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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 propos'd, that license is a rule.
Thus Pegasus, a nearer way to take,

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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 thro' the judgment, gains the heart, and all it's 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 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 it's end; let it be seldom, and compell'd 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.

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I know there are to whose presumptuous thoughts those freer beauties ev'n in them seem faults. Some figures monstrous and mis-shap'd appear consider'd singly or beheld too near, which but proportion'd to their light or place, due distance reconciles to form and grace. A prudent chief not always must display

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his pow'rs 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.

Still green with bays each ancient altar stands above the reach of sacrilegious hands, secure from flames, from envy's fiercer rage, destructive war, and all-involving age.

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See from each clime the learn'd their incense bring!

hear in all tongues consenting Pæans ring!

in praise so just let ev'ry voice be join'd,

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and fill the gen'ral chorus of mankind.

Hail, Bards triumphant! born in happier days, immortal heirs of universal praise!

whose honours with increase of ages grow,

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as streams roll down, enlarging as they flow; nations unborn your mighty name shall sound, and worlds applaud that must not yet be found! O 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,

t' admire superior sense, and doubt their own! 200 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 deny'd she gives in large recruits of needful pride: for as in bodies thus in souls we find

what wants in blood and spirits swell'd with wind: pride, where wit fails steps in to our defence,

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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 ev'ry friend---and ev'ry foe.
A little learning is a dang'rous thing;
drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again.
Fir'd 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 advanc'd, behold with strange surprise
new distant scenes of endless science rise!
so pleas'd at first the towring Alps we try,
mount oe'r the vales, and seem to tread the sky!
th' eternal snows appear already past,

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and the first clouds and mountains seem the last:
but those attain'd, we tremble to survey
the growing labours of the lengthen'd way;
th' increasing prospect tires our wand'ring eyes,
hills peep o'er hills and Alps on Alps arise!

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A perfect judge will read each work of wit with the same spirit that it's 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 charm'd with wit. But in such lays as neither ebb nor flow, correctly cold, and regularly low,

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3.

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.

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Thus when we view some well-proportion'd dome, (the world's just wonder, and even thine, O Rome!) no single parts unequally surprise,

all comes united to th' admiring eyes;

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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 ev'ry 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 lov'd folly sacrifice.

Once on a time La Mancha's Knight, they say, a certain bard encount'ring on the way, discours'd in terms as just, with looks as sage, as e'er could Dennis of the Grecian stage, concluding all were desp'rate sots and fools who durst depart from Aristotle's rules. Our Author, happy in a judge so nice,

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produc'd his play, and begg'd the Knight's advice; made him observe the subject and the plot, the manners, passions, unites; 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."

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Not so, by Heav'n! (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 on 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.

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Some to Conceit alone their taste confine, and glitt'ring thoughts struck out at ev'ry line; 290 pleas'd with a work where nothing's just or fit, one glaring chaos and wild heap of wit. Poets, like painters, thus unskill'd to trace the naked nature and the living grace, with gold and jewels cover ev'ry part, and hide with ornaments their want of art. True wit is nature to advantage dress'd, what oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd; something whose truth convinc'd at sight we find, that give us back the image of our mind. As shades more sweetly recommend the light, so modest plainness sets off sprightly wit:

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for works may have more wit than does them good, as bodies perish thro' 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,

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