in fome measure, overlooked, or at least not to have fufficiently infifted on, his most excellent book ΠΕΡΙ ΣΥΝΘΗΣΕΩΣ ΟΝΟΜΑΤΩΝ, in which he has unfolded all the fecret arts that render compofition harmonious. One part of this difcourfe, I mean from the beginning of the twenty-firft to the end of the twenty fourth fection, is, perhaps, one of the most useful pieces of criticism extant. He there difcuffes the three different fpecies of compofition; which he divides into the Nervous and Auttere, the Smooth and Florid, and the Middle, which partakes of the nature of the two others. As examples of the firft fpecies, he mentions Antimachus and Empe docles Fancy and art in gay Petronius please, NOTES. 670 In docles in heroics, Pindar in lyric, Æfchylus in tragic poetry, and Thucydides in hiftory. As examples of the second, he produces Hefiod as a writer in heroics; Sappho, Anacreon, and Simonides, in lyric; Euripides only among tragic writers; among the hiftorians, Ephorus and Theopompus; and Ifocrates among the rhetoricians: all these, fays he, have used words that are AEIA, και ΜΑΛΑΚΑ, και ΠΑΡΘΕΝΩΠΑ. The writers which he alleges as inftances of the third fpecies, who have happily blended the two other species of compofition, and who are the most complete models of style, are Homer in epic poetry; Stefichorus and Alcæus in lyric; in tragic, Sophocles; in hiftory, Herodotus; in eloquence, Demofthenes; in philofophy, Democritus, Plato, and Ariftotle. Numberlefs are the paffages which Quintilian has borrowed from this writer; who has lately been brought forward, and perhaps will be more read by being fo often referred to, by the learned Lord Monboddo. The treatise, De Structurâ, was admirably well published by Mr. Upton, the editor also of Aristotle's Poetics, printed at Cambridge, under the inspection of Dr. Hare, in the year 1706, and also of Extracts from Ælian, Polyænus, and Herodotus, and of Afcham's Schoolmaster. WARTON. VER. 657. Petronius pleafe,] This diffolute and effeminate writer little deferved a place among good critics, for only two or three pages on the subject of criticifm. His fragment on the Civil War is far below Lucan, whom he endeavoured to blame and to excel. Sir George Wheeler, esteemed an accurate traveller, informs us, that he faw at Trau, in the hands of a Doctor Statelius, a fragment of Petronius, in which the account of the Supper of 'Trimalcion was entire. Yet this fragment has been judged to be fpurious. WARTON. VER. 669. In grave Quintilian's] It is very juftly remarked by Dr. Warton, that "to commend Quintilian barely for his method, is below his merit, as that elegant writer afforded copious matter for a more appropriated and poetical character." How differently does VOL. I. T Thus useful arms in magazines we place, Thee, bold Longinus! all the Nine infpire, NOTES. 675 An does Leonardo Aretino fpeak, in his letter to Poggio, upon the discovery of Quintilian, with Silius Italicus and Valerius Flaccus, among duft and rubbish at the bottom of a tower, in the monastery of St. Gall! "I have the pleasure of informing you," he fays, "that from this difcovery of yours we have already derived more advantages than you are aware of; for by your exertions we are at length in poffeffion of a perfect copy of Quintilian. I have inspected the title of the books; we have now the entire treatise, of which before we had only one half, and that in a very mutilated ftate. Oh, what a valuable acquifition! what an unexpected pleafure! Shall I then behold Quintilian whole and entire, who, even in his imperfect ftate, was fo rich a fource of delight. I entreat you, my dear Poggio, fend me the manufcript as foon as poffible, that I may fee it before I die.” See Shepherd's Life of Poggio, page 105. Nothing can fhew more clearly the enthusiasm with which the buried treasures of claffical authors were received, when they were brought to light, at this period; and Warton juftly observes, that the hiftory of the manner in which antient MSS. were found, would be an entertaining work. VER. 675. Thee, bold Longinus !] This abrupt addrefs to Lon. ginus is more fpirited and ftriking, and more fuitable to the character of the perfon addressed, than if he had coldly spoken of him in the third perfon, as it ftood in the first edition. The taste and fenfibility of Longinus were exquifite; but his obfervations are too general, and his method too loose. The precision of the true philofophical critic is loft in the declamation of the florid rhetorician. Instead of shewing for what reafon a fentiment or image is fublime, and difcovering the secret power by which they affect a reader with pleasure, he is ever intent on producing fomething fublime himself, and strokes of his own eloquence. Instead of |