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As things feem large which we through mist descry, Dulness is ever apt to magnify.

Some foreign writers, fome our own despise; The Ancients only, or the Moderns prize.

395

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VER. 395. Some foreign writers, &c.] Having explained the disposition of mind which produces an habitual partiality, he proceeds to expofe this partiality in all the fhapes in which it appears both amongst the unlearned and the learned.

I. In the unlearned, it is feen, first, in an unreasonable fondness for, or averfion to, our own or foreign, to ancient or modern writers. WARBURTON.

NOTES.

In

the ftrong perception of what is excellent in art or nature. numerable instances might be produced of the rapturous admiration with which men of genius have been struck at the view of great performances. It is enough here to mention the poet's favourite critic, Longinus, who is far from being contented with cool approbation, but gives free fscope to the most enraptured praife. Few things indicate a mind more unfavourably conftituted for the fine arts, than a flownefs in being moved to the admiration of excellence; and it is certainly better that this paffion fhould at first be excited by objects rather inadequate, than that it fhould not be excited at all." Aikin.

After all, nothing more is meant by Pope, than that Admira. tion is not Criticism.

VER. 394. our own despise;] If any proof was wanting how little the Paradife Loft was read and attended to, at this time, our author's total filence on the subject would be fufficient to shew it. That an Effay on Criticism could be written, without a single mention of Milton, appears truly ftrange and incredible; if we did not know that our author feems to have had no idea of any merit fuperior to that of Dryden! and had no relish for an author, who,

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"Exftinxit ftellas, exortus uti ætherius fol." Lucret.

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Thus Wit, like Faith, by each man is apply'd
To one small fect, and all are damn'd befide.
Meanly they feek the bleffing to confine,
And force that fun but on a part to fhine,
Which not alone the fouthern wit fublimes,
But ripens fpirits in cold northern climes;
Which from the first has fhone on ages past,
Enlights the prefent, and fhall warm the last;
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.
Some ne'er advance a Judgment of their own,
But catch the spreading notion of the Town;

COMMENTARY,

400

405

They

VER. 408. Some ne'er advance a Judgment of their own,] A fecond inftance of unlearned partiality is, (as he fhews from ver. 407 to 424.) men's going always along with the cry, as having no fixed nor well-grounded principles whereon to raise any judgment of their own. A third is reverence for names; of which fort, as he well obferves, the worft and vileft are the idolizers of names of quality, WARBURTON.

NOTES.

VER. 395. The Ancients only,] A very fenfible Frenchman fays, "En un mot, touchez comme Euripide, etonnez comme Sophocle, peignez comme Homere, & compofez d'apres vous. Ces maitres n'ont point eu de regles; ils n'en ont eté que plus grands; & ils n'ont acquis le droit de commander, que parce qu'ils n'ont jamais obei. Il en eft tout autrement en literature qu'en politique; le talent qui a befoin de fubir des loix, n'en donnera jamais." WARTON.

VER. 402. Which from the firfl, &c.] Genius is the fame in all ages; but its fruits are various, and more or lefs excellent as

they

They reafon and conclude by precedent,

And own ftale nonfense which they ne'er invent.

410

Some judge of authors' names, not works, and then
Nor praise 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 nonsense for my Lord.
What woful stuff this madrigal would be,
In some starv'd hackney fonneteer, or me?
But let a Lord once own the happy lines,
How the wit brightens! how the stile refines!
Before his facred name flies ev'ry fault,
And each exalted stanza teems with thought!
The Vulgar thus through Imitation err;
As oft the Learn'd by being fingular;

415

420

425

So

COMMENTARY.

VER. 424. The Vu'gar thus-As oft the Learn'd] II. He comes in the fecond place [from ver. 423 to 452.] to consider the inRances of partiality in the learned. 1. The firft is fingularity. WARBURTON.

NOTES.

they are checked or matured by the influence of government or religion upon them. Hence in fome parts of literature the Ancients excel; in others, the Moderns; just as thofe accidental circumstances occurred. WARBURTON.

VER. 403. Enlights] Warton calls "enlights" an improper word, it is, I believe, in Shakespear.

VER. 420. let a Lord] "You ought not to write verfes, (faid George the Second, who had little tafte, to Lord Hervey,) 'tis beneath your rank; leave fuch work to little Mr. Pope; it is his trade." But this Lord Hervey wrote fome that were above the level of those described here by our author. WARTON.

So much they scorn the croud, that if the throng
By chance go right, they purposely go wrong:
So Schifmatics the plain believers quit,
And are but damn'd for having too much wit.
Some praise at morning what they blame at night;
But always think the last opinion right.

A Mufe by these is like a mistress us'd,

431

This hour she's idoliz'd, the next abus'd;

While their weak heads, like towns unfortify'd,
"Twixt fenfe and nonfenfe daily change their fide.
Ask them the cause; they're wiser still, they say; 436
And still to-morrow's wifer than to-day.

We think our fathers fools, fo wife we grow;

Our wifer fons, no doubt, will think us fo.

Once School-divines this zealous ifle o'er-spread;
Who knew most Sentences, was deepest read; 441
Faith, Gofpel, all, feem'd made to be difputed,
And none had fenfe enough to be confuted:
Scotifts and Thomifts, now, in peace remain,

Amidft their kindred cobwebs in Duck-lane.

445

If

tus.

NOTES.

VER. 444. Scotifls] So denominated from Johannes Duns Sco Erafmus tells us, an eminent Scotift affured him, that it was impoffible to understand one fingle propofition of this famous Duns, unless you had his whole metaphyfics by heart. This hero of incomprehenfible fame fuffered a miferable reverfe at Oxford in the time of Henry VIII. That grave antiquary, Mr. Antony Wood (in the Vindication of himself and his writings from the reproaches of the Bishop of Salisbury), fadly laments the deformation, as he calls it, of that University by the King's Com

miffioners;

If Faith itself has diff'rent dreffes worn,

What wonder modes in Wit fhould take their turn?

NOTES.

Oft,

miffioners; and even records the blafphemous fpeeches of one of them, in his own words-" We have set Duns in Boccardo, with all his blind Gloffers, faft nailed up upon pofts in all common houses of easement." Upon which our venerable Antiquary thus exclaims: "If fo be, the Commiffioners had fuch disrespect for that most famous author J. Duns, who was so much admired by our predeceffors, and fo difficult to be understood, that the Doctors of those times, namely Dr. William Roper, Dr. John Keynton, Dr. William Mowfe, &c. profeffed, that, in twenty-eight years study, they could not understand him rightly, what then had they for others of inferior note ?"-What indeed! But they, If fo be, that most famous J. Duns was fo difficult to be understood (for that this is a mott theologic proof of his great worth, is paft all doubt), I should conceive our good old Antiquary to be a little mistaken. And that the nailing up this Proteus of the Schools was done by the Commiffioners in honour of the most famous Duns: There being no other way of catching the sense of so flippery and dodging an Author, who had eluded the pursuit of three of their most renowned Doctors in full cry after him, for eight and twenty years together. And this Boccardo in which he was confined, feemed very fit for the purpofe; it being obferved, that men are never more serious and thoughtful than in that place of retirement. Scribl. WARBURTON.

VER. 444. Thomifts] From Thomas Aquinas, a truly great genius, who, in those blind ages, was the same in theology, that our Friar Bacon was in natural philosophy; less happy than our countryman in this, that he foon became furrounded with a num. ber of dark Gloffers, who never left him till they had extinguished the radiance of that light, which had pierced through the thickest night of Monkery, the thirteenth century, when the Waldenfes were fuppreffed, and Wickliffe not yet risen. WARBURTON.

The Summa fummæ, &c. of Thomas Aquinas, is a treatise well deferving a most attentive perufal, and contains an admirable view of Aristotle's Ethics.

Aquinas

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