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:

NOTES.

60

not make us blind to the want of justness in the thought. To represent strength of memory as incompatible with solidity of understanding, is so obviously contrary to fact, that I presume the author had in his eye only the case of extraordinary memory for names, dates, and things, which offer no ideas to the mind; which has, indeed, been often displayed in great perfection by mere idiots. For, it is difficult to conceive how the faculty of judgment, which consists in the comparison of different ideas, can at all be exercised without the power of storing up ideas in the mind, and calling them forth when required. From the second couplet, apparently meant to be the converse of the first, one would suppose that he consulted the understanding and the imagination as the same faculty, else the counterpart is defective. Further, so far is it from being true that imagination obliterates the figures of memory, that the circumstance which causes a thing to be remembered, is principally its being associated with other ideas by the agency of the imagination. If the poet only meant, that those ideas about which imagination is occupied, are apt to exclude ideas of a different kind, the remark is true, but it should have been differently expressed.— Warton.

Ver. 60. One science only will one genius fit ;] When Tully attempted poetry, he became as ridiculous as Bolingbroke when he attempted philosophy and divinity.

When Fontaine, whose Tales indicated a truly comic genius, brought a comedy on the stage, it was received with a contempt equally unexpected and deserved. Terence has left us no tragedy; and the Mourning Bride of Congreve, notwithstanding the praises bestowed on it by Pope, in the Dunciad, is certainly a despicable performance; the plot is unnaturally intricate, and overcharged with incidents, the sentiments trite, and the language turgid and bombast. The Biter of Rowe is wretched. Heemskirk and Teniers could not succeed in a serious and sublime subject of history painting. The latter, it is well known, designed cartoons for tapestry, representing the history of the Turriani of Lombardy. Both the composition and the expression are extremely indifferent; and certain nicer virtuosi have remarked, that in the serious pieces of Titian himself, even in one of his Last Suppers, a circumstance of the ridiculous and the familiar is introduced, which suits not with the dignity of his subject. Hogarth's Sigismonda disgraced his pencil.

:

The modesty and good sense of the ancients is, in this particular, as in others, remarkable. The same writer never presumed to undertake more than one kind of dramatic poetry, if we except the Cyclops of Euripides. A poet never presumed to plead in public, or to write history, or indeed any considerable work in prose. The same actors never recited tragedy and comedy this was observed long ago, by Plato, in the third book of his Republic. They seem to have held that diversity, nay, universality of excellence, at which the moderns frequently aim, to be a gift unattainable by man. We therefore, of Great Britain, have, perhaps, more reason to congratulate ourselves, on two great phenomena; I mean Shakspeare's being able to pourtray characters so very different as Falstaff and Macbeth; and Garrick's being able to personate so inimitably a Lear, or an Abel Drugger.-Warton. [Neither

Not only bounded to peculiar arts,

But oft in those confin'd to single parts.

Like Kings we lose the conquests gain'd before,
By vain ambition still to make them more:
Each might his sev'ral 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:

COMMENTARY.

65

Ver. 68. First follow Nature, &c.] The Critic observing the directions before given, and now finding himself qualified for his office, is shown next how to exercise it. And as he was to attend to Nature for a call, so he is first and principally to follow nature when called. And here again in this, as in the foregoing precept, our Poet [from ver. 67 to 88] shows both the fitness and necessity of it. I. Its fitness, 1. Because nature is the source of Poetic art; this art being only a representation of Nature, who is its great exemplar and original. 2. Because Nature is the end of Art; the design of poetry being to convey the knowledge of Nature in the most agreeable manner. 3. Because Nature is the test of Art, as she is unerring, constant, and still the same. Hence the Poet observes, that as Nature is the source, she conveys life to art as she is the end, she conveys force to it, for the force of any thing arises from its being directed to its end: and as she is the test, she conveys beauty to it, for every thing acquires beauty by its

NOTES.

Neither the authority of the poet nor the efforts of the annotator can establish the authority of these and the six following lines, which seem to be the result of that tendency to depreciate the powers of the human mind, which is observable in some other parts of the writings of Pope. So far is it from being true, that " one science only will one genius fit," that it may safely be asserted that no man ever made a great proficiency in any one department of science, or art, without a considerable acquaintance with many collateral branches, which were necessary to enable him to prosecute his studies to any great or useful extent. But of all subjects, that to which this maxim is the most inapplicable, is the science of Criticism, which requires not only the most various endowments of the human intellect, but the most extensive acquaintance with all the works of nature and of art. Instead of asserting that the human mind loses, on the one hand, what it acquires on the other," Like kings who lose the conquests gain'd before," it might be with more truth asserted, that every new acquisition strengthens those we already possess, and that the mind is invigorated by exercise as well as the body. CICERO, it is true, was no poet, but in how many departments of knowledge did he excel? What were the diversity and extent of those acquisitions that filled up the mind of a BACON? Can SHAKSPEARE'S talents be said to have been confined to one science? or are we, like Dr. Warton, to consider him merely as a phenomenon peculiar to our own country? Turn to MICHELAGNOLO, "the sculptor, painter, poet, architect;' to LIONARDO DA VINCI, to RAFFAELLE, to SALVATOR ROSA,-men who have devoted themselves to different branches of science and of art, and who have excelled in whatever they have attempted; whose examples alone, if no others could be produced, are sufficient to refute the assertion that One science only will one genius fit."

66

Unerring NATURE, still divinely bright,
One clear, unchang'd, and universal light,
Life, force, and beauty, must to all impart,
At once 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 th' informing soul
With spirits feeds, with vigour fills the whole,
Each motion guides, and ev'ry nerve sustains;
Itself unseen, but in th' effects remains.

70

75

Some, to whom Heav'n in wit has been profuse,
Want as much more, to turn it to its use;

80

For wit and judgment often are at strife,

Tho' meant each other's aid, like man and wife.

COMMENTARY.

being reduced to its true standard. Such is the sense of these two important lines,

Life, force, and beauty must to all impart,

At once the source, and end, and test of Art.

II. The necessity of the precept is seen from hence. The two constituent qualities of a Composition, as such, are Art and Wit: but neither of these attains perfection, till the first be hid, and the other judiciously restrained ; this only happens when Nature is exactly followed; for then Art never makes a parade; nor can Wit commit an extravagance. Art, while it adheres to nature, and has so large a fund in the resources which Nature supplies, disposes every thing with so much ease and simplicity, that we see nothing but those natural images it works with, while itself stands unobserved behind: but when Art leaves Nature, misled either by the bold sallies of Fancy, or the quaint oddnesses of Fashion, she is then obliged at every step to come forward, in a painful or pompous ostentation, in order to cover, to soften, or to regulate the shocking disproportion of unnatural images. In the first case, our Poet compares Art to the Soul within, in forming a beauteous body; but in the last, we are bid to consider it but as a mere outward garb, fitted only to hide the defects of a mis-shapen one.— As to Wit, it might perhaps be imagined that this needed only Judgment to govern it but, as he well observes,

"Wit and judgment often are at strife,

Tho' meant each other's aid, like man and wife.” They want therefore some friendly mediator; and this mediator is Nature: and in attending to Nature, Judgment will learn where he should comply with the charms of Wit; and Wit how she ought to obey the sage directions of Judgment.

NOTES.

Ver. 80. Some, to whom Heav'n, &c.] Here the Poet (in a sense he was not, at first, aware of) has given an example of the truth of his observation, in the observation itself. The two lines stood originally thus:

"There are whom Heav'n has blest with store of Wit,
Yet want as much again to manage it."

'Tis more to guide, than spur the Muse's steed;
Restrain his fury, than provoke his speed;
The winged courser, like a gen'rous horse,

Shows most true mettle when you check his course.
Those RULES of old discover'd, not devis'd,

Are Nature still, but Nature methodiz'd;

COMMENTARY.

85

Ver. 88. Those RULES of old, &c.] Having thus, in his first precept, to follow Nature, settled criticism on its true foundation; he proceeds to show, what assistance may be had from Art. But lest this should be thought to draw the Critic from the ground where our Poet had before fixed him, he previously observes [from ver. 87 to 92] that these Rules of Art, which he is now about to recommend to the Critic's observance, were not invented by abstract speculation; but discovered in the book of Nature; and that therefore, though they may seem to restrain Nature by Laws, yet as they are laws of her own making, the Critic is still properly in the very liberty of Nature. These Rules the ancient Critics borrowed from the Poets, who received them immediately from Nature.

"Just precepts thus from great Examples giv'n,

These drew from them what they deriv'd from Heav'n." so that both are to be well studied.

NOTES.

In the first line, Wit is used, in the modern sense, for the effort of Fancy; in the second line it is used, in the ancient sense, for the result of Judgment. This trick, played the reader, he endeavoured to keep out of sight, by altering the lines as they now stand,

"Some, to whom Heav'n in Wit has been profuse,

Want as much more, to turn it to its use.'

For the words, to manage it, as the lines were at first, too plainly discovered the change put upon the reader, in the use of the word wit. This is now a little covered by the latter expression of-turn it to its use. But then the alteration, in the preceding line, from-store of wit, to profuse, was an unlucky change. For though he who has store of wit may want more, yet he to whom it was given in profusion could hardly be said to want more. The truth is, the Poet had said a lively thing, and would, at all hazards, preserve the reputation of it, though the very topic he is upon obliged him to detect the imposition, in the very next lines, which show he meant two very different things, by the very same term, in the two preceding,

"For wit and judgment often are at strife,

Tho' meant each other's aid, like man and wife."-Warburton. Ver. 88. Those RULES of old, &c.] Cicero has, best of any one I know, explained what that thing is which reduces the wild and scattered parts of human knowledge into arts-" Nihil est quod ad artem redigi possit, nisi ille prius, qui illa tenet, quorum artem instituere vult, habeat illam scientiam, ut ex iis rebus, quarum ars nondum sit, artem efficere possit.Omnia fere, quæ sunt conclusa nunc artibus, dispersa et dissipata quondam fuerunt, ut in Musicis, &c. Adhibita est igitur ars quædam extrinsecus ex alio genere quodam, quod sibi totum PHILOSOPHI assumunt, quæ rem dissolutam divulsamque conglutinaret, et ratione quadam constringeret."De Orat. 1. i. c. 41, 42.-Warburton.

The precepts of the art of poetry were posterior to practice; the rules of the Epopea were all drawn from the Iliad and the Odyssey; and of Tragedy, from the Edipus of Sophocles. A petulant rejection, and an

Nature, like Liberty, is but restrain'd

By the same Laws which first herself ordain'd.

Hear how learn'd Greece her useful rules indites, When to repress, and when indulge our flights:

COMMENTARY.

90

Ver. 92. Hear how learn'd Greece, &c.] He speaks of the ancient Critics first, and with great judgment, as the previous knowledge of them is necessary for reading the Poets, with that fruit which the end here proposed requires. But having, in the foregoing observation, sufficiently explained the nature of ancient Criticism, he enters on the subject [treated of from ver. 91 to 118] with a sublime description of its end; which was to illustrate the beauties of the best writers, in order to excite others to

NOTES.

implicit veneration, of the rules of the ancient critics, are equally destructive of true taste. "It ought to be the first endeavour of a writer (says the Rambler, No. 156) to distinguish nature from custom; or that which is established because it is right, from that which is right only because it is established; that he may neither violate essential principles by a desire of novelty, nor debar himself from the attainment of any beauties within his view, by a needless fear of breaking rules, which no literary dictator had authority to prescribe."

This liberal and manly censure of critical bigotry, extends not to those fundamental and indispensable rules, which nature and necessity dictate and demand to be observed; such, for instance, as in the higher kinds of poetry, that the action of the Epopea be one, great, and entire that the hero be eminently distinguished, move our concern, and deeply interest us; that the episodes arise easily out of the main fable; and the action commence as near the catastrophe as possible; and, in the drama, that no more events be crowded together, than can be justly supposed to happen during the time of representation, or to be transacted on one individual spot, and the like. But the absurdity here animadverted on, is the scrupulous nicety of those who bind themselves to obey frivolous and unimportant laws; such as, that an epic poem should consist not of less than twelve books; that it should end fortunately; that in the first book there should be no simile; that the exordium should be very simple and unadorned; that in a tragedy, only three personages should appear at once upon the stage; and that every tragedy should consist of five acts; by the rigid observation of which last unnecessary precept, the poet is deprived of using many a moving story, that would furnish matter enough for three perhaps, but not for five acts: with other rules of the like indifferent nature.

It has become a fashionable attempt of late, to censure and decry an obedience to the rules laid down by ancient critics; while one party loudly and frequently exclaim,

Vos exemplaria Græca
Nocturnâ versate manû, versate diurnâ ;

Another instantly answers,

O imitatores, servum pecus!-Warton.

Ver. 92. Hear how learn'd Greece, &c.] In the second part of Shaftes bury's Advice to an Author, is a judicious and elegant account of the rise and progress of arts and sciences in ancient Greece. For a passage that relates to the origin of Criticism, v. Characteristics, vol. i. 12mo. p. 163.Warton.