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As fhades more sweetly recommend the light,
So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit.

NOTES.

moft confeffedly witty writers have been often little folicitous as to the manner of expreffing their notions.

"Pope evidently entertains a different conception of wit, from that of the definition above quoted, in the lines immediately following:

As fhades more fweetly recommend the ight,

So modeft plainness fets off sprightly wit.

For works may have more wit than does them good,

As bodies perish thro' excess of blood.

"Now "modeft plainnefs" is no foil or contraft to wit, as characterised in the definition, because it may be the most "advantageous drefs" for a thought. Again, that wit which may fuperabound in a work, must be a different thing from "natural imagery joined to good expreffion," for in thefe, what danger can there be of excefs? He was certainly now recurring in his mind to those brilliant flashes, which, though often introduced with falfe judgment, are not, however, false wit.

"The two characters of bad critic and bad poet are grossly confounded in the paffage relating to poetical numbers; for though it be true, that vulgar readers of poetry are chiefly attentive to the melody of the verse, yet it is not they who admire, but the paltry verfifier who employs monotonous fyllables, feeble expletives, and a dull routine of unvaried rhymes. Again, an ordinary ear is capable of perceiving the beauty ariling from the found being made an echo to the sense; indeed it is one of the most obvious beauties in poetry; but it is no eafy task for the poet to fucceed in his attempts to render it fo, as Pope has fufficiently proved by the miferable failure of fome of his examples in illustration of the precept." Essays Historical and Critical. VER. 297. True Wit is Nature,] Immediately after this the poet adds,

For works may have more wit than does 'em good. "Now (fays a very acute and judicious critic) let us substitute the definition in the place of the thing, and it will stand thus; A work may have more of Nature drefs'd to advantage than will do it good. This is impoffible; and it is evident that the confufion arifes from the poet's having annexed two different ideas to the fame word." Webb's Remarks on the Beauties of Poetry, p. 68.

For

For works may have more wit than does 'em good, As bodies perish through excess of blood.

NOTES.

VER. 298. What oft was thought,] In Dr. Johnfon's remarks on these poets, whom, after Dryden, he calls the metaphyfical poets, he fays, very finely; "Pope's account of wit is undoubtedly. he depreffes it below its natural dignity, and reduces it from ftrength of thought to happiness of language.

erroneous;

"If by a more noble and more adequate conception that be confidered as wit, which is at once natural and new, that which, though not obvious, is, upon its first production, acknowledged to be juft; if it be that, which he that never found it, wonders how he miffed; to wit of this kind the metaphyfical poets have seldom rifen. Their thoughts are often new, but feldom natural; they are not obvious, but neither are they juft; and the reader, far from wondering that he miffed them, wonders more frequently by what perverseness they were ever found.

be

"But wit, abftracted from its effects upon the hearer, may more vigorously and philofophically confidered as a kind of difcordia concors; a combination of diffimilar images, or difcovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike. Of wit, thus defined, they have more than enough. The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ranfacked for illuftrations, comparisons, and allufions; their learning inftructs, and their fubtilty furprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought, and, though he fometimes admires, is feldom pleased.

"From this account of their compofitions it will be readily inferred, that they were not fuccessful in reprefenting or moving the affections. As they were wholly employed on fomething unexpected and furprizing, they had no regard to that uniformity of sentiment which enables us to conceive and to excite the pains and the pleasures of other minds; they never enquired what, on any occafion, they should have faid or done; but wrote rather as beholders than partakers of human nature; as beings looking upon good and evil, impaffive and at leifure, as Epicurean deities, making remarks on the actions of men, and the viciffitudes of life, without interest and without emotion. Their courtship was void of fondnefs, and their lamentation of forrow. Their wifh was only to say what they hoped had never been faid before.”

Others

Others for Language all their care express,

395

And value books, as women men, for dress:

Their praise is still,-The Style is excellent;

The Senfe, they humbly take upon content.

Words are like leaves; and where they most abound, Much fruit of fense beneath is rarely found:

310

Falfe eloquence, like the prifmatic glass,

Its gaudy colours fpreads on ev'ry place;

The

NOTES.

VER. 302. Modeft plainnefs.] Xenophon in Greek, and Cæfar in Latin are the unrivalled mafters of the beautiful fimplicity here recommended. We have no English, French, or Italian Writer, that can be placed in the fame rank with them, for this uncommon excellence.

VER. 311. Falfe eloquence,] The naufeous affectation of expreffing every thing pompously and poetically, is no where more visible than in a poem by Mallet, entitled Amyntor and Theodora. The following inftance may be alleged among many others. Amyntor having a pathetic tale to discover, being choaked with forrow, and at a lofs for utterance, uses thefe ornamental and unnatural images.

66

O could I fteal
From Harmony her fofteft warbled strain
Of melting air! or Zephyr's vernal voice!
Or Philomela's fong, when love diffolves
To liquid blandifhments his evening lay,
All nature fmiling round."

Voltaire has given a comprehenfive rule with refpect to every fpecies of compofition. "Il ne faut rechercher, ni les pensées, ni les tours, ni les expreffions, et que l'art, dans tous les grands ouvrages, eft de bien raifonner, fans trop faire d'argument; de bien peindre, fans voiloir tout peindre, d'émouvoir, fans vouloir toujours exciter les paffions."

In a word, true eloquence, a juft style, confifts in the number, the propriety, and the placing of words; is content with a natural and fimple beauty; hunts not after foreign figures, difdains far-fought and meretricious ornaments. Juft as the ftrength of

an

The face of Nature we no more furvey,

All glares alike, without distinction

gay:

But true Expreffion, like th' unchanging Sun, 315
Clears and improves whate'er it shines upon,
It gilds all objects, but it alters none.
Expreffion is the drefs of thought, and ftill
Appears more decent, as more fuitable;
A vile conceit in pompous words exprefs'd
Is like a clown in regal purple dress'd:
For diff'rent ftyles with diff'rent fubjects fort,
As fev'ral garbs with country, town, and court.
Some by old words to fame have made pretence,
Ancients in phrase, meer moderns in their sense;

NOTES.

320

Such

an army, fays Algarotti, confits in well-disciplined men, not in a number of camels, elephants, fcythed chariots, and Afiatic encumbrances. Among many excellencies, this is the chief blemish of the Rambler; every object, every subject, is treated with an equal degree of dignity; he never foftens and fubdues his tints, but paints and adorns every image which he touches, with perpetual pomp, and unremitted fplendor.

VER. 324. Some by old words, &c.] "Abolita et abrogata retinere, infolentiae cujufdam eft, et frivolae in parvis jactantiae." Quint. lib. i. c. 6.

P.

"Opus eft, ut verba à vetuftate repetita neque crebra fint, neque manifefta, quia nil eft odiofius affectatione, nec utique ab ultimis repetita temporibus. Oratio cujus fumma virtus eft perfpicuitas quam fit vitiofa, fi egeat interprete? Ergo ut novorum optima erunt maxime vetera, ita veterum maxime nova." Idem. P.

Quintilian's advice on this fubject is as follows: "Cum fint autem verba propria, ficta, tranflata; propriis dignitatem dat antiquitas. Namque et fanétiorem, et magis admirabilem reddunt. orationem, quibus non quilibet fuit ufurus; eoque ornamento acerrimi judicii Virgilius unice eft ufus. Olli enim, et quianam, et mis, et pone, pellucent, et afpergunt illam, quae etiam in picturis

Such labour'd nothings, in fo ftrange a style,

326

Amaze th' unlearn'd, and make the learned fmile. Unlucky, as Fungofo in the Play,

These sparks with aukward vanity display

What the fine gentleman wore yesterday;

NOTES.

330

picturis eft gratiffima, vetuftatis inimitabilem arti auctoritatem. Sed utendum modo, nec ex ultimis tenebris repetenda."

"The language of the age (fays Mr. Gray, admirably well,) is never the language of poetry; except among the French, whofe verfe, where the thought or image does not fupport it, differs in nothing from profe. Our poetry, on the contrary, has a language peculiar to itself; to which almoft every one that has written, has added something by enriching it with foreign idioms and derivatives: nay, fometimes words of their own compofitions or invention. Shakespeare and Milton have been great creators this way; and no one more licentious than Pope or Dryden, who perpetually borrow expreffions from the former. Let me give you fome inftances from Dryden, whom every body reckons a great master of our poetical tongue. Full of museful mopings,—unlike the trim of love, a pleasant beverage,-a roundelay of love,-ftood filent in his mood,-with knots and knaves deformed, his ireful mood,in proud array, his boon was granted, and difarray and shameful rout,-wayward but wife,-furbished for the field, the foiled dodderd oaks, difherited,-fmouldring flames,―retchless of laws,— crones old and ugly,—the beldam at his fide,—the grandam hag,— villanize his father's fame.-But they are infinite; and our language not being a fettled thing, (like the French), has an undoubted right to words of an hundred years old, provided antiquity have not rendered them unintelligible. In truth, Shakespeare's language is one of his principal beauties; and he has no less advantage over your Addisons and Rowes in this, than in thofe great excellencies you mention. Every word in him is a picture. Pray put me in the following lines, into the tongue of our modern dramatics."

VER. 328. Unlucky, as Fungofo, &c.] See Ben. Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour.

P.

And

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