Held from afar, aloft, the immortal prize, 96
And urged the rest by equal steps to rise.
Just precepts thus from great examples given,
She drew from them what they derived from

Heaven.
The generous critic fann'd the poet's fire, 100
And taught the world with reason to admire.
Then criticism the Muse's handmaid proved,
To dress her charms, and make her more beloved :
Bụt following wits from that intention stray'd;
Who could not win the mistress, woo'd the maid;
Against the poets their own arms they turn'd, 106
Sure to hate most the men from whom they learn'd.
So modern 'pothecaries, taught the art
By doctors' bills to play the doctor's part,
Bold in the practice of mistaken rules, 110
Prescribe, apply, and call their masters fools.

Some on the leaves of ancient authors prey;
Nor time nor moths e'er spoil so much as they :
Some dryly plain, without invention's aid,
Write dull receipts how poems may be made: 115
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:
His fable, subject, scope in every page ;

120
Religion, country, genius of his age:
Without all these at once before your eyes,
Cavil you may, but never criticise.
Be Homer's works your study and delight;
Read them by day, and meditate by night; 125
Thence form your judgment, thence your maxims

bring,
And trace the Muses upward to their spring.
Still with itself compared, his text peruse;
And let your comment be the Mantuan Muse.

served, on this catastrophe of the critic's fame,- Je sçais bon gré à l'abbé d'Aubignac d'avoir suivi les règles d'Ari. stote, mais je ne pardonne pas aux règles d'Aristote d'avoir fait faire une si mauvaise tragédie à l'abbé d'Aubignac.'Warton.

123 Cavil you may, but never criticise. The author, after this verse, originally inserted the following, which he has however omitted in all the later editions :

Zoilus, had these been known, without a name
Had died, and Perault ne'er been damn'd to fame;
The sense of sound antiquity had reign’d,
And sacred Homer yet been unprofaned.
None e'er had thought his comprehensive mind
To modern customs, modern rules confined ;
Who for all ages writ, and all mankind.

140

When first young Maro in his boundless mind A work to outlast immortal Rome design'd, 131 Perhaps he seem'd above the critic's law, And but from nature's fountain scorn'd to draw : But when to examine every part he came, Nature and Homer were, he found, the same. 135 Convinced, amazed, he checks the bold design: And rules as strict his labor'd work confine, As if the Stagyrite o’erlook'd each line. Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem: To copy nature is to copy them.

Some beauties yet no precepts can declare,
For there's a happiness as well as care.
Music resembles poetry; in each
Are nameless graces which no methods teach,
And which a master-hand alone can reach. 145
If, where the rules not far enough extend,
(Since rules were made but to promote their

end)
Some lucky license answer to the full
The intent proposed, that license is a rule.
Thus Pegasus, a nearer way to take,

150
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; 155
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.

160

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; 165 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, ev'n in them, seem faults. 170 Some figures monstrous and mis-shaped 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 175 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. 180

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 pæans 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 !

185

190

POPE.

II.

Whose honors 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 !
0, may some spark of your celestial fire, 195
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

11. 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, 205 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. 210