Thus in the soul while memory prevails,
The solid power of understanding fails;
Where beams of warm imagination play,
The memory's soft figures melt away.
One science only will one genius fit;
So vast is art, so narrow human wit:
Not only bounded to peculiar arts,
But oft in those confined to single parts.
Like kings we lose the conquests gained
before,

By vain ambition still to make them more; Each might his several province well command,

Would all but stoop to what they understand.

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,

Hear how learned 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 ad

mire.

Then criticism the Muses' handmaid proved,

To dress her charms, and make her more beloved :

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 vigor 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 de

vised,

Are Nature still, but Nature methodized; Nature, like liberty, is but restrained

By the same laws which first herself ordained.

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.

So modern 'pothecaries, taught the art
By doctor's bills to play the doctor's part,
Bold in the practice of mistaken rules,
Prescribe, apply, and call their masters
fools.

Some on the leaves of ancient authors prey,
Nor time nor moths e'er spoiled so much

as they.

Some dryly 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;

Convinced, amazed, he checks the bold design;

And rules as strict his laboured work confine,

As if the Stagirite 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 license answer to the full
The intent proposed, that license is a rule.
Thus Pegasus, a nearer way to take,
May boldly deviate from the common
track;

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. Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend,

And rise to faults true critics dare not mend.

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;

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 mis-shaped appear,

Considered singly, or beheld too near, Which, but proportioned to their light or place,

Due distance reconciles to form and grace. A prudent chief 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, 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 learned their incense bring!

Hear, in all tongues, consenting peans 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;

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!

II

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 denied,
She gives in large recruits of needful pride;
For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find
What wants in blood and spirits, swelled
with wind:

Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defense,

And fills up all the mighty void of sense. If once right reason drives that cloud

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 wandering 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 tenor
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
view some well-pro-
portioned dome,
(The world's just wonder, and e'en 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.

Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.

In every work regard the writer's end, Since none can compass more than they intend;

surprise

New distant scenes of endless science rise! So pleased at first the towering Alps we try,

Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due; As men of breeding, sometimes men of wit, To avoid great errors, must the less commit:

sky,