ΙΟ Horace, Varius, Tucca, and Ovid, we know that Bavius and Mævius were his declared foes and calumniators. In our own country a man seldom sets up for a poet, without attacking the reputation of all his brothers in the art. The ignorance of the moderns, the scribblers of the age, the decay of poetry, are the topics of detraction, with which he makes his entrance into the world. But how much more noble is the fame that is built on candour and ingenuity, according to those beautiful lines of Sir John Denham, in his poem on Fletcher's works! But whither am I stray'd? I need not raise Of Eastern kings, who, to secure their reign, Must have their brothers, sons, and kindred slain. I am sorry to find that an author, who is very justly esteemed among the best judges, has admitted some strokes of this nature into a very fine poem; I mean The Art of Criticism", which was published some months since, and is a master-piece in its kind. 20 The observations follow one another like those in Horace's Art of Poetry, without that methodical regularity which would have been requisite in a prose author. They are some of them uncommon, but such as the reader must assent to, when he sees them explained with that elegance and perspicuity in which they are delivered. As for those which are the most known and the most received, they are placed in so beautiful a light, and illustrated with such apt allusions, that they have in them all the graces of novelty, and make the reader who was before acquainted with them still more convinced of their truth and 30 solidity. And here give me leave to mention what Monsieur Boileau has so very well enlarged upon in the preface to his works, that wit and fine writing do not consist so much in advancing things that are new, as in giving things that are known an agreeable turn. It is impossible for us, who live in the latter ages of the world, to make observations in criticism, morality, or in any art or science, which have not been touched upon by others. We have little else left us but to represent the common sense of mankind in more strong, more beautiful, or more uncommon lights. If a reader examines Horace's Art of Poetry, 40 he will find but very few precepts in it which he may not meet THE ESSAY ON CRITICISM. 393 with in Aristotle, and which were not commonly known by all the poets of the Augustan age. His way of expressing and applying them, not his invention of them, is what we are chiefly to admire. For this reason I think there is nothing in the world so tiresome as the works of those critics, who write in a positive dogmatic way, without either language, genius, or imagination. If the reader would see how the best of the Latin critics writ, he may find their manner very beautifully described in the characters of Horace, Petronius, Quintilian ", and Longinus, as they are 10 drawn in the essay of which I am now speaking. 20 Since I have mentioned Longinus, who in his reflexions has given us the same kind of sublime which he observes in the several passages that occasioned them, I cannot but take notice, that our English author has after the same manner exemplified several of his precepts in the very precepts themselves. I shall produce two or three instances of this kind. Speaking of the insipid smoothness which some readers are so much in love with, he has the following verses: These equal syllables alone require, Tho' oft the ear the open vowels tire, The gaping of the vowels in the second line, the expletive do in the third, and the ten monosyllables in the fourth, give such a beauty to this passage, as would have been very much admired in an ancient poet. The reader may observe the following lines in the same view. A needless Alexandrine ends the song, That like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along1. 30 And afterwards : 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; 1 About the ninth century Latin in France ceased to be spoken, and was succeeded by the romance tongue, a mixture of Frank and bad Latin. The second poem published in this tongue was called The Romance of Alexander the Great, composed by four authors, one of whom was Alexander of Paris, the most celebrated. Before this time all the romances were composed in verses of eight syllables, but in this piece the four authors used verses of twelve syllables. And this was the origin of the Alexandrine verses, either from the subject Alexander the Great, or from Alexander the French poet.' (Note in Tonson and Draper's ed of 1766.) But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar. Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main". The beautiful distich upon Ajax in the foregoing lines, puts me in mind of a description in Homer's Odyssey, which none of the critics have taken notice of. It is where Sisyphus is represented 10 lifting his stone up the hill, which is no sooner carried to the top of it, but it immediately tumbles to the bottom. This double motion of the stone is admirably described in the numbers of these verses; as in the four first it is heaved up by several spondees intermixed with proper breathing-places, and at last trundles down in a continual line of dactyls. 20 Καὶ μὴν Σίσυφον εἰσεῖδον, κρατέρ ̓ ἄλγε ̓ ἔχοντα, It would be endless to quote verses out of Virgil which have this particular kind of beauty in the numbers; but I may take an occasion in a future paper to shew several of them which have escaped the observation of others. I cannot conclude this paper without taking notice that we have three poems in our tongue, which are of the same nature, and each of them a master-piece in its kind; the Essay on Translated Verse, the Essay on the Art of Poetry, and the Essay upon 30 Criticism ".-C. There is a tradition among the Americans, that one of their countrymen descended in a vision to the great repository of souls, or, as we call it here, to the other world; and that upon his return he gave his friends a distinct account of every thing he saw among those regions of the dead. A friend of mine, whom I have formerly mentioned, prevailed upon one of the interpreters of the Indian kings, to enquire of them, if possible, what tradition they have among them of this matter: which, as well as he could learn by those many questions which he asked them at 10 several times, was in substance as follows. The visionary, whose name was Marraton, after having travelled for a long space under an hollow mountain, arrived at length on the confines of this world of spirits, but could not enter it by reason of a thick forest made up of bushes, brambles, and pointed thorns, so perplexed and interwoven with one another, that it was impossible to find a passage through it. Whilst he was looking about for some track or pathway that might be worn in any part of it, he saw an huge lion couched under the side of it, who kept his eye upon him in the same posture as when he watches for his 20 prey. The Indian immediately started back, whilst the lion rose with a spring, and leaped towards him. Being wholly destitute of all other weapons, he stooped down to take up a huge stone in his hand, but to his infinite surprise grasped nothing, and found the supposed stone to be only the apparition of one. If he was disappointed on this side, he was as much pleased on the other, when he found the lion, which had seized on his left shoulder, had no power to hurt him, and was only the ghost of that ravenous creature which it appeared to be. He no sooner got rid of his impotent enemy, but he marched up to the wood, and after having surveyed it for some time, endeavoured to press into one part of it that was a little thinner than the rest; when again, to his great surprise, he found that the bushes made no resistance, but that 10 he walked through briers and brambles with the same ease as through the open air, and, in short, that the whole wood was nothing else but a wood of shades. He immediately concluded that this huge thicket of thorns and brakes was designed as a kind of fence or quick-set hedge to the ghosts it inclosed; and that probably their soft substances might be torn by these subtle points and prickles, which were too weak to make any impressions in flesh and blood. With this he resolved to travel through this intricate wood; when by degrees he felt a gale of perfumes breathing upon him, that grew stronger and sweeter in propor20 tion as he advanced. He had not proceeded much further when he observed the thorns and briers to end, and give place to a thousand beautiful green trees covered with blossoms of the finest scents and colours, that formed a wilderness of sweets, and were a kind of lining to those ragged scenes which he had before passed through. As he was coming out of this delightful part of the wood, and entering upon the plains it inclosed, he saw several horsemen rushing by him, and a little while after heard the cry of a pack of dogs. He had not listened long before he saw the apparition of a milk-white steed, with a young man on the back of 30 it, advancing upon full stretch after the souls of about an hundred beagles that were hunting down the ghost of an hare, which ran away before them with an unspeakable swiftness. As the man on the milk-white steed came by him, he looked upon him very attentively, and found him to be the young prince Nicharagua, who died about half a year before, and, by reason of his great virtues, was at that time lamented over all the western parts of America. He had no sooner got out of the wood, but he was entertained with such a landscape of flowery plains, green meadows, running 40 streams, sunny hills, and shady vales, as were not to be repre |