Not fo, when fwift Camilla fcours the plain,

Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.

375

Hear how Timotheus' vary'd lays furprize,
And bid alternate paffions fall and rife!
While, at each change, the fon of Libyan Jove
Now burns with glory, and then melts with love :
Now his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow,
Now fighs fteal out, and tears begin to flow:
Perflans and Greeks like turns of nature found, 380
And the World's victor ftood fubdu'd by Sound!
The pow'r of Mufic all our hearts allow,
And what Timotheus was, is DRYDEN now.
Avoid Extremes; and fhun the fault of fuch,
Who ftill are pleas'd too little or too much. 385

COMMENTARY.

VER. 384. Avoid Extremes, &c.] Our author is now come to the laft caufe of wrong Judgment, PARTIALITY; the parent of the immediately preceding caufe, a bounded Capacity: Nothing fo much narrowing and contracting the mind as prejudices entertained for or against things or

NOTES.

374. Hear how Timotheus &c.] See Alexander's

Feaft, or the Power of Mufic; an Ode by Mr. Dryden.

At ev'ry trifle fcorn to take offence,!
That always fhows great pride, or little fenfe;
Thofe heads, as ftomachs, are not sure the beft,
Which naufeate all, and nothing can digeft.

Yet let not each gay Turn thy rapture move, 390
For fools admire, but men of fense approve.
As things feem large which we thro' mifts descry,
Dulness is ever apt to magnify.

Some foreign writers, fome our own despise: The Ancients only, or the Modern's prize. 395

COMMENTARY,

perfons. This, therefore, as the main root of all the foregoing, he profecutes at large from 383 to 473.

First he previously expofes that capricious turn of mind, which, by running men into Extrêmes, either of praise or difpraife, lays the foundation of an habitual partiality. He cautions therefore both against one and the other; and fhews that excels of Praife is the mark of a bad tafe, and excefs of Cenfure, of a bad digestion.

VER. 394. Some foreign writers, &c.] Having explained the difpofition of mind which produces an habitual partiality, he proceeds to expofe this partiality in all the fhapes it appears in, both amongst the unlearned and the learned.

I. In the unlearned, it is feen, 1. In an unreasonable fondness for, or averfion to our cwn or foreign, to ancient or modern writers. And as it is the mob of unlearned readers he is here fpeaking of, he expofes their folly in a very appofite fimilitude:

Thus Wit, like Faith, by each man is apply'd
To one fmall fect, and all are damn'd befide.
Meanly they seek the bleffing to confine,
And force that fun but on a part to shine,
Which not alone the fouthern wit fublimes, 400
But ripens fpirits in cold northern climes ;
Which from the firft has fhone on ages paft,
Enlights the prefent, and fhall warm the laft:
Tho' each may feel encreases and decays,
And fee now clearer and now darker days.
Regard not then if Wit be old or new,
But blame the falfe, and value ftill the true.

COMMENTARY.

Thus Wit, like Faith, by each man is apply'd
To one fmall feet, and all are damn'd befide.

405

But he fhews that these Critics have as wrong a notion of Reafon as thofe Bigots have of God: For that Genius is not confined to times or climates; but, as the universal gift of Nature, is extended throughout all ages and countries: That indeed this intellectual light, like the material light of the Sun itself, may not always fhine in every place with equal fplendor; but be fometimes clouded with popular ignorance, and fometimes again eclipsed by the difcountenance of Princes; yet it 'fhall ftill recover itself; and, by breaking through the ftrongest of these impediments, manifeft the eternity of its nature.

Some ne'er advance a Judgment of their own, But catch the spreading notion of the town; They reafon and conclude by precedent,

410

415

And own ftale nonfenfe which they ne'er invent.
Some judge of authors names, not works; and then
Nor praife nor blame the writings, but the men.
Of all this fervile herd, the worst is he
That in proud dulnefs joins with Quality.
A conftant Critic at the great man's board,
To fetch and carry nonfenfe for my Lord.
What woful stuff this madrigal would be,
In fome starv'd hackney fonneteer, or me?
But let a Lord once own the happy lines,
How the wit brightens! how the ftyle refines!

COMMENTARY.

420

VER. 408. Some ne'er advance a Judgment of their own A fecond inftance of unlearned partiality is their going always along with the cry, as having no fixed or well grounded principles whereon to raise any judgment. A third is reverence for names; of which, as he well obferves, the worst and vileft fort, are the idolizers of names of quality; whom therefore he ftigmatizes as they deferve. Our author's temper as well as judgment is here very obfervable, in throwing this fpecies of partiality anongit the unlearned Critics: His affection for letters would not fuffer him to conceive that any learned Critic could ever fail to fo low a prostitution.

Before his facred name Alies ev'ry fault,

And each exalted ftanzà teeths with thought!
The Vulgar thus through Imitation err;
As oft the Learn'd by being fingular;

COMMENTARY.

425

VER. 424.TheValgar thus - As oft the Learn'd-] II. He comes in the fecond place, to confider the inftances of partiality in the learned. 1. The first is Singularity. For, as want of principles, in the unlearned, neceffitates them to reft on the general judgment as always right; so adherence to false principles (that is, to notions of their own) draws the learned into the other extreme, of fuppofing the general judgment always wrong. And as, before, the poet compared thofe to Bigots, who made true faith to confist in believing after others; fo he compares thefe to Schifmatics, who make it to confift in believing as no one ever believed before. Which folly he marks with a lively stroke of humour in the turn of the thought:

So Schifmatics the plain believers quit,

And are but damn'd for having too much Wit.

2. The second is Novelty. And as this, which he profecutes from 429 to 452. proceeds fometimes from fondnefs, fometimes from vanity, he compares the one to the paffion for a mistress, & 432. and the other, to the pride of being in fashion, 446. But the excufe common to both is, the daily improvement of their Judgment.

Ask them the caufe, they're wifer ftill they say.