Still run on Poets in a raging vein, Ev'n to the dregs and squeezing of the brain, 611 615 Such shameless Bards we have; and yet 'tis true, 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. All books he reads, and all he reads assails, From Dryden's Fables down to Durfey's Tales. With him most authors steal their works, or buy; Garth did not write his own Dispensary. Name a new play, and he's the Poet's friend, Nay shew'd his faults-but when would Poets mend? No place so sacred from such fops is barr'd, 620 Nor is Paul's church more safe than Paul's church yard : NOTES. Ver. 607. squeezing of the brain,] It has been suggested that he alludes to Wycherley, who had quarrelled with him for correcting his rough and harsh verses, and for saying, he had better put his thoughts into prose, like Rochfoucault's maxims. Ver. 619. 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 slander most prevailed; and it is now (perhaps the sooner for this very verse) dead and forgotten. P. Ver. 622. No place so sacred] This stroke of satire is literally taken from Boileau. "Gardez vous d'imiter ce rimeur furieux, Qui de ses vains écrits lecteur harmonieux Et poursuit de ses vers les passans dans le ruë, Nay, fly to Altars; there they'll talk you dead; 625 VARIATIONS. Ver. 623. Between this and ver. 624. In vain you shrug and sweat and strive to fly: NOTES. Il n'est Temple si saint, des Anges respecté, Which lines allude to the impertinence of a French poet called Du Perrier, who finding Boileau one day at church, insisted upon repeating to him an ode, during the elevation of the host; and desired his opinion, whether or not it was in the manner of Malherbe. Without this anecdote the pleasantry of the satire would be overlooked. It may here be occasionally observed, how many beauties in this species of writing are lost, for want of knowing the facts to which they allude. The following passage may be produced as a proof. Boileau, in his excellent epistle to his gardener, at Auteuil, says, "Mon maître, dirois-tu, passe pour un Docteur, Et parle quelquefois mieux qu'un Prédicateur." It seems our author and Racine returned one day, in high spirits, from Versailles, with two honest citizens of Paris. As their conversation was full of gaiety and huniour, the two citizens were greatly delighted; and one of them at parting, stopped Boileau with this compliment, "I have travelled with Doctors of the Sorbonne, and even with the religious; but I never heard so many fine things said before; en verite vous parlez cent fais mieux qu'un Predicateur." It is but justice to add, that the fourteen succeeding verses in the poem before us, containing the character of a True Critic, are superior to any thing in Boileau's Art of Poetry; from which, however, Pope has borrowed many observations. And never shock'd, and never turn'd aside, Bursts out, resistless, 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? Unbiass'd, or by favour, or by spite; Not dully prepossess'd, nor blindly right; 634 Tho' learn'd, well-bred; and tho' well-bred, sincere; Modestly bold, and humanly severe; NOTES. Ver. 631. But where's the man, &c.] The poet, by his manner of asking after this character, and telling us, when he had described it, that such once were critics, does not encourage us to search 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 ejusd. 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 systematic order, and the strictest method. An idea to which several 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 epistle of Horace, in 1683, totally grounded on this supposition. If my partiality to my lamented friend Mr. Colman does not mislead me, I should think this account of the matter the most judicious of any yet published. He conceives that the elder Piso had written or meditated a poetical work, probably a tragedy; and had communicated his piece, in confi. dence, to Horace; but Horace, either disapproving of the work, or doubting of the poetical faculties of the elder Piso, or both, wished to dissuade him from all thoughts of publication. With this view he wrote his epistle, addressing it with a courtliness and delicacy, perfectly agreeable to his acknowledged character, indifferently to the whole family, the father and his two sons. Epistle to the Pisos, with Notes by George Colman, 4to. 1783, p. 6. Who to a friend his faults can freely shew, Blest with a taste exact, yet unconfin'd; A knowledge both of books and human kind; 640 The mighty Stagyrite first left the shore, 645 Spread all his sails, and durst the deeps explore; VARIATIONS. Between ver. 646 and 649 I have found the following lines, since suppressed by the author: That bold Columbus of the realms of wit, Like his great Pupil, sigh'd and long'd for more: A boundless empire, and that own'd no sway. NOTES. W. Ver. 642. with reason on his side? &c.] Not only on his side, 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 shewing them to the world in only empty exclamations. His office is to explain their nature, shew from whence they arise, and what effects they produce; or, in the better and fuller expression of the poet, W. "To teach the world with reason to admire." Ver. 645. The mighty Stagyrite] A noble and just character of the first and the best of critics! and sufficient to repress the fashionable and nauseous petulance of several impertinent moderns, who have attempted to discredit this great and useful writer. Whoever surveys the variety and perfection of his productions, all delivered in the chastest style, in the clearest order, He steer'd securely, and discover'd far, NOTES. and the most pregnant brevity, is amazed at the immensity of his genius. His logic, however at present neglected for those rudiments and verbose systems which took their rise from Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, is a mighty effort of the mind; in which are discovered the principal sources of the art of reasoning, and the dependences of one thought on another; and where, by the different combinations he hath made of all the forms the understanding can assume in reasoning, which he hath traced for it, he hath so closely confined it, that it cannot depart from them, without arguing inconsequentially. His Physics contain many useful observations, particularly his History of Animals, which Buffon highly praises; to assist him in which, Alexander gave orders, that creatures of different climates and countries should, at a great expense, be brought to him, to pass under his inspection. His Morals are, perhaps, the purest system of antiquity. His Politics are a most valuable monument of the civil wisdom of the ancients; as they preserve to us the description of several governments, and particularly of Crete and Carthage, that otherwise would have been unknown. But of all his compositions, his Rhetoric and Poetics are most excellent. No writer has shewn a greater penetration into the recesses of the human heart, than this philosopher, in the second book of his Rhetoric; where he treats of the different manners and passions that distinguish each different age and condition of man; and from whence Horace plainly took his famous description, 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 succeeding writer on eloquence, not even Tully, has added any thing new or important on this subject. His Poetics, which, I suppose, are here by Pope chiefly referred to, seem to have been written for the use of that prince, with whose education Aristotle was honoured, to give him a just taste 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 digested this treatise, would be as absurd and impossible, as to pretend to a skill in geometry, without having studied Euclid. The fourteenth, fifteenth, and |