CONTENTS. PART I. INTRODUCTION. That 'tis as great a fault to judge ill, as to write ill, and a more dangerous one to the public, ver. 1. That a true Taste is as rare to be found, as a true Genius, ver. 9 to 18. That most men are born with some Taste, but spoiled by false Education, ver. 19 to 25. The multitude of Critics, and causes of them, ver. 26 to 45. That we are to study our own Taste, and know the Limits of it, ver. 46 to 67. Nature the best guide of Judgment, ver. 68 to 87. Improv'd by Art and Rules, which are but methodiz'd Nature, ver. 88. Rules derived from the practice of the Ancient Poets, ver. 88 to 110. That therefore the Ancients are necessary to be studied by a Critic, particularly Homer and Virgil, ver. 120 to 138. Of Licences, and the use of them by the Ancients, ver. 140 to 180. Reverence due to the Ancients, and praise of them, ver. 181, &c. PART II. Ver. 203, &c. Causes hindering a true Judgment, 1. Pride, ver. 208. 2. Imperfect Learning, ver. 215. 3. Judging by parts, and not by the whole, ver. 233 to 288. Critics in Wit, Language, Versification, only, ver. 288. 305. 339, &c. 4. Being too hard to please, or too apt to admire, ver. 384. 5. Partiality-too much love to a Sect,--to the Ancients or Moderns, ver. 394. 6. Prejudice or Prevention, ver. 408. 7. Singularity, ver. 424, &c. 8. Inconstancy, ver. 430. 9. Party Spirit, ver. 452, &c. 10. Envy, ver. 466. Against Envy, and in praise of Good-nature, ver. 508, &c. When Severity is chiefly to be used Rules for the Conduct of Manners in a Critic, 1. Candour, ver. 563. Modesty, ver. 566. Good-breeding, ver. 572. Sin- cerity and Freedom of Advice, ver. 578. 2. When one's Counsel is to be restrained, ver. 584. Character of an incorri- gible Poet, ver. 600. And of an impertinent Critic, ver. 610, &c. Character of a good Critic, ver. 629. The History of Criticism, and characters of the best Critics, Aristotle, ver. 645. Horace, ver. 653. Dionysius, ver. 665. Petronius, ver. 667. Quintilian, ver. 670. Longinus, ver. 675. Of the Decay of Criticism, and its Revival. Erasmus, ver. 693. Vida, ver. 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 dang'rous is the offence NOTES. An Essay] For a person of only twenty years old to have produced such an Essay, so replete with a knowledge of life and manners, such accurate observations on men and books, such variety of literature, such strong good sense, and refined taste and judgment, has been the subject of frequent, and of just admiration. It may fairly entitle him to the character of being one of the first of critics, though surely not of poets, as Dr. Johnson asserts. For Didactic poetry being, from its nature, inferior to Lyric, Tragic, and Epic poetry, we should confound and invert all literary rank and order if we compared and preferred the Georgics of Virgil to the Æneid, the Epistle to the Pisos, to the Qualem Ministrum of Horace, and Boileau's Art of Poetry to the Iphigenie of Racine. But Johnson's mind was formed for the Didactic, the Moral, and the Satiric; and he had no true relish for the higher and more geniune species of poetry. Strong couplets, modern manners, present life, moral sententious writings, alone pleased him. Hence his tasteless and groundless objections to The Lycidas of Milton, and to The Bard of Gray. Hence his own Irene is so frigid and uninteresting a tragedy; while his imitations of Juvenal are so forcible and pointed. His Lives of the Poets are unhappily tinctured Some few in that, but numbers err in this, Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss; NOTES. 5 with this narrow prejudice, and confined notion of poetry, which has occasioned many false and spurious remarks, and many illgrounded opinions, in a work that might have been, and was intended to have been, a manual of good taste and judgment. Dr. Warburton, endeavouring to demonstrate, what Addison could not discover, nor what Pope himself, according to the testimony of his intimate friend Richardson, ever thought of or intended, that this essay was written with a methodical and systematical regularity, has accompanied the whole with a long and laboured commentary, in which he has tortured many passages to support this groundless opinion. Warburton had certainly wit, genius, and much miscellaneous learning; but, was perpetually dazzled and misled, by the eager desire of seeing every thing in a new light unobserved before, into perverse interpretations and forced comments. His passion being (as Longinus expresses it) τοῦ ξένας νοήσεις ἀεὶ κινεῖν. It is painful to see such abilities wasted on such unsubstantial objects. Ac cordingly his notes on Shakspeare have been totally demolished by Edwards and Malone; and Gibbon has torn up by the roots his fanciful and visionary interpretation of the sixth Book of Virgil. And but few readers, I believe, will be found, that will cordially subscribe to an opinion lately delivered, that his notes on Pope's Works are the very best ever given on any classic whatever. For to instance no other, surely the attempt to reconcile the doctrines of the Essay on Man to the doctrines of Revelation, is the rashest adventure in which ever critic yet engaged. This is, in truth, to divine, rather than to explain an author's meaning. For these reasons, it is not thought proper to accompany this essay with a perpetual commentary. A poem, as hath been well observed, that consists of precepts, is so far arbitrary and immethodical, that many of the paragraphs may change places with no apparent inconvenience; for of two or more positions depending on some remote principle, there is seldom any cogent reason, why one should precede the other. Ver. 6. Ten censure] Readers more easily perceive blemishes than beauties. Adest fere nemo, says Tully, De Orator. i. quin acutius atque acrius vitia in dicendo, quam recta videat. A fool might once himself alone expose, '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; NOTES. 10 Ita quidquid est in quo offenditur, id etiam illa quæ laudanda sunt obruit. La critique, says the sensible Abbé de S. Pierre, d'un ouvrage doit être telle, que l'auteur critiqué soit bien aise, a tout prendre, qu'on l'ait donnée au public. Every one of Racine's tragedies were attacked by malignant critics. And Racine used to say, that these paltry critics gave him more pain than all his applauders had given him pleasure. Ver. 11. In poets as true Genius is but rare,] It is indeed so extremely rare, that no country, in the succession of many ages, has produced above three or four persons that deserve the title. The "man of rhymes" may be easily found; but the genuine poet, of a lively plastic imagination, the true Maker, or Creator, is so uncommon a prodigy, that one is almost tempted to subscribe to the opinion of Sir William Temple, where he says, "That of all the numbers of mankind that live within the com pass of a thousand years, for one man that is born capable of making a great poet, there may be a thousand born capable of making as great generals, or ministers of state, as the most renowned in story." There are indeed more causes required to concur to the formation of the former, than of the latter; which necessarily render its production more difficult. Ver. 12. True Taste as seldom] The first piece of criticism in our language, worthy our attention, for little can be gathered from Webbe and Puttenham, was Sir Philip Sidney's Defence of Poesie. Spenser is said to have written a critical discourse, called The Poet; the loss of which, considering the exquisite taste and extensive learning of Spenser, is much to be regretted. Next came Daniel's Apology; then Ben Jonson's Discoveries, the Preface to Gondibert, and Hobbes's Letter to D'Avenant, the Preface and Notes of Cowley (whose prose style, by the way, is admirable), Temple's Essays, Dryden's Essay on Dra-n matic Poetry, and his various Prefaces and Prologues, Rhymer's |