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 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.
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 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.
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,
Considered 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
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.
See from each clime the learn'd their incense bring!
Hear in all tongues consenting paans ring!
In praise so just let ev'ry voice be join'd,
And fill the genʼral chorus of mankind.
Hail, bards triumphant! born in happier days,
Immortal heirs of universal praise !
Whose honours with increase of ages grow,
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 needlful 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,
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 tow'ring 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 attain'd, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthen'd way;
Th' increasing prospect tires our wand'ring eyes,
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 charm'd 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-proportion'd dome, (The world's just wonder, even thine, O Rome!) No 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 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,
Produc'd his play, and begg'd the Knight's advice; Made him observe the subject and the plot,
The manners, passions, unities; what not?
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