POPE excelled, he is superior to all mankind: and I only fay, that this fpecies of poetry is not the most excellent one of the art. We do not, it should seem, fufficiently attend to the difference there is betwixt a MAN OF WIT, a MAN OF SENSE, and a TRUE POET. Donne and Swift were undoubtedly men of wit, and men of sense: but what traces have they left of PURE POETRY? It is remarkable, that Dryden says of Donne," He was the greatest wit, though not the greatest poet, of this nation. Fontenelle and La Motte are entitled to the former character; but what can they urge to gain the latter? Which of these characters is the most valuable and useful, is entirely out of the queftion: all I plead for, is, to have their several provinces kept diftinct from each other; and to impress on the reader, that a clear head, and acute understanding, are not fufficient, alone, to make a POET; that the most folid obfervations on human life, expreffed with the utmost elegance and brevity, are MORALITY, and not POETRY; that the EPISTLES of Boileau in RHYME, are no more poetical, than the CHARACTERS of La Bruyere in in PROSE; and that it is a creative and glowing IMAGINATION, acer fpiritus ac vis," and that alone, that can ftamp a writer with this exalted and very uncommon character, which fo few poffefs, and of which so few can properly judge. For one person who can adequately relish and enjoy a work of imagination, twenty are to be found who can taste, and judge of, obfervations on familiar life, and the manners of the age. The Satires of Ariofto are more read than the Orlando Furiofo, or even Dante. Are there fo many cordial admirers of Spenfer and Milton, as of Hudibras, if we ftrike out of the number of these fuppofed admirers, those who appear fuch out of fashion, and not of feeling? Swift's Rhapfody on Poetry is far more popular than Akenfide's noble Ode to Lord Huntingdon. The EPISTLES on the Characters of Men and Women, and your sprightly Satires, my good friend, are more frequently perused, and quoted, than L'Allegro and Il Penserofo of Milton. Had you written only these Satires, you would, indeed, have gained the title of a man of wit, and a man of sense; but, I am confident, would not infift on being denominated a POET MERELY on their account. NON SATIS EST PURIS VERSUM PERSCRIBERE VERBIS. It is amazing this matter fhould ever have been mistaken, when Horace has taken particular and repeated pains to fettle and adjust the opinion in queftion. He has more than once disclaimed all right and title to the name of POET on the fcore of his ethic and fatiric pieces. NEQUE ENIM CONCLUDERE VERSUM are lines often repeated, but whose meaning is not extended and weighed as it ought to be. Nothing can be more judicious than the method he prescribes, of trying whether any compofition be effentially poetical or not; which is, to drop entirely the measures and numbers, and transpose and invert the order of the. words: words: and in this unadorned manner to perufe the paffage. If there be really in it a true poetical spirit, all your inverfions and transpofitions will not disguise and extinguish it; but it will retain its luftre, like a diamond unfet, and thrown back into the rubbish of the mine. Let us make a little experiment on the following well-known lines: "Yes, you defpife the man that is confined to books, who rails at humankind from his study; though what he learns, he speaks; and may, perhaps, advance fome general maxims, or may be right by chance. The coxcomb bird, fo grave and Jo talkative, that cries whore, knave, and cuckold, from his cage, though he rightly call many a passenger, you hold him no philofopher. And yet, fuch is the fate of all extremes, men may be read too much, as well as books. We grow more partial, for the fake of the obferver, to obfervations which we ourselves make; lefs fo to written wisdom, because another's. Maxims are drawn from notions, and thofe from guess." What fhall we fay of this paffage? Why, that it is most excellent sense, but just as poetical as the "Qui fit Mæcenas" of the author who recommends this method of trial. Take ten lines of the Iliad, Paradise Loft, or even of the the Georgics of Virgil, and fee whether, by any process of critical chemistry, you can lower and reduce them to the tameness of profe. You will find that they will appear like Ulyffes in his disguise of rags, still a hero, though lodged in the cottage of the herdsman Eumæus. not The fublime and the pathetic are the two chief nerves of all genuine poefy. What is there transcendently fublime or pathetic in POPE? In his Works there is, indeed, "nihil inane, nihil arceffitum; puro tamen fonti quam magno flumini proprior;" as the excellent Quintilian remarks of Lyfias. And because I am, perhaps, unwilling to speak out in plain English, I will adopt the following passage of Voltaire, which, in my opinion, as exactly characterizes POPE as it does his model Boileau, for whom it was originally defigned: "INCAPABLE PEUT-ETRE DU SUBLIME QUI ELEVE L'AME, ET DU SENTIMENT QUI L'ATTENDRIT, MAIS FAIT POUR ECLAIRER CEUX A QUI LA NATURE ACCORDA L'UN ET L'AULABORIEUX, TRE, 1 SEVERE, PRECIS, PUR, HARMONIEUX, |