EXTRACTS FROM THE ESSAY ON CRITICISM.1
NATURE THE BASIS OF ART.2

FIRST follow Nature, and your judgment frame
By her just standard, which is still the same:
Unerring Nature, still divinely bright,

One clear, unchanged, and universal light,
Life, force, and beauty, must to all impart,
At once3 the source, and end, and test of art.
Art from that fund each just supply provides;
Works without show, and without pomp presides :
In some fair body thus the informing soul
With spirits feeds, with vigour fills the whole,
Each motion guides, and every nerve sustains;
Itself unseen, but in the effects remains.
Some, to whom Heaven in wit has been profuse,
Want as much more to turn it to its use;
For wit and judgment often are at strife,
Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife.
'Tis more to guide, than spur the Muse's steed;
Restrain his fury, than provoke his speed;
The winged courser, like a generous horse,
Shows most true mettle when you check his course.
Those rules of old discovered, not devised,
Are nature still, but nature methodised;
Nature like liberty,5 is but restrained

By the same laws which first herself ordained.

J "One of his [Pope's] greatest, though of his earliest works, is the Essay on Criticism;' which if he had written nothing else, would have placed him among the first critics, and the first poets, as it exhibits every mode of excellence that can embellish or dignify didactic composition:" Dr. Johnson.

2 The object of the writer in this passage is to show-1st. That nature is the foundation of art. 2nd. That rules of art are but nature methodised. 3rd. That the practice of the ancient classical writers confirms these positions.

3 At once, &c.-i. e. the source, because art is founded on nature; the end, because it is the aim of art to resemble nature; the test, because art must be tried by its conformity to nature.

4 Wit-this word bears a variety of meanings in Pope's writings, some of which have already become obsolete.-It here signifies, genius.

5 Nature, like liberty, &c.-Most happily expressed;-the rules laid down by the great critics are derived from nature, and therefore obedience to them is, in fact, obedience to nature.

Hear how learn'd Greece her useful rules indites,
When to repress, and when indulge our flights:
High on Parnassus' top her sons she showed,
And pointed out those arduous paths they trod;
Held from afar, aloft, the immortal prize,
And urged the rest by equal steps to rise;
Just precepts thus from great examples given,
She drew from them what they derived from heaven.
The generous critic fanned the poet's fire,
And taught the world with reason to admire.
Then criticism the Muse's handmaid proved,
To dress her charms, and make her more beloved :
But following wits1 from that intention strayed,
Who could not win the mistress, wooed the maid;
Against the poets their own arms they turned,
Sure to hate most the men from whom they learned.
Some on the leaves of ancient authors prey;
Nor time nor moths e'er spoiled so much as they :
Some drily plain, without invention's aid,
Write dull receipts how poems may be made:
These leave the sense, their learning to display,
And those explain the meaning quite away.

You then, whose judgment the right course would
steer,

Know well each Ancient's proper character;
His fable, subject, scope in every page;
Religion, country, genius of his age:
Without all these at once before your eyes,
Cavil you may, but never criticise.

Be Homer's works your study and delight:

Read them by day, and meditate by night;

Thence form your judgment, thence your notions bring,
And trace the Muses upward to their spring.

Still with itself compared, his text peruse;

And let your comment be the Mantuan Muse.3

1 Wits-men of genius. See note 4, p. 367.

2 Fable-in a strict sense this word means, the tissue of events that constitute the story, it is therefore quite distinct from the "subject," and from the species of composition so styled.

3 The Mantuan Muse-Virgil's "Eneid;" it will serve as a comment because it is in fact, as Foster, in one of his "Essays," beautifully designates it, "a lunar reflection" of the "Iliad."

When first young Maro1 in his boundless mind
A work to outlast immortal Rome2 designed,
Perhaps he seemed above the critic's law,

And but from Nature's fountains scorned to draw:
But when to examine every part he came,
Nature and Homer were, he found, the same:
Convinced, amazed, he checks the bold design;
And rules as strict his laboured work confine,
As if the Stagirite3 o'erlooked each line.
Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem;
To copy nature is to copy them.

Some beauties yet no precepts can declare,
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 licence answers to the full
The intent proposed, that licence is a rule.
Thus Pegasus, a nearer way to take,
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 through 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 though 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; 5

1 Maro--Virgil.

"Eternal Rome;"

2 To outlast immortal Rome-i. e. Rome, self-styled without this limitation the expression in the text would be obviously absurd. 3 Stagirite-Aristotle, who was born at Stagira, in Macedonia. He was the first both in order and in rank of the critics of antiquity.

4

Happiness-a" curiosa felicitas," or "grace beyond the reach of art."

5 Ne'er transgress its end-i. e. the end of critical canons must be obedience and conformity to nature; therefore never forget, that though you forsake certain rules, you must still keep close to nature.

Let it be seldom, and compelled 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, even in them, seem faults.
Some figures monstrous and misshaped appear,
Considered singly, or beheld too near,

Which, but proportioned to their light or place,
Due distance reconciles to form and grace.
A prudent chief1 not always must display
His powers in equal ranks, and fair array,
But with the 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,2 but we that dream.

Still green3 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 pæans ring!
In praise so just let every voice be joined,
And fill the general 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:

1 A prudent chief, &c.-An ingenious writer, quoted by Dr. Warton, ("Essay on Pope," p. 139,) says, "If we consider that variety, which in all arts is necessary to keep up attention, we may perhaps affirm with truth, that Inequality makes a part of the character of excellence; that something ought to be thrown into shade, in order to make the lights more striking."

2 Homer nods-to account for certain discrepancies, the critics have goodhumouredly given out that occasionally Homer nods; Pope here affirms that it is they that nod.

3 Still green, &c.-This is a noble passage, displaying, with Pope's exquisite finish, more fervour of feeling and expression than he ordinarily discovers. "Still green with bays," conveys the same idea as the remarkable phraseology of Hobbes, that the ancient classical writers had "put off flesh and blood, and put on immortality," and of Byron who calls them

"The dead but sceptered monarchs Who still rule our spirits from their urns."

Paans-songs of triumph and praise.

Nations unborn your mighty names shall sound,
And worlds applaud that must not yet be found!
Oh! 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,
To admire superior sense, and doubt their own!

IMPEDIMENTS TO THE ATTAINMENT OF JUST TASTE.

Of all the causes1 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 denied,
She gives in large recruits of needful pride;
For as in bodies, thus in souls we find

What wants in blood and spirits, filled 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 every friend, and every foe.

A little learning3 is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Piërian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fired 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,

Of all the causes, &c.-The causes enumerated in this passage as interfering with a correct and enlarged taste are-1st. Pride, or, rather vanity. 2nd. Imperfect learning. 3rd. Judging not by the whole, but by some particular feature, such as the fancies or "conceits" struck out, the language, or the versification. 2 Pride-i. e. self-esteem, vanity, conceit. The word "pride" is incorrectly employed here.

3 A little learning, &c.—i. e. a little learning if it usurp the place and credit of much may prove dangerous to its possessor. Pope has been much censured for the sentiment conveyed here, as if he had asserted that a little learning was worse than none at all, but it is clear from the context that that is not his meaning,