Alexander Pope

From an Essay on Criticism

 

 

  'Tis hard to say, if greater want of skill
  Appear in writing or in judging ill;
  But, of the two, less dangerous is th' 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'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 judgment too?

 

*

 

  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 dulness meet.

 

*

  

  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 th' informing soul
  With spirit feeds, with vigour fills the whole.
  Each motion guides, and every nerve sustains;
  Itself unseen, but in th' effects, remains.
  Some, to whom Heaven in wit has been profuse,
  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 wingèd courser, like a generous horse,
  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.

 

  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 Homer's 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.

 

  When first young Maro in his boundless mind
  A work t' outlast immortal Rome designed,
  Perhaps he seemed above the critic's law,
  And but from nature's fountains scorned to draw:
  But when t' 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 laboured work confine
  As if the Stagirite o'erlooked 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.
  If, where the rules not far enough extend,
  (Since rules were made but to promote their end)
  Some lucky license answer to the full
  Th' intent proposed, that license is a rule.
  Thus Pegasus, a nearer way to take,
  May boldly deviate from the common track;
  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.
  Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend,
  And rise to faults true critics dare not mend.
  But tho' 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, e'en 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 th' 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.

 

*

 

  A little learning is a dangerous thing;
  Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
  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,
  Th' eternal snows appear already past,
  And the first clouds and mountains seem the last;
  But, those attained, we tremble to survey
  The growing labours of the lengthened way,
  Th' increasing prospects tire 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 gen'rous 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 th' 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 world's just wonder, and e'en thine, O Rome!)
  So single parts unequally surprise,
  All comes united to th' 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,
  T' 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,
  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;
  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 glitt'ring 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 'em 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.
  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 colours spreads on every place;
  The face of nature we no more survey,
  All glares alike, without distinction gay:
  But true expression, like th' 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;
  Such laboured nothings, in so strange a style,
  Amaze th' unlearn'd, and make the learnèd smile.
  Unlucky, as Fungoso in the play,
  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,
  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 vigour of a line,
  Where Denham's strength, and Waller's 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 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 labours, and the words move slow;
  Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,
  Flies o'er th' 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 Libyan 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 now.

 

  Avoid extremes; and shun the fault of such,
  Who still are pleased too little or too much.
  At every trifle scorn to take offence,
  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 mists descry,
  Dulness is ever apt to magnify.

 

  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 author's names, not works, and then
  Nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men.
  Of all this servile herd, the worst is he
  That in proud dulness 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 sonneteer, 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!

 

*

 

  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 candour 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 critic 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.

 

*

 

  The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,
  With loads of learnèd 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.
  With him, most authors steal their works, or buy;
  Garth did not write his own Dispensary.
  Name a new play, and he's the poet's 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:
  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?
  Unbiassed, or by favour, or by spite;
  Not dully prepossessed, nor blindly right;
  Though learn'd, 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?
  Blest with a taste exact, yet unconfined;
  A knowledge both of books and human kind:
  Gen'rous converse; a soul exempt from pride;
  And love to praise, with reason on his side?