But, more advanced, behold, with strange surprise
New distant scenes of endless science rise!
So pleased at first the towering Alps we try,
Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky,
The eternal snows appear already past,

And the first clouds and mountains seem the last :
But, those attained, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthened way,
The increasing prospect tires our wondering eyes,
Hills 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 generous pleasure to be charmed with wit.
But in such lays as neither ebb, nor flow,
Correctly cold, and regularly low,

That shunning faults, one quiet tenour keep,
We cannot blame indeed-but we may sleep.
In wit, as nature, what affects our hearts
Is not the 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-proportioned dome,
(The world's just wonder, and even thine, O Rome!)
No single parts unequally surprise;

All comes united to the admiring eyes;

No monstrous height, or breadth, or length appear;
The whole at once is bold, and regular.

Some to Conceit3 alone their taste confine,

And glittering thoughts struck out at every line;

So pleased at first, &c.-Dr. Johnson says of this simile, that it "is perhaps the best that English poetry can show: it assists the apprehension and elevates the fancy."

2 Survey the whole, &c.-A work of art is to be judged of by the general impression stamped on the mind by the unity and completeness of the whole. Hence it is, as Coleridge has remarked, that the real merit of a poem may be tested by reading it repeatedly over. All the great master-pieces of music, painting, and poetry, have this in common, that the more they are scrutinised the more heir beauties appear, whereas in inferior works close scrutiny only discovers heir defects.

3 Conceit-The fault here reproved is the want of that simplicity, both of air and manner, which is ever associated with true greatness-" the contortions of the Sibyl without her inspiration."

Pleased with a work where nothing's just or fit;
One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit.
Poets like painters, thus, unskilled to trace
The naked nature and the living grace,
With gold and jewels cover every part,
And hide with ornaments their want of art.
True wit is nature to advantage dressed;

What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed;
Something, whose truth convinced at sight we find,
That gives us back the image of our mind.
As shades more sweetly recommend the light,
So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit:
For works may have1 more wit than does them good,
As bodies perish through 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,2 like the prismatic glass,
Its gaudy colours spreads on every place;
The face of natnre we no more survey,
All glares alike, without distinction gay;
But true expression, like the unchanging sun,
Clears, and improves whate'er it shines upon;
It gilds all objects, but it alters none.
Expression is the dress of thought, and still
Appears more decent, as more suitable.
A vile conceit in pompous words expressed,
Is like a clown in regal purple dressed;
For different styles with different subjects sort,
As several garbs with country, town, and court.

1 Works may have, &c.-An extraordinary assertion if understood literally, and "wit" be interpreted, as before, "genius," inasmuch as true genius would mould and subordinate all the parts to their proper end, and therefore avoid the error here censured. "Wit" then in this passage appears to mean brilliancy and intensity of thought working incessantly, but uncontrolled by unity of purpose. 2 False eloquence-"a principal device in the fabrication of this style [of mock-eloquence] is, to multiply epithets, dry epithets, laid on the surface, and into which no vitality of the sentiment is found to circulate," (Foster's "Essays," p. 252,) where may be found a character of mock-eloquence drawn by the hand of a master.

But most by Numbers1 judge a poet's song,

And smooth or rough, with them, is right or wrong;
In the bright Muse though thousand charms conspire,
Her voice is all these tuneful fools admire;

Who haunt Parnassus but to please their ear,
Not mend their minds; as some to church repair,
Not for the doctrine, but the music there.
These equal syllables alone require,
Though oft the ear the open vowels tire;
While expletives their feeble aid do join;
And ten low words oft creep in one dull line;
While they ring round the same unvaried chimes,
With sure returns of still-expected rhymes.
Where'er you find 'the cooling western breeze,'
In the next line, it 'whispers through the trees ;'
If crystal streams with pleasing murmurs creep,'
The reader's threatened (not in vain) with 'sleep :'
Then, at the last and only couplet fraught

With some unmeaning thing they call a thought,
A needless Alexandrine ends the song,

That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
Leave such to tune their own dull rhymes, and know
What's roundly smooth, or languishingly slow;
And praise the easy vigour of a line,

Where Denham's strength, and Waller's sweetness join.
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance:

'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence,

The sound must seem an echo to the sense.
Soft is the strain2 when Zephyr gently blows,

And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;

Most by numbers, &c.-The celebrated passage which follows, ingeniously exemplifies the faults it seems to censure. In general it may be remarked, that if these artifices of poetry constitute the aim of the writer, they are unquestionably vicious, but if subordinate to some higher end, they contribute legitimately to the pleasure of the reader. It may be further remarked, that whether versification be essential to Poetry, in the vague and general acceptation of that term, there can be little doubt that it is absolutely essential to Poetry, considered in its proper light as an Art. It is indeed to Poetry what melody and time are to Music, colour to Painting, and form to Sculpture.

2 Soft is the strain, &c.-Pope's success in this and the subsequent illustrations has been both maintained and denied with much zeal. Dr. Johnson is against Pope, and maintains that "the smooth strain runs with a perpetual clash of jarring consonants;" that in the lines which mention the efforts of Ajax, there

But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar.
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow;
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Hear how Timotheus' varied lays1 surprise,
And bid alternate passions fall and rise!
While, at each change, the son of Libyan Jove
Now burns with glory, and then melts with love
Now his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow,
Now sighs steal out, and tears begin to flow:
Persians and Greeks like turns of nature found,
And the world's victor stood subdued by sound!

THE TOILET.2

AND now, unveiled, the toilet stands displayed,
Each silver vase in mystic order laid.
First, robed in white, the nymph intent adores,
With head uncovered, the cosmetic3 powers.
A heavenly image in the glass appears,
To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears:
The inferior priestess at her altar's side,
Trembling, begins the sacred rites of pride.
Unnumbered treasures ope at once, and here
The various offerings of the world appear;
From each she nicely culls with curious toil,
And decks the goddess with the glittering spoil.
This casket India's glowing gems unlocks,
And all Arabia breathes from yonder box:

is no particular heaviness or delay "and that the swiftness of Camilla is rather contrasted than exemplified," adding, "why the verse should be lengthened to express speed, will not easily be discovered." If however the verses be carefully read aloud, it may perhaps be admitted that the sibilants in the former line entirely overpower the "jarring consonants," which was the effect intendedthat the monosyllables in the line "when Ajax strives, &c." sensibly detain the voice, and that Camilla does in the last cited instance majestically sweep over the plain with effectual, though not mechanical, velocity.

1 Timotheus' varied lays--in allusion to Dryden's "Ode on St. Cecilia's Day." 2 This extract, from "the Rape of the Lock," displays the power of Pope over the artificial and fanciful regions of poetry. Never before or since were the mysteries of the toilet so gracefully described.

3 Cosmetic-from the Greek xogos, orderly arrangement, embellishmentbelonging to the adornment of the person.

The tortoise here and elephant unite,

Transformed to combs, the speckled and the white.
Here files of pins extend their shining rows,
Puffs, powders, patches,' bibles, billet-doux.
Now awful beauty puts on all its arms;
The fair each moment rises in her charms,
Repairs her smiles, awakens every grace,
And calls forth all the wonders of her face;
Sees by degrees a purer blush arise,
And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes.
The busy Sylphs surround their darling care,
These set the head and those divide the hair,
Some fold the sleeve, whilst others plait the gown;
And Betty's praised for labours not her own.

1

EXTRACTS FROM THE ESSAY ON MAN.
MAN'S IGNORANCE.

HEAVEN from all creatures hides the book of fate,
All but the page prescribed, their present state;
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know;
Or who could suffer being here below?

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food,
And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly given,
That each may fill the circle marked by Heaven,
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish or a sparrow fall;

Atoms, or systems, into ruin hurled,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world!

Patches-small pieces of black silk which fashionable ladies used once to stick upon their faces for the sake of ornament.

2 The lamb, &c.-The tenderness and beauty of this illustration are admirableits direct bearing on the argument is less obvious. The "reason" of man does not prevent his "skipping and playing" often on the very brink of destruction. "In the midst of life we are in death."