in them all the graces of novelty; and make the reader, who was before acquainted with them, still more convinced of their truth and solidity. There are three poems in our tongue of the same nature, and each a master-piece in its kind the Essay on Translated Verse; the Essay on the Art of Poetry; and the Essay on Criticism.

ADDISON.

One of Pope's greatest, though of his earliest works, is the Essay on Criticism, which if he had written nothing else would have placed him among the first Critics and the first Poets; as it exhibits every mode of excellence that can embellish or dignify didactic composition, selection of matter, novelty of arrangement, justness of precept, splendor of illustration, and propriety of digression. It is a work which displays such extent of comprehension, such nicety of distinction, such acquaintance with mankind, and such knowledge both of Ancient and Modern learning, as are not often attained by the maturest age and longest experience, JOHNSON,

Extracts,

From an Essay on Criticism.

Canto 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 offence
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. &c

'Tis with our Judgements 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's 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;

But are not Critics to their Judgement too? &c.

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;
Lanch not beyond your depth, but be discreet,
And mark that point where Sense and Dulness meet. &c.

First follow Nature, and your judgement frame
By her just standard, which is still (a) the same:
(a) Still, always, evermore, invariably, unalterably.

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. &c.

You then, whose Judgement 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 (a) you may, but never Criticise. &c.

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. &c.

Canto II.

A little Learning is a dangerous thing

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierean spring;
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again. &c.

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. &c.

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. &c,
(a) Cavil, dispute, contend; redekaveler.

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. &c.
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.

Words are like leaves; and where they most abound,
Much fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found.
False eloquence, like the prismatic glass,
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 pretence,
Ancients in Phrase, mere Moderns in their Sense. &c.

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 smoothe 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;"

"sleep: "

If crystal streams "with pleasing murmurs creep
The reader's threatened (not in vain) with
Then at the last and only couplet fraught
With some unmeaning thing, they call a Thought,

A needless Alexandrine ends the song,

Which, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.

Leave such to tune their own dull rhymes, and know
What's roundly smoothe, or languishingly slow;
And praise the easy vigor of a line

Where Denham's (a) strength and Waller's (b) sweetness join.
True ease in writing comes from Art not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance;
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence-
The Sound must seem an echo to the Sense:
Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smoothe 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. Hear how Timotheus' varied lays surprise,

And bid alternate passions fall and rise!

While, at each change, the son of Lybian Jove
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!
The power of Music all our hearts allow,

And what Timotheus was, is Dryden (c) now. &c.

(a) Denham is one of the writer's that improved our taste, and advanced our language, and whom we ought therefore to read with gratitude, though, having done much, he left much to do. JOHNSON.

(b) Waller was rather smoothe than strong; of "the full resounding line," which Pope attributes to Dryden, he has given very few examples; but it cannot be denied that he added something to our elegance of diction, and something to our propriety of thought."

JOHNSON.

(c) Denham and Waller improved our versification, and Dryden perfected it. PRIOR. Every English generation must mention Dryden with Reverence as a Critic and a Poet. From his Prose, however, Dryden derives only his accidental and secondary praise; the veneration with which his name is

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. &c.

Some ne'er advance a judgement of their own,
But catch the spreading notion of the town;
They reason and conclude by Precedent,

And own (a) stale nonsense, which they ne'er invent.

Some judge of authors' Names, not Works, and then
Nor praise nor blame the Writings, but the Men. &c.
The vulgar, thus, through imitation err;

As oft the Learned, by being singular:

So much they hate the crowd, that if the throng
By chance go right, they purposely go wrong. &c.
Some praise at morning what they blame at night,
But always think the last opinion right. &c.

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. &c.

Be thou the First true merit to befriend;
His praise is lost who stays till all commend. &c.
Canto III..

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 yon,
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. &c.

pronounced by every cultivator of English literature, is paid to him as he refined the language, improved the sentiments, and tuned the namhers of English Poetry. He had more music than Waller, more vigor than Denham; and more nature than Cowley.

Denham was born in 1615, and died in 1668; Cowley b. 1618, d. 1667; Waller b. 1605, d. 1687; and Dryden b. 1631, d. 1701. (a) Own, toseigenen.