76 In fome fair body thus th' informing foul Some, to whom Heav'n in wit has been profufe, 81 For wit and judgment often are at strife, Tho' meant each other's aid, like man and wife. 'Tis more to guide, than spur the Muse's steed; Reftrain his fury, than provoke his speed; 85 Are Nature still, but Nature methodiz'd; VER. 80. VARIATIONS. There are whom Heav'n has blest with store of wit, COMMENTARY. might perhaps be imagined that this needed only Judgment to govern it: But, as he well obferves, Wit and Judgment often are at strife, Tho' meant each other's aid, like Man and Wife. They want therefore fome friendly Mediator; and this Mediator is Nature: And in attending to Nature, Judgment will learn where he should comply with the charms of Wit; and Wit how the ought to obey the sage directions of Judgment. VER. 88. Thofe Rules of old, etc.] Having thus, in his first precept, to follow Nature, fettled Criticism on its true foundation; he proceeds to shew, what assistance may be had from 90 Nature, like Liberty, is but restrain'd COMMENTARY. Art. But, left this should be thought to draw the Critic from the ground where our Poet had before fixed him, he previously observes [from ver. 87 to 92.] that these Rules of Art, which he is now about to recommend to the Critic's observance, were not invented by the Fancy, but discovered in the book of Nature; and that therefore, tho' they may feem to restrain Nature by Laws, yet as they are Laws of her own making, the Critic is still properly in the very liberty of Nature. These Rules the antient Critics borrowed from the Poets, who received them immediately from Nature. "Just Precepts thus from great Examples giv'n, " These drew from them what they deriv'd from Heav'n:" fo that both are to be well studied. VER. 92. Hear how learn'd Greece, etc.] He speaks of the ancient Critics first, and with great judgment, as the previous knowledge of them is necessary for reading the Poets, with that fruit which the end here proposed, requires. But having, in the previous obfervation, fufficiently explained the nature of ancient Criticism, he enters on the subject [treated of, from ver. 91 to 118.] with a fublime description of its end; NOTES. VER. 88. Those Rules of old, etc.] Cicero has, best of any one I know, explained what that thing is which reduces the wild and scattered parts of human knowledge into arts"Nihil eft quod ad artem redigi poffit, nifi ille prius, qui illa " tenet, quorum artem inftituere vult, habeat illam scientiam, " ut ex iis rebus, quarum ars nondum fit, artem efficere poffit. "-Omnia fere, quæ funt conclusa nunc artibus, difperfa et "diffipata quondam fuerunt, ut in Musicis, etc. Adhibitat " est igitur ars quædam extrinfecus ex alio genere quodam, " quod sibi totum PHILOSOPHI assumunt, quæ rem diffolutam " divulsamque conglutinaret, et ratione quadam conftringeret." De Orat. l. i. c. 41, 2. High on Parnassus' top her fons she show'd, And taught the world with Reason to admire. COMMENTARY. 100 which was to illustrate the beauties of the best Writers, in order to excite others to an emulation of their excellence. From the rapture, which these Ideas inspire, the poet is brought back, by the follies of modern Criticism, now before his eyes, to reflect on its base degeneracy. And as the restoring the Art to its original purity and splendor is the great purpose of his poem, he first takes notice of those, who seem not to understand that Nature is exhauftless; that new models of good writing may be produced in every age; and confequently, that new rules may be formed from these models, in the fame manner as the old Critics formed theirs, which was, from the writings of the ancient Poets: But men wanting art and ability to form these new rules, were content to receive, and file up for ufe, the old ones of Aristotle, Quintilian, Longinus, Horace, etc. with the fame vanity and boldness that Apothecaries practise, with their Doctor's bills: And then rashly applying them to new Originals (cafes which they did not hit) it was no more in their power than in their inclination to imitate the candid practice of the Ancients, when "The gen'rous Critic fann'd the Poet's fire, " And taught the world with Reason to admire;" NOTES. VER. 98. Just precepts] "Nec enim artibus editis factum " est ut argumenta inveniremus, fed dicta funt omnia ante quam præciperentur; mox ea fcriptores observata et col " lecta ediderunt." Quintil. P. Then Criticism the Muse's handmaid prov'd, Write dull receipts how poems may be made. 115 COMMENTARY. For, as Ignorance, when joined with Humility, produces stupid admiration, on which account it is so commonly observed to be the mother of Devotion and blind homage; so when joined with Vanity (as it always is in bad Critics) it gives birth to every iniquity of impudent abuse and flander. See an example (for want of a better) in a late ridiculous and now forgotten thing, called the Life of Socrates: where the Head of the author (as a man of wit observed, on reading the book) has just made a shift to do the office of a Camera obscura, and represent things in an inverted order; himself above, and Sprat, Rollin, Voltaire, and every other writer of reputation, below. NOTES. VER. 112. Some on the leaves-Some drily plain,] The first the Apes of those Italian Critics who at the restoration of letters These leave the sense, their learning to display, And those explain the meaning quite away. You then whose judgment the right course would steer, Know well each ANCIENT's proper character; COMMENTARY, VER, 118, You then whose Judgment, etc.] He comes next to the ancient Poets, the other and more intimate commentators of Nature. And shews [from ver. 17 to 141.] that the study of These must indifpenfibly follow that of the ancient Critics, as they furnish us with what the Critics, who only give us general rules, cannot supply: while the study of a great original Poet, in " His Fable, Subject, scope in ev'ry page; will help us to those particular rules which only can conduct us OTES. having found the classic writers miferably deformed by the hands of monkish Librarians, very commendably employed their pains and talents in restoring them to their native purity. The fecond, the plagiaries from the French Critics, who had made fome admirable commentaries on the antient critics. But that acumen and tafte, which separately conftitute the distinct value of those two species of Italian and French Criticism, make no part of the character of these paltry mimics at home, defcribed by our Poet in the following lines, "These leave the sense, their learning to display, " And those explain the meaning quite away." Which species is the least hurtful, the Poet has enabled us to determine in the lines with which he opens his poem, "But of the two, less dang'rous is th' offence |