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diff --git a/7409.txt b/7409.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0ee358e --- /dev/null +++ b/7409.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1661 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Essay on Criticism, by Alexander Pope + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + +Title: An Essay on Criticism + +Author: Alexander Pope + +Posting Date: February 8, 2015 [EBook #7409] +Release Date: February, 2005 +First Posted: April 25, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, David Garcia and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + + + + +AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM. + +BY + +ALEXANDER POPE, + +_WITH INTRODUCTORY AND EXPLANATORY NOTES_. + + + +ALEXANDER POPE. + + * * * * * + +This eminent English poet was born in London, May 21, 1688. His parents +were Roman Catholics, and to this faith the poet adhered, thus debarring +himself from public office and employment. His father, a linen merchant, +having saved a moderate competency, withdrew from business, and settled +on a small estate he had purchased in Windsor Forest. He died at +Chiswick, in 1717. His son shortly afterwards took a long lease of a +house and five acres of land at Twickenham, on the banks of the Thames, +whither he retired with his widowed mother, to whom he was tenderly +attached and where he resided till death, cultivating his little domain +with exquisite taste and skill, and embellishing it with a grotto, +temple, wilderness, and other adjuncts poetical and picturesque. In this +famous villa Pope was visited by the most celebrated wits, statesmen and +beauties of the day, himself being the most popular and successful poet +of his age. His early years were spent at Binfield, within the range of +the Royal Forest. He received some education at little Catholic schools, +but was his own instructor after his twelfth year. He never was a +profound or accurate scholar, but he read Latin poets with ease and +delight, and acquired some Greek, French, and Italian. He was a poet +almost from infancy, he "lisped in numbers," and when a mere youth +surpassed all his contemporaries in metrical harmony and correctness. +His pastorals and some translations appeared in 1709, but were written +three or four years earlier. These were followed by the _Essay on +Criticism_, 1711; _Rape of the Lock_ (when completed, the most +graceful, airy, and imaginative of his works), 1712-1714; _Windsor +Forest_, 1713; _Temple of Fame_, 1715. In a collection of his +works printed in 1717 he included the _Epistle of Eloisa_ and +_Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady_, two poems inimitable for pathetic +beauty and finished melodious versification. + +From 1715 till 1726 Pope was chiefly engaged on his translations of the +_Iliad_ and _Odyssey_, which, though wanting in time Homeric +simplicity, naturalness, and grandeur, are splendid poems. In 1728-29 he +published his greatest satire--the _Dunciad_, an attack on all +poetasters and pretended wits, and on all other persons against whom the +sensitive poet had conceived any enmity. In 1737 he gave to the world a +volume of his _Literary Correspondence_, containing some pleasant +gossip and observations, with choice passages of description but it +appears that the correspondence was manufactured for publication not +composed of actual letters addressed to the parties whose names are +given, and the collection was introduced to the public by means of an +elaborate stratagem on the part of the scheming poet. Between the years +1731 and 1739 he issued a series of poetical essays moral and +philosophical, with satires and imitations of Horace, all admirable for +sense, wit, spirit and brilliancy of these delightful productions, the +most celebrated is the _Essay on Man_ to which Bolingbroke is +believed to have contributed the spurious philosophy and false +sentiment, but its merit consists in detached passages, descriptions, +and pictures. A fourth book to the _Dunciad_, containing many +beautiful and striking lines and a general revision of his works, closed +the poet's literary cares and toils. He died on the 30th of May, 1744, +and was buried in the church at Twickenham. + +Pope was of very diminutive stature and deformed from his birth. His +physical infirmity, susceptible temperament, and incessant study +rendered his life one long disease. He was, as his friend Lord +Chesterfield said, "the most irritable of all the _genus irritabile +vatum_, offended with trifles and never forgetting or forgiving +them." His literary stratagems, disguises, assertions, denials, and (we +must add) misrepresentations would fill volumes. Yet when no disturbing +jealousy vanity, or rivalry intervened was generous and affectionate, +and he had a manly, independent spirit. As a poet he was deficient in +originality and creative power, and thus was inferior to his prototype, +Dryden, but as a literary artist, and brilliant declaimer satirist and +moralizer in verse he is still unrivaled. He is the English Horace, and +will as surely descend with honors to the latest posterity. + + + + + + +AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM, + +WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1709 + + + [The title, _An Essay on Criticism_ hardly indicates all + that is included in the poem. It would have been impossible to + give a full and exact idea of the art of poetical criticism + without entering into the consideration of the art of poetry. + Accordingly Pope has interwoven the precepts of both throughout + the poem which might more properly have been styled an essay on + the Art of Criticism and of Poetry.] + + * * * * * + +PART I. + + 'Tis hard to say if greater want of skill + Appear in writing or in judging ill, + But of the two less dangerous is the offense + To tire our patience than mislead our sense + Some few in that but numbers err in this, + Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss, + A fool might once himself alone expose, + Now one in verse makes many more in prose. + + 'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none + Go just alike, yet each believes his own + In poets as true genius is but rare + True taste as seldom is the critic share + Both must alike from Heaven derive their light, + These born to judge as well as those to write + Let such teach others who themselves excel, + And censure freely, who have written well + Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true [17] + But are not critics to their judgment too? + + Yet if we look more closely we shall find + Most have the seeds of judgment in their mind + Nature affords at least a glimmering light + The lines though touched but faintly are drawn right, + But as the slightest sketch if justly traced + Is by ill coloring but the more disgraced + So by false learning is good sense defaced + Some are bewildered in the maze of schools [26] + And some made coxcombs nature meant but fools + In search of wit these lose their common sense + And then turn critics in their own defense + Each burns alike who can or cannot write + Or with a rival's or an eunuch's spite + All fools have still an itching to deride + And fain would be upon the laughing side + If Maevius scribble in Apollo's spite [34] + There are who judge still worse than he can write. + + Some have at first for wits then poets passed + Turned critics next and proved plain fools at last + Some neither can for wits nor critics pass + As heavy mules are neither horse nor ass. + Those half-learned witlings, numerous in our isle, + As half-formed insects on the banks of Nile + Unfinished things one knows not what to call + Their generation is so equivocal + To tell them would a hundred tongues require, + Or one vain wits that might a hundred tire. + + But you who seek to give and merit fame, + And justly bear a critic's noble name, + Be sure yourself and your own reach to know + How far your genius taste and learning go. + Launch not beyond your depth, but be discreet + And mark that point where sense and dullness meet. + + Nature to all things fixed the limits fit + And wisely curbed proud man's pretending wit. + As on the land while here the ocean gains. + In other parts it leaves wide sandy plains + Thus in the soul while memory prevails, + The solid power of understanding fails + Where beams of warm imagination play, + The memory's soft figures melt away + One science only will one genius fit, + So vast is art, so narrow human wit + Not only bounded to peculiar arts, + But oft in those confined to single parts + Like kings, we lose the conquests gained before, + By vain ambition still to make them more + Each might his several province well command, + Would all but stoop to what they understand. + + First follow nature and your judgment frame + By her just standard, which is still the same. + Unerring nature still divinely bright, + One clear, unchanged and universal light, + Life force and beauty, must to all impart, + At once the source and end and test of art + Art from that fund each just supply provides, + Works without show and without pomp presides + In some fair body thus the informing soul + With spirits feeds, with vigor fills the whole, + Each motion guides and every nerve sustains, + Itself unseen, but in the effects remains. + Some, to whom Heaven in wit has been profuse, [80] + Want as much more, to turn it to its use; + For wit and judgment often are at strife, + Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife. + 'Tis more to guide, than spur the muse's steed, + Restrain his fury, than provoke his speed, + The winged courser, like a generous horse, [86] + Shows most true mettle when you check his course. + + Those rules, of old discovered, not devised, + Are nature still, but nature methodized; + Nature, like liberty, is but restrained + By the same laws which first herself ordained. + + Hear how learned Greece her useful rules indites, + When to repress and when indulge our flights. + High on Parnassus' top her sons she showed, [94] + And pointed out those arduous paths they trod; + Held from afar, aloft, the immortal prize, + And urged the rest by equal steps to rise. [97] + Just precepts thus from great examples given, + She drew from them what they derived from Heaven. + The generous critic fanned the poet's fire, + And taught the world with reason to admire. + Then criticism the muse's handmaid proved, + To dress her charms, and make her more beloved: + But following wits from that intention strayed + Who could not win the mistress, wooed the maid + Against the poets their own arms they turned + Sure to hate most the men from whom they learned + So modern pothecaries taught the art + By doctors bills to play the doctor's part. + Bold in the practice of mistaken rules + 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 + 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, + Religion, country, genius of his age + Without all these at once before your eyes, + Cavil you may, but never criticise. + Be Homers works your study and delight, + Read them by day and meditate by night, + 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. [129] + + When first young Maro in his boundless mind, [130] + A work to outlast immortal Rome designed, + Perhaps he seemed above the critic's law + And but from nature's fountain scorned to draw + But when to examine every part he came + Nature and Homer were he found the same + Convinced, amazed, he checks the bold design + And rules as strict his labored work confine + As if the Stagirite o'erlooked each line [138] + 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 + 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 + 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, + 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. + 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 compelled by need, + 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, even in them, seem faults + Some figures monstrous and misshaped appear, + Considered singly, or beheld too near, + Which, but proportioned to their light, or place, + Due distance reconciles to form and grace. + A prudent chief not always must display + 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, [183] + Destructive war, and all-involving age. + See, from each clime the learned their incense bring; + Hear, in all tongues consenting Paeans ring! + In praise so just let every voice be joined, + And fill the general chorus of mankind. + Hail! bards triumphant! born in happier days; + Immortal heirs of universal praise! + Whose honors with increase of ages grow, + As streams roll down, enlarging as they flow; + Nations unborn your mighty names shall sound, [193] + And worlds applaud that must not yet be found! + Oh may some spark of your celestial fire, + 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! + + * * * * * + +PART II. + + 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, + She gives in large recruits of needful pride; + For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find + What wants in blood and spirits, swelled with wind: + Pride where wit fails steps in to our defense, + And fills up all the mighty void of sense. + If once right reason drives that cloud away, + Truth breaks upon us with resistless day + Trust not yourself, but your defects to know, + Make use of every friend--and every foe. + + A little learning is a dangerous thing + Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring [216] + There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, + And drinking largely sobers us again. + Fired at first sight with what the muse imparts, + In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts + While from the bounded level of our mind + Short views we take nor see the lengths behind + But more advanced behold with strange surprise, + New distant scenes of endless science rise! + So pleased at first the towering Alps we try, + Mount o'er the vales and seem to tread the sky, + The eternal snows appear already passed + And the first clouds and mountains seem the last. + But those attained we tremble to survey + The growing labors of the lengthened way + The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes, + Hills peep o'er hills and Alps on Alps arise! + + A perfect judge will read each work of wit + With the same spirit that its author writ + Survey the whole nor seek slight faults to find + Where nature moves and rapture warms the mind, + Nor lose for that malignant dull delight + The generous pleasure to be charmed with wit + But in such lays as neither ebb nor flow, + Correctly cold and regularly low + That, shunning faults, one quiet tenor keep; + We cannot blame indeed--but we may sleep. + In wit, as nature, what affects our hearts + Is not the exactness of peculiar parts, + 'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call, + But the joint force and full result of all. + Thus, when we view some well proportioned dome + (The worlds just wonder, and even thine, O Rome!), [248] + No single parts unequally surprise, + All comes united to the admiring eyes; + No monstrous height or breadth, or length, appear; + The whole at once is bold, and regular. + + Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see. + Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be. + In every work regard the writer's end, + Since none can compass more than they intend; + And if the means be just, the conduct true, + Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due. + As men of breeding, sometimes men of wit, + To avoid great errors, must the less commit: + Neglect the rules each verbal critic lays, + For not to know some trifles is a praise. + Most critics, fond of some subservient art, + Still make the whole depend upon a part: + They talk of principles, but notions prize, + And all to one loved folly sacrifice. + + Once on a time La Mancha's knight, they say, [267] + A certain bard encountering on the way, + Discoursed in terms as just, with looks as sage, + As e'er could Dennis, of the Grecian stage; [270] + Concluding all were desperate sots and fools, + Who durst depart from Aristotle's rules + Our author, happy in a judge so nice, + Produced his play, and begged the knight's advice; + Made him observe the subject, and the plot, + The manners, passions, unities, what not? + All which, exact to rule, were brought about, + Were but a combat in the lists left out + "What! leave the combat out?" exclaims the knight. + "Yes, or we must renounce the Stagirite." + "Not so, by heaven!" (he answers in a rage) + "Knights, squires, and steeds must enter on the stage." + "So vast a throng the stage can ne'er contain." + "Then build a new, or act it in a plain." + + Thus critics of less judgment than caprice, + Curious, not knowing, not exact, but nice, + Form short ideas, and offend in arts + (As most in manners) by a love to parts. + + Some to conceit alone their taste confine, + And glittering thoughts struck out at every line; + Pleased with a work where nothing's just or fit; + One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit. + Poets, like painters, thus, unskilled to trace + The naked nature and the living grace, + With gold and jewels cover every part, + And hide with ornaments their want of art. + True wit is nature to advantage dressed; + What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed; + Something, whose truth convinced at sight we find + That gives us back the image of our mind. + As shades more sweetly recommend the light, + So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit + For works may have more wit than does them good, + As bodies perish through excess of blood. + + Others for language all their care express, + And value books, as women men, for dress. + Their praise is still--"the style is excellent," + The sense they humbly take upon content [308] + Words are like leaves, and where they most abound + Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found. + False eloquence, like the prismatic glass. [311] + Its gaudy colors spreads on every place, + The face of nature we no more survey. + All glares alike without distinction gay: + But true expression, like the unchanging sun, + Clears and improves whate'er it shines upon; + It gilds all objects, but it alters none. + Expression is the dress of thought, and still + Appears more decent, as more suitable, + A vile conceit in pompous words expressed, + Is like a clown in regal purple dressed + For different styles with different subjects sort, + As several garbs with country town and court + Some by old words to fame have made pretense, + Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense; + Such labored nothings, in so strange a style, + Amaze the unlearned, and make the learned smile. + Unlucky, as Fungoso in the play, [328] + These sparks with awkward vanity display + What the fine gentleman wore yesterday; + And but so mimic ancient wits at best, + As apes our grandsires in their doublets dressed. + In words as fashions the same rule will hold, + Alike fantastic if too new or old. + Be not the first by whom the new are tried, + Nor yet the last to lay the old aside + + But most by numbers judge a poet's song + And smooth or rough, with them is right or wrong. + In the bright muse though thousand charms conspire, + Her voice is all these tuneful fools admire, + Who haunt Parnassus but to please their ear, + Not mend their minds, as some to church repair, + Not for the doctrine but the music there + These equal syllables alone require, + Though oft the ear the open vowels tire; + While expletives their feeble aid do join; + And ten low words oft creep in one dull line, + While they ring round the same unvaried chimes, + With sure returns of still expected rhymes, + Where'er you find "the cooling western breeze," + In the next line it "whispers through the trees" + If crystal streams "with pleasing murmurs creep" + The reader's threatened (not in vain) with "sleep" + Then, at the last and only couplet fraught + With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, + A needless Alexandrine ends the song [356] + That, like a wounded snake drags its slow length along. + + Leave such to tune their own dull rhymes, and know + What's roundly smooth or languishingly slow; + And praise the easy vigor of a line, + Where Denham's strength, and Waller's sweetness join. [361] + True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, + As those move easiest who have learned to dance + 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offense, + The sound must seem an echo to the sense. + Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, [366] + And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows, + But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, + The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar, + When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, + The line too labors, and the words move slow; + Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain, + Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main. [373] + Hear how Timotheus' varied lays surprise, [374] + And bid alternate passions fall and rise! + While, at each change, the son of Libyan Jove [376] + Now burns with glory, and then melts with love; + Now his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow, + Now sighs steal out, and tears begin to flow: + Persians and Greeks like turns of nature found, + And the world's victor stood subdued by sound? [381] + The power of music all our hearts allow, + And what Timotheus was, is Dryden now. + + Avoid extremes, and shun the fault of such, + Who still are pleased too little or too much. + At every trifle scorn to take offense, + That always shows great pride, or little sense: + Those heads, as stomachs, are not sure the best, + Which nauseate all, and nothing can digest. + Yet let not each gay turn thy rapture move; + For fools admire, but men of sense approve: + As things seem large which we through mist descry, + Dullness is ever apt to magnify. [393] + + Some foreign writers, some our own despise, + The ancients only, or the moderns prize. + Thus wit, like faith, by each man is applied + To one small sect, and all are damned beside. + Meanly they seek the blessing to confine, + And force that sun but on a part to shine, + Which not alone the southern wit sublimes, + But ripens spirits in cold northern climes. + Which from the first has shone on ages past, + Enlights the present, and shall warm the last, + Though each may feel increases and decays, + And see now clearer and now darker days. + Regard not then if wit be old or new, + But blame the false, and value still the true. + + Some ne'er advance a judgment of their own, + But catch the spreading notion of the town, + They reason and conclude by precedent, + And own stale nonsense which they ne'er invent. + Some judge of authors names not works, and then + Nor praise nor blame the writing, but the men. + Of all this servile herd the worst is he + That in proud dullness joins with quality + A constant critic at the great man's board, + To fetch and carry nonsense for my lord + What woful stuff this madrigal would be, + In some starved hackney sonnetteer, or me! + But let a lord once own the happy lines, + How the wit brightens! how the style refines! + Before his sacred name flies every fault, + And each exalted stanza teems with thought! + + The vulgar thus through imitation err; + As oft the learned by being singular. + So much they scorn the crowd that if the throng + By chance go right they purposely go wrong: + So schismatics the plain believers quit, + And are but damned for having too much wit. + Some praise at morning what they blame at night, + But always think the last opinion right. + A muse by these is like a mistress used, + This hour she's idolized, the next abused; + While their weak heads, like towns unfortified, + 'Twixt sense and nonsense daily change their side. + Ask them the cause, they're wiser still they say; + And still to-morrow's wiser than to-day. + We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow; + Our wiser sons, no doubt, will think us so. + Once school-divines this zealous isle o'erspread. + Who knew most sentences was deepest read, [441] + Faith, Gospel, all, seemed made to be disputed, + And none had sense enough to be confuted: + Scotists and Thomists now in peace remain, [444] + Amidst their kindred cobwebs in Duck Lane. [445] + If faith itself has different dresses worn, + What wonder modes in wit should take their turn? + Oft, leaving what is natural and fit, + The current folly proves the ready wit; + And authors think their reputation safe, + Which lives as long as fools are pleased to laugh. + + Some valuing those of their own side or mind, + Still make themselves the measure of mankind: + Fondly we think we honor merit then, + When we but praise ourselves in other men. + Parties in wit attend on those of state, + And public faction doubles private hate. + Pride, malice, folly against Dryden rose, + In various shapes of parsons, critics, beaux; [459] + But sense survived, when merry jests were past; + For rising merit will buoy up at last. + Might he return, and bless once more our eyes, + New Blackmores and new Millbourns must arise: [463] + Nay, should great Homer lift his awful head, + Zoilus again would start up from the dead [465] + Envy will merit, as its shade, pursue, + But like a shadow, proves the substance true: + For envied wit, like Sol eclipsed, makes known + The opposing body's grossness, not its own. + When first that sun too powerful beams displays, + It draws up vapors which obscure its rays, + But even those clouds at last adorn its way + Reflect new glories and augment the day + + Be thou the first true merit to befriend + His praise is lost who stays till all commend + Short is the date alas! of modern rhymes + And 'tis but just to let them live betimes + No longer now that golden age appears + When patriarch wits survived a thousand years [479] + Now length of fame (our second life) is lost + And bare threescore is all even that can boast, + Our sons their fathers failing language see + And such as Chaucer is shall Dryden be + So when the faithful pencil has designed + Some bright idea of the master's mind + Where a new world leaps out at his command + And ready nature waits upon his hand + When the ripe colors soften and unite + And sweetly melt into just shade and light + When mellowing years their full perfection give + And each bold figure just begins to live + The treacherous colors the fair art betray + And all the bright creation fades away! + + Unhappy wit, like most mistaken things + Atones not for that envy which it brings + In youth alone its empty praise we boast + But soon the short lived vanity is lost. + Like some fair flower the early spring supplies + That gayly blooms but even in blooming dies + What is this wit, which must our cares employ? + The owner's wife that other men enjoy + Then most our trouble still when most admired + And still the more we give the more required + Whose fame with pains we guard, but lose with ease, + Sure some to vex, but never all to please, + 'Tis what the vicious fear, the virtuous shun, + By fools 'tis hated, and by knaves undone! + + If wit so much from ignorance undergo, + Ah! let not learning too commence its foe! + Of old, those met rewards who could excel, + And such were praised who but endeavored well: + Though triumphs were to generals only due, + Crowns were reserved to grace the soldiers too. + Now they who reach Parnassus' lofty crown, + Employ their pains to spurn some others down; + And, while self-love each jealous writer rules, + Contending wits become the sport of fools: + But still the worst with most regret commend, + For each ill author is as bad a friend + To what base ends, and by what abject ways, + Are mortals urged, through sacred lust of praise! + Ah, ne'er so dire a thirst of glory boast, + Nor in the critic let the man be lost + Good-nature and good sense must ever join; + To err is human, to forgive, divine. + + But if in noble minds some dregs remain, + Not yet purged off, of spleen and sour disdain; + Discharge that rage on more provoking crimes, + Nor fear a dearth in these flagitious times. + No pardon vile obscenity should find, + Though wit and art conspire to move your mind; + But dullness with obscenity must prove + As shameful sure as impotence in love. + In the fat age of pleasure, wealth, and ease, + Sprung the rank weed, and thrived with large increase: + When love was all an easy monarch's care, [536] + Seldom at council, never in a war + Jilts ruled the state, and statesmen farces writ; + Nay, wits had pensions, and young lords had wit: + The fair sat panting at a courtier's play, + And not a mask went unimproved away: [541] + The modest fan was lifted up no more, + And virgins smiled at what they blushed before. + The following license of a foreign reign, [544] + Did all the dregs of bold Socinus drain, [545] + Then unbelieving priests reformed the nation. + And taught more pleasant methods of salvation; + Where Heaven's free subjects might their rights dispute, + Lest God himself should seem too absolute: + Pulpits their sacred satire learned to spare, + And vice admired to find a flatterer there! + Encouraged thus, wit's Titans braved the skies, [552] + And the press groaned with licensed blasphemies. + These monsters, critics! with your darts engage, + Here point your thunder, and exhaust your rage! + Yet shun their fault, who, scandalously nice, + Will needs mistake an author into vice; + All seems infected that the infected spy, + As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye. + + * * * * * + + +PART III. + + Learn, then, what morals critics ought to show, + For 'tis but half a judge's task to know. + 'Tis not enough, taste, judgment, learning, join; + In all you speak, let truth and candor shine: + That not alone what to your sense is due + All may allow, but seek your friendship too. + + Be silent always, when you doubt your sense; + And speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence: + Some positive persisting fops we know, + Who, if once wrong will needs be always so; + But you, with pleasure, own your errors past, + And make each day a critique on the last. + + 'Tis not enough your counsel still be true; + Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do; + Men must be taught as if you taught them not, + And things unknown proposed as things forgot. + Without good breeding truth is disapproved; + That only makes superior sense beloved. + + Be niggards of advice on no pretense; + For the worst avarice is that of sense + With mean complacence, ne'er betray your trust, + Nor be so civil as to prove unjust + Fear not the anger of the wise to raise, + Those best can bear reproof who merit praise. + + 'Twere well might critics still this freedom take, + But Appius reddens at each word you speak, [585] + And stares, tremendous with a threatening eye, + Like some fierce tyrant in old tapestry + Fear most to tax an honorable fool + Whose right it is uncensured to be dull + Such, without wit are poets when they please, + As without learning they can take degrees + Leave dangerous truths to unsuccessful satires, + And flattery to fulsome dedicators + Whom, when they praise, the world believes no more, + Than when they promise to give scribbling o'er. + + 'Tis best sometimes your censure to restrain, + And charitably let the dull be vain + Your silence there is better than your spite, + For who can rail so long as they can write? + Still humming on, their drowsy course they keep, + And lashed so long like tops are lashed asleep. + False steps but help them to renew the race, + As after stumbling, jades will mend their pace. + What crowds of these, impenitently bold, + In sounds and jingling syllables grown old, + Still run on poets in a raging vein, + Even to the dregs and squeezing of the brain; + Strain out the last dull droppings of their sense, + And rhyme with all the rage of impotence! + + Such shameless bards we have, and yet, 'tis true, + There are as mad abandoned critics, too + The bookful blockhead ignorantly read, + With loads of learned lumber in his head, + With his own tongue still edifies his ears, + And always listening to himself appears + All books he reads and all he reads assails + From Dryden's Fables down to Durfey's Tales [617] + With him most authors steal their works or buy; + Garth did not write his own Dispensary [619] + Name a new play, and he's the poets friend + Nay, showed his faults--but when would poets mend? + No place so sacred from such fops is barred, + Nor is Paul's Church more safe than Paul's Churchyard: [623] + Nay, fly to altars; there they'll talk you dead, + For fools rush in where angels fear to tread + Distrustful sense with modest caution speaks, + It still looks home, and short excursions makes; + But rattling nonsense in full volleys breaks, + And, never shocked, and never turned aside. + Bursts out, resistless, with a thundering tide, + + But where's the man who counsel can bestow, + Still pleased to teach, and yet not proud to know? + Unbiased, or by favor, or in spite, + Not dully prepossessed, nor blindly right; + Though learned, well-bred, and though well bred, sincere, + Modestly bold, and humanly severe, + Who to a friend his faults can freely show, + And gladly praise the merit of a foe? + Blessed with a taste exact, yet unconfined; + A knowledge both of books and human kind; + Generous converse, a soul exempt from pride; + And love to praise, with reason on his side? + + Such once were critics such the happy few, + Athens and Rome in better ages knew. + The mighty Stagirite first left the shore, [645] + Spread all his sails, and durst the deeps explore; + He steered securely, and discovered far, + Led by the light of the Maeonian star. [648] + Poets, a race long unconfined and free, + Still fond and proud of savage liberty, + Received his laws, and stood convinced 'twas fit, + Who conquered nature, should preside o'er wit. [652] + + Horace still charms with graceful negligence, + And without method talks us into sense; + Will like a friend familiarly convey + The truest notions in the easiest way. + He who supreme in judgment as in wit, + Might boldly censure, as he boldly writ, + Yet judged with coolness though he sung with fire; + His precepts teach but what his works inspire + Our critics take a contrary extreme + They judge with fury, but they write with phlegm: + Nor suffers Horace more in wrong translations + By wits than critics in as wrong quotations. + + See Dionysius Homer's thoughts refine, [665] + And call new beauties forth from every line! + + Fancy and art in gay Petronius please, [667] + The scholar's learning with the courtier's ease. + + In grave Quintilian's copious work we find [669] + The justest rules and clearest method joined: + Thus useful arms in magazines we place, + All ranged in order, and disposed with grace, + But less to please the eye, than arm the hand, + Still fit for use, and ready at command. + + Thee bold Longinus! all the Nine inspire, [675] + And bless their critic with a poet's fire. + An ardent judge, who, zealous in his trust, + With warmth gives sentence, yet is always just: + Whose own example strengthens all his laws; + And is himself that great sublime he draws. + + Thus long succeeding critics justly reigned, + License repressed, and useful laws ordained. + Learning and Rome alike in empire grew; + And arts still followed where her eagles flew, + From the same foes at last, both felt their doom, + And the same age saw learning fall, and Rome. [686] + With tyranny then superstition joined + As that the body, this enslaved the mind; + Much was believed but little understood, + And to be dull was construed to be good; + A second deluge learning thus o'errun, + And the monks finished what the Goths begun. [692] + + At length Erasmus, that great injured name [693] + (The glory of the priesthood and the shame!) + Stemmed the wild torrent of a barbarous age, + And drove those holy Vandals off the stage. [696] + + But see! each muse, in Leo's golden days, [697] + Starts from her trance and trims her withered bays, + Rome's ancient genius o'er its ruins spread + Shakes off the dust, and rears his reverent head + Then sculpture and her sister arts revive, + Stones leaped to form, and rocks began to live; + With sweeter notes each rising temple rung, + A Raphael painted, and a Vida sung [704] + Immortal Vida! on whose honored brow + The poets bays and critic's ivy grow + Cremona now shall ever boast thy name + As next in place to Mantua, next in fame! + + But soon by impious arms from Latium chased, + Their ancient bounds the banished muses passed. + Thence arts o'er all the northern world advance, + But critic-learning flourished most in France, + The rules a nation born to serve, obeys; + And Boileau still in right of Horace sways [714] + But we, brave Britons, foreign laws despised, + And kept unconquered and uncivilized, + Fierce for the liberties of wit and bold, + We still defied the Romans as of old. + Yet some there were, among the sounder few + Of those who less presumed and better knew, + Who durst assert the juster ancient cause, + And here restored wit's fundamental laws. + Such was the muse, whose rule and practice tell + "Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well." + Such was Roscommon, not more learned than good, + With manners generous as his noble blood, + To him the wit of Greece and Rome was known, + And every author's merit, but his own + Such late was Walsh--the muse's judge and friend, + Who justly knew to blame or to commend, + To failings mild, but zealous for desert, + The clearest head, and the sincerest heart, + This humble praise, lamented shade! receive, + This praise at least a grateful muse may give. + The muse whose early voice you taught to sing + Prescribed her heights and pruned her tender wing, + (Her guide now lost) no more attempts to rise, + But in low numbers short excursions tries, + Content if hence the unlearned their wants may view, + The learned reflect on what before they knew + Careless of censure, nor too fond of fame, + Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame, + Averse alike to flatter, or offend, + Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend. + + * * * * * + + + + + + +LINE NOTES + + +[Line 17: Wit is used in the poem in a great variety of +meanings (1) Here it seems to mean _genius_ or _fancy_, +(2) in line 36 _a man of fancy_, (3) in line 53 _the +understanding_ or _powers of the mind_, (4) in line 81 it +means _judgment_.] + +[Line 26: Schools--Different systems of doctrine or +philosophy as taught by particular teachers.] + +[Line 34: Maevius--An insignificant poet of the Augustan age, +ridiculed by Virgil in his third Eclogue and by Horace in his tenth +Epode.] + +[Lines 80, 81: There is here a slight inaccuracy or inconsistency, +since "wit" has a different meaning in the two lines: in 80, it means +_fancy,_ in 81, _judgment_.] + +[Line 86: The winged courser.--Pegasus, a winged horse which +sprang from the blood of Medusa when Perseus cut off her head. As soon +as born he left the earth and flew up to heaven, or, according to Ovid, +took up his abode on Mount Helicon, and was always associated with the +Muses.] + +[Line 94: Parnassus.--A mountain of Phocis, which received +its name from Parnassus, the son of Neptune, and was sacred to the +Muses, Apollo and Bacchus.] + +[Line 97: Equal steps.--Steps equal to the undertaking.] + +[Line 129: The Mantuan Muse--Virgil called Maro in the next +line (his full name being, Virgilius Publius Maro) born near Mantua, +70 B.C.] + +[Lines 130-136: It is said that Virgil first intended to write a poem +on the Alban and Roman affairs which he found beyond his powers, and +then he imitated Homer: + + Cum canerem reges et proelia Cynthius aurem + Vellit--_Virg. Ecl. VI_] + +[Line 138: The Stagirite--Aristotle, born at the Greek town of +Stageira on the Strymonic Gulf (Gulf of Contessa, in Turkey) 384 B.C., +whose treatises on Rhetoric and the Art of Poetry were the earliest +development of a Philosophy of Criticism and still continue to be +studied. + +The poet contradicts himself with regard to the principle he is here +laying down in lines 271-272 where he laughs at Dennis for + + Concluding all were desperate sots and fools + Who durst depart from Aristotle's rules.] + +[Line 180: Homer nods--_Quandoque bonus dormitat +Homerus_, 'even the good Homer nods'--Horace, _Epistola ad +Pisones_, 359.] + +[Lines 183, 184: Secure from flames.--The poet probably +alludes to such fires as those in which the Alexandrine and Palatine +Libraries were destroyed. From envy's fiercer rage.--Probably he +alludes to the writings of such men as Maevius (see note to line 34) and +Zoilus, a sophist and grammarian of Amphipolis, who distinguished +himself by his criticism on Isocrates, Plato, and Homer, receiving the +nickname of _Homeromastic_ (chastiser of Homer). Destructive +war--Probably an allusion to the irruption of the barbarians into +the south of Europe. And all-involving age; that is, time. This is +usually explained as an allusion to 'the long reign of ignorance and +superstition in the cloisters,' but it is surely far-fetched, and more +than the language will bear.] + +[Lines 193, 194: + + 'Round the whole world this dreaded name shall sound, + And reach to worlds that must not yet be found,"--COWLEY.] + +[Line 216: The Pierian spring--A fountain in Pieria, a district round +Mount Olympus and the native country of the Muses.] + +[Line 248: And even thine, O Rome.--The dome of St Peter's +Church, designed by Michael Angelo.] + +[Line 267: La Mancha's Knight.--Don Quixote, a fictitious +Spanish knight, the hero of a book written (1605) by Cervantes, a +Spanish writer.] + +[Line 270: Dennis, the son of a saddler in London, born 1657, +was a mediocre writer, and rather better critic of the time, with whom +Pope came a good deal into collision. Addison's tragedy of _Cato_, +for which Pope had written a prologue, had been attacked by Dennis. +Pope, to defend Addison, wrote an imaginary report, pretending to be +written by a notorious quack mad-doctor of the day, entitled _The +Narrative of Dr. Robert Norris on the Frenz of F. D._ Dennis replied +to it by his _Character of Mr. Pope_. Ultimately Pope gave him a +place in his _Dunciad_, and wrote a prologue for his benefit.] + +[Line 308: On content.--On trust, a common use of the word in +Pope's time.] + +[Lines 311, 312: Prismatic glass.--A glass prism by which +light is refracted, and the component rays, which are of different +colors being refracted at different angles show what is called a +spectrum or series of colored bars, in the order violet, indigo, blue, +green, yellow, orange, red.] + +[Line 328: Fungoso--One of the characters in Ben Jonson's +_Every Man out of his Humor_ who assumed the dress and tried to +pass himself off for another.] + +[Line 356: Alexandrine--A line of twelve syllables, so called +from a French poem on the Life of Alexander the Great, written in that +meter. The poet gives a remarkable example in the next line.] + +[Line 361: Sir John Denham, a poet of the time of Charles I. (1615-1668). +His verse is characterized by considerable smoothness and ingenuity of +rhythm, with here and there a passage of some force--Edmund Waller +(1606-1687) is celebrated as one of the refiners of English poetry. +His rank among English poets, however, is very subordinate.] + +[Line 366: Zephyr.--Zephyrus, the west wind personified by the +poets and made the most mild and gentle of the sylvan deities.] + +[Lines 366-373: In this passage the poet obviously intended to make +"the sound seem an echo to the sense". The success of the attempt has +not been very complete except in the second two lines, expressing the +dash and roar of the waves, and in the last two, expressing the skimming, +continuous motion of Camilla. What he refers to is the onomatopoeia of +Homer and Virgil in the passages alluded to. Ajax, the son of +Telamon, was, next to Achilles, the bravest of all the Greeks in the +Trojan war. When the Greeks were challenged by Hector he was chosen +their champion and it was in their encounter that he seized a huge stone +and hurled it at Hector. + +Thus rendered by Pope himself: + + "Then Ajax seized the fragment of a rock + Applied each nerve, and swinging round on high, + With force tempestuous let the ruin fly + The huge stone thundering through his buckler broke." + +Camilla, queen of the Volsci, was brought up in the woods, and, +according to Virgil, was swifter than the winds. She led an army to +assist Turnus against Aeneas. + + "Dura pan, cursuque pedum praevertere ventos. + Illa vel intactae segetis per summa volaret + Gramina nec teneras cursu laesisset aristas; + Vel mare per medium fluctu suspensa tumenti, + Ferret iter, celeres nec tingeret aequore plantas." + _Aen_. vii 807-811. + +Thus rendered by Dryden. + + "Outstripped the winds in speed upon the plain, + Flew o'er the fields, nor hurt the bearded grain; + She swept the seas, and as she skimmed along, + Her flying feet unbathed on billows hung"] + +[Lines 374-381: This passage refers to Dryden's ode, _Alexander's +Feast_, or _The Power of Music_. Timotheus, mentioned in it, was +a musician of Boeotia, a favorite of Alexander's, not the great musician +Timotheus, who died before Alexander was born, unless, indeed, Dryden +have confused the two.] + +[Line 376: The son of Libyan Jove.--A title arrogated to +himself by Alexander.] + +[Line 393: Dullness here 'seems to be incorrectly used. +Ignorance is apt to magnify, but dullness reposes in stolid +indifference.'] + +[Line 441: Sentences--Passages from the Fathers of the Church +who were regarded as decisive authorities on all disputed points of +doctrine.] + +[Line 444: Scotists--The disciples of Duns Scotus, one of the +most famous and influential of the scholastics of the fourteenth +century, who was opposed to Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274), another famous +scholastic, regarding the doctrines of grace and the freedom of the +will, but especially the immaculate conception of the Virgin. The +followers of the latter were called Thomists, between whom and the +Scotists bitter controversies were carried on.] + +[Line 445: Duck Lane.--A place near Smithfield where old +books were sold. The cobwebs were kindred to the works of these +controversialists, because their arguments were intricate and obscure. +Scotus is said to have demolished two hundred objections to the doctrine +of the immaculate conception, and established it by a cloud of proofs.] + +[Line 459: Parsons.--This is an allusion to Jeremy Collier, +the author of _A Short View etc, of the English Stage_. Critics, +beaux.--This to the Duke of Buckingham, the author of _The +Rehearsal_.] + +[Line 463: Blackmore, Sir Richard (1652-1729), one of the +court physicians and the writer of a great deal of worthless poetry. He +attacked the dramatists of the time generally and Dryden individually, +and is the Quack Maurus of Dryden's prologue to _The Secular +Masque_. Millbourn, Rev. Luke, who criticised Dryden; which +criticism, although sneered at by Pope, is allowed to have been judicious +and decisive.] + +[Line 465: Zoilus. See note on line 183.] + +[Line 479: Patriarch wits--Perhaps an allusion to the great +age to which the antediluvian patriarchs of the Bible lived.] + +[Line 536: An easy monarch.--Charles II.] + +[Line 541: At that time ladies went to the theater in masks.] + +[Line 544: A foreign reign.--The reign of the foreigner, +William III.] + +[Line 545: Socinus.--The reaction from the fanaticism of the +Puritans, who held extreme notions of free grace and satisfaction, by +resolving all Christianity into morality, led the way to the +introduction of Socinianism, the most prominent feature of which is the +denial of the existence of the Trinity.] + +[Line 552: Wit's Titans.--The Titans, in Greek mythology, +were the children of Uranus (heaven) and Gaea (earth), and of gigantic +size. They engaged in a conflict with Zeus, the king of heaven, which +lasted ten years. They were completely defeated, and hurled down into a +dungeon below Tartarus. Very often they are confounded with the Giants, +as has apparently been done here by Pope. These were a later progeny of +the same parents, and in revenge for what had been done to the Titans, +conspired to dethrone Zeus. In order to scale heaven, they piled Mount +Ossa upon Pelion, and would have succeeded in their attempt if Zeus had +not called in the assistance of his son Hercules.] + +[Line 585: Appius.--He refers to Dennis (see note to verse +270) who had published a tragedy called _Appius and Virginia_. He +retaliated for these remarks by coarse personalities upon Pope, in his +criticism of this poem.] + +[Line 617: Durfey's Tales.--Thomas D'Urfey, the author (in +the reign of Charles II.) of a sequel in five acts of _The +Rehearsal_, a series of sonnets entitled _Pills to Purge +Melancholy_, the Tales here alluded to, etc. He was a very inferior +poet, although Addison pleaded for him.] + +[Line 619: Garth, Dr., afterwards Sir Samuel (born 1660) an +eminent physician and a poet of considerable reputation He is best known +as the author of _The Dispensary_, a poetical satire on the +apothecaries and physicians who opposed the project of giving medicine +gratuitously to the sick poor. The poet alludes to a slander current at +the time with regard to the authorship of the poem.] + +[Line 623: St Paul's Churchyard, before the fire of London, was +the headquarters of the booksellers.] + +[Lines 645, 646: See note on line 138.] + +[Line 648: The Maeonian star.--Homer, supposed by some to have been +born in Maeonia, a part of Lydia in Asia Minor, and whose poems were the +chief subject of Aristotle's criticism.] + +[Line 652: Who conquered nature--He wrote, besides his other +works, treatises on Astronomy, Mechanics, Physics, and Natural History.] + +[Line 665: Dionysius, born at Halicarnassus about 50 B.C., was +a learned critic, historian, and rhetorician at Rome in the Augustan +age.] + +[Line 667: Petronius.--A Roman voluptuary at the court of +Nero whose ambition was to shine as a court exquisite. He is generally +supposed to be the author of certain fragments of a comic romance called +_Petronii Arbitri Satyricon_.] + +[Line 669: Quintilian, born in Spain 40 A.D. was a celebrated +teacher of rhetoric and oratory at Rome. His greatwork is _De +Institutione Oratorica_, a complete system of rhetoric, which is here +referred to.] + +[Line 675: Longinus, a Platonic philosopher and famous +rhetorician, born either in Syria or at Athens about 213 A.D., was +probably the best critic of antiquity. From his immense knowledge, he +was called "a living library" and "walking museum," hence the poet speaks +of him as inspired by _all the Nine_--Muses that is. These were +Clio, the muse of History, Euterpe, of Music, Thaleia, of Pastoral and +Comic Poetry and Festivals, Melpomene, of Tragedy, Terpsichore, of +Dancing, Erato, of Lyric and Amorous Poetry, Polyhymnia, of Rhetoric and +Singing, Urania, of Astronomy, Calliope, of Eloquence and Heroic +Poetry.] + +[Line 686: Rome.--For this pronunciation (to rhyme with _doom_) +he has Shakespeare's example as precedent.] + +[Line 692: Goths.--A powerful nation of the Germanic race, +which, originally from the Baltic, first settled near the Black Sea, and +then overran and took an important part in the subversion of the Roman +empire. They were distinguished as Ostro Goths (Eastern Goths) on the +shores of the Black Sea, the Visi Goths (Western Goths) on the Danube, +and the Moeso Goths, in Moesia ] + +[Line 693: Erasmus.--A Dutchman (1467-1536), and at one time +a Roman Catholic priest, who acted as tutor to Alexander Stuart, a +natural son of James IV. of Scotland as professor of Greek for a short +time at Oxford, and was the most learned man of his time. His best known +work is his _Colloquia_, which contains satirical onslaughts on +monks, cloister life, festivals, pilgrimages etc.] + +[Line 696: Vandals.--A race of European barbarians, who first +appear historically about the second century, south of the Baltic. They +overran in succession Gaul, Spain, and Italy. In 455 they took and +plundered Rome, and the way they mutilated and destroyed the works of +art has become a proverb, hence the monks are compared to them in their +ignorance of art and science.] + +[Line 697: Leo.--Leo X., or the Great (1513-1521), was a +scholar himself, and gave much encouragement to learning and art.] + +[Line 704: Raphael (1483-1520), an Italian, is almost +universally regarded as the greatest of painters. He received much +encouragement from Leo. Vida--A poet patronised by Leo. He was +the son of poor parents at Cremona (see line 707), which therefore the +poet says, would be next in fame to Mantua, the birthplace of Virgil as +it was next to it in place. + + "Mantua vae miserae nimium vicina Cremona."--Virg.] + +[Line 714: Boileau.--An illustrious French poet (1636-1711), +who wrote a poem on the Art of Poetry, which is copiously imitated by +Pope in this poem.] + +[Lines 723, 724: Refers to the Duke of Buckingham's _Essay on +Poetry_ which had been eulogized also by Dryden and Dr. Garth.] + +[Line 725: Roscommon, the Earl of, a poet, who has the honor +to be the first critic who praised Milton's _Paradise Lost_, died +1684.] + +[Line 729: Walsh.--An indifferent writer, to whom Pope owed a +good deal, died 1710.] + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An Essay on Criticism, by Alexander Pope + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM *** + +***** This file should be named 7409.txt or 7409.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/4/0/7409/ + +Produced by Ted Garvin, David Garcia and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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