If, where the rules not far enough extend, (Since rules were made but to promote their end) Some lucky licence answer to the full
The intent proposed, that licence is a rule.
Thus Pegasus, a nearer way to take,
May boldly deviate from the common track.
Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend,
And rise to faults true critics dare not mend;
From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part,
And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art;
Which, without passing through the judgment,
gains
The heart, and all its end at once attains.
In prospects, thus, some objects please our eyes,
Which out of nature's common order rise;
The shapeless rock, or hanging precipice.
But though 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 compell'd 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. 170 Some figures monstrous and misshaped appear, Consider'd singly, or beheld too near,
Which, but proportion'd 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 the 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.
Still green with bays each ancient altar stands, Above the reach of sacrilegious hands; Secure from flames, from envy's fiercer rage, Destructive war, and all-involving age.
See, from each clime the learn'd their incense bring
Hear, in all tongues consenting peans ring!
In praise so just let every voice be join'd,
And fill the general chorus of mankind.
Hail, bards triumphant! born in happier days;
Immortal heirs of universal praise!
Whose honours with increase of ages grow,
As streams roll down, enlarging as they flow:
Nations unborn your mighty names shall sound,
And worlds applaud, that must not yet be found!
O, may some spark of your celestial fire,
The last, the meanest of your sons inspire,
That on weak wings, from far, pursues your flights;
Glows while he reads, but trembles as he writes;
To teach vain wits a science little known;
To admire superior sense, and doubt their own! 200
Of all the causes which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is Pride, the never-failing vice of fools.
Whatever nature has in worth denied,
She gives in large recruits of needful pride;
For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find
What wants in blood and spirits, swell'd with wind:
Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence,
And fills up all the mighty void of sense.
If once right reason drives that cloud away,
Truth breaks upon us with resistless day.
Trust not yourself; but your defects to know,
Make use of every friend-and every foe.
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, 220
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;
The eternal snows appear already pass'd,
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last :
But, those attain'd, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthen'd way: 230
The increasing prospect tires 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 generous pleasure to be charm'd 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 the 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-proportion'd dome,
(The world's just wonder, and e'en thine, O Rome!)
No single parts unequally surprise;
All comes united to the 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,
To avoid great errors, must the less commit: 260
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; 270
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 begg'd 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 glittering 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, unskill'd to trace The naked nature and the living grace, With gold and jewels cover every part, And hide with ornaments their want of art.
* John Dennis, a critic. His criticism on this poem was so violent as to resemble the production of a lunatic. Dunciad, Book I., line 106, note.
True wit is nature to advantage dress'd;
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd;
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 them good,
As bodies perish through excess of blood.
Others for language all their care express;
And value books, as women men, for dress :
Their praise is still, the style is excellent;'
The sense, they humbly take upon content.
Words are like leaves; and where they most abound,
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found: 310
False eloquence, like the prismatic glass,
Its gaudy colours spreads on every place;
The face of nature we no more survey;
All glares alike, without distinction gay:
But true expression, like the unchanging sun,
Clears and improves whate'er it shines upon;
It gilds all objects, but it alters none.
Expression is the dress of thought, and still
Appears more decent, as more suitable.
A vile conceit, in pompous words express'd, 320
Is like a clown in regal purple dress'd:
For different styles with different subjects sort,
As several garbs with country, town and court.
Some by old words to fame have made pretence;
Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense;
Such labour'd nothings, in so strange a style,
Amaze the unlearn'd, and make the learned smile.
Unlucky, as Fungoso in the play,
These sparks with awkward vanity display
What the fine gentleman wore yesterday;
And but so mimic ancient wits at best,
As apes our grandsires, in their doublets dress'd. -In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold; Alike fantastic, if too new or old :
* Ben Jonson's 'Every Man out of his Humour.'
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