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Alexander Pope

Major Works

The Rape of the Lock

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 dangerous is th' offence

To tire our patience than mislead our sense:

Some few in that, but numbers err in this;

Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss;

A fool might once himself alone expose;

Now one in verse makes many more in prose.

'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;

Both must alike from Heav'n derive their light,

These born to judge, as well as those to write.

Let such teach others who themselves excel,

And censure freely who have written well;

Authors are partial to their wit, 't is true,

But are not Critics to their judgment too?

Yet if we look more closely, we shall find

Most have the seeds of judgment in their mind:

Nature affords at least a glimm'ring light;

The lines, tho' touch'd but faintly, are drawn right:

But as the slightest sketch, if justly traced

Is by ill col'ring but the more disgraced,

So by false learning is good send defaced:

Some are bewilder'd in the maze of schools,

And some made coxcombs Nature meant but fools:

In search of wit these look their common sense,

And then turn Critics in their own defence:

Each burns alike, who can or cannot write,

Or with a rival's or an eunuch's spite.

All fools have still an itching to deride,

And fain would be upon the laughing side.

If Mævius scribble in Apollo's spite,

There are who judge still worse than he can write.

Some have at first for Wits, then Poets pass'd;

Turn'd Critics next, and prov'd plain Fools at last.

Some neither can for Wits nor Critics pass,

As heavy mules are neither horse nor ass.

Those half-learn'd witlings, numerous in our isle,

As half-form'd insects on the banks of Nile;

Unfinish'd things, one knows not what to call,

Their generation's so equivocal;

To tell them would a hundred tongues require,

Or one vain Wit's, that might a hundred tire.

But you who seek to give and merit fame,

And justly bear a Critic's noble name,

Be sure yourself and your own reach to know,

How far your Genius, Taste, and Learning go,

Launch not beyond your depth, but be discreet,

And mark that point where Sense and Dulness meet.

Nature to all thing fix'd the limits fit,

And wisely curb'd proud man's pretending wit.

As on the land while here the ocean gains,

In other parts it leaves wide sandy plains;

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.

Our Science only will one genius fit;

So vast is Art, so narrow human wit:

Not only bounded to peculiar arts,

But oft in those confin'd to single parts.

Like Kings we lost 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;

Unerring Nature, still divinely bright,

One clear, unchanged, 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 such fair body thus th' informing soul

With spirits feeds, with vigour fills the whole;

Each motion guides, and every nerve sustains,

Itself unseen, but in th' effects remains.

Some, to whom Heav'n in wit has been profuse,

Want as much more to turn it to its use;

For Wit and Judgment often are at strife,

Tho' 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 gen'rous horse,

Shows most true mettle when you check his course.

Those rules of old, discover'd, not devised,

Are Nature still, but Nature methodized;

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:

High on Parnassus' top her sons she show'd,

And pointed out those arduous paths they trod;

Held from afar, aloft, th' immortal prize,

And urged the rest by equal steps to rise.

Just precepts thus from great examples giv'n,

She drew from them what they derived from Heav'n.

The gen'rous Critic fann'd the poets fire,

And taught the world with reason to admire.

Then Criticism the Muse's handmaid prov'd,

To dress her charms, and make her more belov'd:

But following Wits from that intention stray'd:

Who could not win the mistress woo'd the maid;

Against the Poets their own arms they turn'd,

Sure to hate most the men from whom they learn'd.

So modern 'pothecaries, taught the art

By doctors' 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 spoil'd 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 maxims bring,

And trace the Muses upward to their spring.

Still with itself compared, his text peruse;

And let your comment be the Mantuan Muse.

When first young Maro in his boundless mind

A work t' outlast immortal Rome design'd,

Perhaps he seem'd above the critic's law,

And but from Nature's fountains scorn'd to draw;

But when t' examine ev'ry part he came,

Nature and Homer were, he found, the same.

Convinced, amazed, he checks the bold design,

And rules as strict his labour'd work confine

As if the Stagyrite o'erlook'd 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

Th' intent proposed, that license is a rule.

Thus Pegasus, a nearer way to take,

May bodly 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 thro' 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 tho' 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 compell'd 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, ev'n in them, seem faults.

Some figures monstrous and misshaped appear,

Consider'd singly, or beheld too near,

Which, but proportion'd 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 th' occasion and the place comply,

Conceal his force, may, 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 learn'd their incense bring!

Hear in all tongues consenting pæans ring!

In praise so just let ev'ry voice be join'd,

And fill the gen'ral chorus of mankind.

Hail, Bards triumphant born in happier days,

Immortal heirs of universal praise!

Whose honours with increase of ages grow,

As srteams roll down, enlarging as they flow;

Nations unborn your mighty names shall sound,

And worlds applaud that must not yet be found!

O 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 knows,

T'admire superior sense, and doubt their own

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 swell'd 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 ev'ry friend --- and ev'ry foe.

A little learning is a dangerous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian 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:

But more advanc'd, behold with strange surprise

New distant scenes of endless science rise!

So pleas'd at first the tow'ring Alps we try,

Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky;

Th' eternal snows appear already past,

And the first clouds and mountains seem the last:

But those attan'd we tremble to survey

The growing labours of the lengthen'd way;

Th' increasing prospect tires our wand'ring 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

Wher Nature moves, and Rapture warms the mind:

Nor lose, for that malignant dull delight,

The gen'rous pleasure to be charm'd 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 th' exactness of peculiar parts;

"T is not a lip or eye we beauty call,

But the joint force and full result of all.

Thus when we view some well proportion'd dome,

(The world's just wonder, and ev'n thine, O Rome!)

No single parts unequally surprise,

All comes united to th' 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;

Anf if the means be just, the conduct true,

Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due.

As men of breeding, sometimes men of wit,

T' avoid great errors must the less commit;

Neglect the rules each verbal critic lays,

For not to know some trifles is a praise

Most critics, fond of some subservient art,

Still make the whole depend upon a part:

They talk of Principles, but Notions prize,

And all to one lov'd folly sacrifice.

Once on a time La Mancha's Knight, they say,

A certain bard encount'ring on the way,

Discours'd in terms as just, with looks as sage,

As e'er could Dennis, of the Grecian Stage;

Concluding all were desperate sots and fools

Who durst depart from Aristotle's rules.

Our author, happy in a judge so nice,

Produced his play, and begg'd the knight's advice;

Made him observe the Subject and the Plot,

The Manners, Passions, Unities; what not?

All which exact to rule were brought about,

Were but a combat in the lists left out.

'What leave the combat out?'  Exclaims the knight.

'Yes, or we must renounce the Stagyrite.'

'Not so, by Heaven (he answers in a rage)

Knights, squires, and steeds must enter on the stage.'

'So vast a throng the stage can ne'er contain.'

'Then build a new, or act it in a plain.'

Thus critics of less judgment than caprice,

Curious, not knowing, not exact, but nice,

Form short ideas, and offend in Arts

(As most in Manners), by a love to parts.

Some to Conceit alone their taste confine,

And glitt'ring thoughts struck out at every line;

Pleas'd with a work where nothing's just or fit,

One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit.

Poets, like painters, thus unskill'd 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 dress'd,

What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd;

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 have more wit than does them good,

As bodies perish thro' 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, like the prismatic glass,

Its gaudy colours spreads on every place;

The face of Nature we no more survey,

All glares alike, without distinction gay;

But true expression, like th' 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 express'd

Is like a clown in regal purple dress'd

For diff'rent styles with diff'rent subjects sort,

As sev'ral garbs with country, town, and court.

Some by old words to fame have made pretence,

Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense;

Such labour'd nothings, in so strange a style,

Amaze th' unlearn'd, and make the learned smile;

Unlucky as Fungoso in the play,

These sparks with awkard vanity display

What the fine gentleman wore yesterday;

And but so mimic ancient wits at best,

As apes our gransires in their doublets drest.

In words as fashions the same rule will hold,

Alike fantastic if too new or old:

Be not the first by whom the new are tried,

Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

But most by Numbers judge a poet's song,

And smooth or rough with them is right or wrong.

In the bright Muse tho' 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,

Tho' 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 thro' the trees;'

If crystal streams  'with pleasing murmurs creep,'

The reader's threaten'd (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 learn'd to dance.

'T is not enough no harshness gives offence;

The sound must seem an echo to the sense.

Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,

And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;

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 th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.

Hear how Timotheus' varied lays 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 power of music all our hearts allow,

And what Timotheus was is Dryden now.

Avoid extremes, and shun the fault of such

Who still are pleas'd too little or too much.

At ev'ry trifle scorn to take offense;

That always shows great pride or little sense:

Those heads, as stomachs, are not sure the best

Which nauseate all, and nothing can digest.

Yet let not each gay turn thy rapture move;

For fools admire, but men of sense approve:

As things seem large which we thro' mist descry,

Dulness is ever apt to magnify.

Some foreign writers, some our own despise;

The ancients only, or the moderns prize.

Thus Wit, like Faith, by each man is applied

To one small sect, and all are damn'd beside.

Meanly they seek the blessing to confine,

And force that sun but on a part to shine,

Which not alone the southern wit sublimes,

But ripens spirits in cold northern climes;

Which from the first has shone on ages past,

Enlights the present, and shall warm the last;

Tho' each may feel increases and decays,

And see now clearer and now darker days.

Regard not then if wit be old or new,

But blame the False and value still the True.

Some ne'er advance a judgment of their own.

But catch the spreading notion of the town;

They reason and conclude by precedent,

And own stale nonsense which they ne'er invent.

Some judge of authors names, not works, and then

Nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men.

Of all this servile herd, the worst is he

That in proud dulness joins with quality;

A constant critic at the great man's board,

To fetch and carry nonsense for my lord.

What woful stuff this madrigal would be

In some starv'd hackney sonneteer or me!

But let a lord once own the happy lines,

How the Wit brightens! How the Style refines!

Before his sacred name flies every fault,

And each exalted stanza teems with thought!

The vulgar thus thro' imitation err,

As oft the learn'd by being singular;

So much they scorn the crowd, that if the throng

By chance go right, they purposely go wrong.

So schismatics the plain believer quit,

And are but damn'd for having too much wit.

Some praise at morning what they blame at night,

But always think the last opinion right.

A Muse by these is like a mistress used,

This hour she's idolized, the next abused;

While their weak heads, like towns unfortified,

'Twixt sense and nonsense daily change their side.

Ask them the cause; they're wiser still they say;

And still to-morrow's wiser than to-day.

We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow;

Our wiser sons no doubt will think us so.

Once school-divines this zealous isle o'er-spread;

Who knew most sentences was deepest read.

Faith, Gospel, all seem'd made to be disputed,

And none had sense enough to be confuted.

Scotists and Thomists now in peace remain

Amidst their kindred cobwebs in Ducklane.

If Faith itself has diff'rent dresses worn,

What wonder modes in Wit should take their turn?

Oft, leaving what is natural and fit,

The current Folly proves the ready Wit;

And authors think their reputation safe,

Which lives as long as fools are pleas'd to laugh.

Some, valuing those of their own side or mind,

Still make themselves the measure of mankind;

Fondly we think we honour merit then,

When we but praise ourselves in other men.

Parties in wit attend on those of state,

And public faction doubles private hate.

Pride, Malice, Folly, against Dryden rose,

In various shapes of parsons, critics, beaux:

But sense survived when merry jests were past;

For rising merit will buoy up at last.

Might he return and bless once more our eyes,

New Blackmores and new Milbournes must arise.

Nay, should great Homer lift his awful head,

Zoilus again would start up from the dead.

Envy will Merit as its shade pursue,

But like a shadow proves the substance true;

For envied Wit, like Sol eclips'd, makes known

Th' opposing body's grossness, not its own.

When first that sun too powerful beams displays,

It draws up vapours which obscure its rays;

But ev'n those clouds at last adorn its way,

Reflect new glories, and augment the day.

Be thou the first true merit to befriend;

His praise is lost who stays till all commend.

Short is the date, alas! of modern rhymes,

And 't is but just to let them live betimes.

No longer now that Golden Age appears,

When patriarch wits survived a thousand years:

Now length of fame (our second life) is lost,

And bare threescore is all ev'n that can boast:

Our sons their fathers' failing language see,

And such as Chaucer is shall Dryden be.

So when the faithful pencil has design'd

Some bright idea of the master's mind,

Where a new world leaps out at his command,

And ready Nature waits upon his hand;

When the ripe colours soften and unite,

And sweetly melt into just shade and light;

When mellowing years their full perfection give,

And each bold figure just begins to live,

The Treach'rous colours the fair art betray,

And all the bright creation fades away!

Unhappy Wit, like most mistaken things,

Atones not for that envy which it brings:

In youth alone its empty praise we boast,

But soon the short-lived vanity is lost;

Like some fair flower the early Spring supplies,

That gaily blooms, but ev'n in blooming dies.

What is this Wit, which must our cares employ?

The owners wife that other men enjoy;

Then most our trouble still when most admired,

And still the more we give, the more required;

Whose fame with pains we guard, but lose with ease,

Sure some to vex, but never all to please,

'Tis what the vicious fear, the virtuous shun;

By fools 't is hated, and by knaves undone!

If Wit so much from Ignorance undergo,

Ah, let not Learning too commence its foe!

Of old those met rewards who could excel,

And such were prais'd who but endeavour'd well;

Tho' triumphs were to gen'rals only due,

Crowns were reserv'd to grace the soldiers too.

Now they who reach Parnassus' lofty crown

Employ their pains to spurn some others down;

And while self-love each jealous writer rules,

Contending wits become the sport of fools;

But still the worst with most regret commend,

For each ill author is as bad a friend.

To what base ends, and by what abject ways,

Are mortals urged thro' sacred lust of praise!

Ah, ne'er so dire a thirst of glory boast,

Nor in the critic let the man be lost!

Good nature and good sense must ever join;

To err is human, to forgive divine.

But if in noble minds some dregs remain,

Not yet purged off, of spleen and sour disdain,

Discharge that rage on more provoking crimes,

Nor fear a dearth in these flagitious times.

No pardon vile obscenity should find,

Tho' Wit and Art conspire to move your mind;

But dulness with obscenity must prove

As shameful sure as impotence in love.

In the fat age of pleasure, wealth, and ease

Sprung the rank weed, and thrived with large increase:

When love was all an easy monarch's care,

Seldom at council, never in a war;

Jilts ruled the state, and statesmen farces writ;

Nay wits had pensions, and young lords had wit;

The Fair sat panting at a courtier's play,

And not a mask went unimprov'd away;

The modest fan was lifted up no more,

And virgins smil'd at what they blush'd before.

The following license of a foreign reign

Did all the dregs of bold Socinus drain;

Then unbelieving priest reform'd the nation,

And taught more pleasant methods of salvation;

Where Heav'n free subjects might their rights dispute,

Lest God himself should seem too absolute;

Pulpits their sacred satire learn'd to spare,

And vice admired to find a flatt'rer there!

Encouraged thus, Wit's Titans braved the skies,

And the press groan'd with licens'd blasphemies.

These monsters, Critics! with your darts engage,

Here point your thunder, and exhaust your rage!

Yet shun their fault, who, scandalously nice,

Will needs mistake an author into vice:

All seems infected that th' infected spy,

As all looks yellow to the jaundic'd eye.
 

Learn then what morals Critics ought to show,

For 't is but half a judge's task to know.

"T is not enough Taste, Judgment, Learning join;

In all you speak let Truth and Candour shine;

That not alone what to your Sense is due

All may allow, but seek your friendship too.

Be silent always when you doubt your Sense,

And speak, tho' sure, with seeming diffidence.

Some positive persisting fops we know,

Who if once wrong will needs be always so;

But you with pleasure own your errors past,

And make each day a critque on the last.

'T is not enough your counsel still be true;

Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do.

Men must be taught as if you taught them not,

And things unknown proposed as things forgot.

Without good breeding truth is disapprov'd;

That only makes superior Sense belov'd.

Be niggards of advice on no pretence,

For the worst avarice is that of Sense.

With mean complacence ne'er betray your trust,

Nor be so civil as to prove unjust.

Fear not the anger of the wise to raise;

Those best can bear reproof who merit praise.

'T were well might critics still this freedom take,

But Appius reddens at each word you speak,

And stares tremendous, with a threat'ning eye,

Like some fierce tyrant in old tapestry.

Fear most to tax an honourable fool,

Whose right is is, uncensured to be dull:

Such without Wit, are poets when they please,

As without Learning they can take degrees.

Leave dangerous truths to unsuccessful satires,

And flattery to fulsome dedicators;

Whom, when they praise, the world believes no more

Than when they promise to give scribbling o'er.

'T is best sometimes your censure to restrain,

And charitably let the dull be vain;

Your silence there is better than your spite,

For who can rail so long as they can write?

Still humming on their drowsy course they keep,

And lash'd so long, like tops, are lash'd asleep.

False steps but help them to renew the race,

As, after stumbling, jades will mend their pace.

What crowds of these, impenitently bold,

In sounds and jingling syllables grown old,

Still run on poets, in a raging vein,

Ev'n to the dregs and squeezings of the brain,

Strain out the last dull droppings of their sense,

And rhyme with all the rage of impotence!

Such shameless bards we have; and yet 't is true

There are as mad abandon'd critics too.

The bookful blockhead ignorantly read,

With loads of learned lumber in his head,

With his own tongue still edifies his ears,

And always list'ning to himself appears.

All books he reads, and all he reads assails,

From Dryden's Fables down to Durfey's Tales.

With him most authors steal their works, or buy;

Garth did not write his own Dispensary.

Name a new play, and he's the poet's friend;

Nay, show'd his faults --- but when would poets mend?

No place so sacred from such fops is barr'd,

Nor is Paul's church more safe than Paul's churchyard:

Nay, fly to altars; there they'll talk you dead;

For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Distrustful sense with modest caution speaks,

It still looks home, and short excursions makes;

But rattl'ing nonsense in full volleys breaks

And never shock'd, and never turn'd aside,

Bursts out, resistless, with a thund'ring tide.

But where's the man who counsel can bestow,

Still pleas'd to teach, and yet not proud to know?

Unbiass'd or by favour or by spite;

Not dully prepossess'd nor blindly right;

Tho' learn'd well bred, and tho' well bred sincere;

Modestly bold, and humanly severe;

Who to a friend his faults can freely show,

And gladly praise the merit of a foe;

Bless'd with a taste exact, yet unconfin'd,

A knowledge both of books and human-kind;

Gen'rous converse; a soul exempt from pride;

And love to praise, with reason on his side?

Such once were critics; such the happy few

Athens and Rome in better ages knew.

The mighty Stagyrite first left the shore,

Spread all his sails, and durst the deeps explore;

He steer'd securely, and discover'd far,

Led by the light of the Mæonian star.

Poets, a race long unconfin'd and free,

Still fond and proud of savage liberty,

Receiv'd his laws, and stood convinc'd 't was fit

Who conquer'd Nature should preside o'er Wit.

Horace still charms with graceful negligence,

And without method talks us into sense;

Will, like a friend, familiarly convey

The truest notions in the easiest way.

He who, supreme in judgment as in wit,

Might boldly censure as he boldly writ,

Yet judg'd with coolness though he sung with fire;

His precepts teach but what his works inspire.

Our critics take a contrary extreme,

They judge with fury, but they write with phlegm;

Nor suffers Horace more in wrong translations

By Wits, than Critics in as wrong quotations.

See Dionysius Homer's thoughts refine,

And call new beauties forth from ev'ry line!

Fancy and art in gay Petronius please,

The Scholar's learning with the courtier's ease.

In grave Quintilian's copious work we find

The justest rules and clearest method join'd.

Thus useful arms in magazine we place,

All ranged in order, and disposed with grace;

But less to please the eye than arm the hand,

Still fit for use, and ready at command.

Thee, bold Longinus all the Nine inspire,

And bless their critic with a poet's fire:

An ardent judge, who, zealous in his trust,

With warmth gives sentence, yet is always just;

Whose own example strengthens all his laws,

And is himself that great sublime he draws.

Thus long succeeding critics justly reign'd,

License repress'd, and useful laws ordain'd:

Learning and Rome alike in empire grew,

And arts still follow'd where her eagles flew;

From the same foes at last both felt their doom,

And the same age saw learning fall and Rome.

With tyranny then superstition join'd,

As that the body, this enslaved the mind;

Much was believ'd, but little understood,

And to be dull was construed to be good;

A second deluge learning thus o'errun,

And the monks finish'd what the Goths begun.

At length Erasmus, that great injur'd name,

(The glory of the priesthood and the shame!)

Stemm'd the wild torrent of a barb'rous age,

And drove those holy Vandals off the stage.

But see!  each Muse in Leo's golden days

Starts from her trance, and trims her wither'd bays.

Rome's ancient genius, o'er its ruins spread,

Shakes off the dust, and rears his rev'rend head.

Then sculture and her sister arts revive;

Stones leap'd to form, and rocks begun to live;

With sweeter notes each rising temple rung;

A Raphael painted and a Vida sung:

Immortal Vida!  on whose honour'd brow

The poet's bays and critics ivy grow:

Cremona now shall ever boast thy name,

As next in place to Mantua, next in fame!

But soon by impious arms from Latium chased,

Their ancient bounds the banish'd Muses pass'd;

Thence arts o'er all the northern world advance,

But critic learning flourish'd most in France;

The rules a nation born to serve obeys,

And Boileau still in right of Horace sways.

But we, brave Britons, foreign laws despised,

And kept unconquer'd and uncivilized;

Fierce for the liberties of wit, and bold,

We still defied the Romans, as of old.

Yet some there were, among the sounder few

Of those who less presumed and better knew,

Who durst assert the juster ancient cause,

And here restor'd Wit's fundamental laws.

Such was the Muse whose rules and practice tell

'Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.'

Such was Roscommon, not more learn'd than good,

With manners gen'rous as his noble blood;

To him the wit of Greece and Rome was known,

And every author's merit but his own.

Such late was Walsh --- the Muse's judge and friend,

Who justly knew to blame or to commend;

To failings mild but zealous for desert,

The clearest head, and the sincerest heart.

This humble praise, lamented Shade! receive;

This praise at least a grateful Muse may give:

The Muse whose early voice you taught to sing,

Prescribed her heights, and purned her tender wing,

(Her guide now lost), no more attempts to rise,

But in low numbers short excursion tries;

Content if hence th' unlearn'd their wants may view,

The learn'd reflect on what before they knew;

Careless of censure, nor too fond of fame;

Still pleas'd to praise, yet not afraid to blame;

Averse alike to flatter or offend;

Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend.

 

An Essay on Man: Epistle I


To Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke

              1Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things
              2To low ambition, and the pride of kings.
              3Let us (since life can little more supply
              4Than just to look about us and to die)
              5Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man;
              6A mighty maze! but not without a plan;
              7A wild, where weeds and flow'rs promiscuous shoot;
              8Or garden, tempting with forbidden fruit.
              9Together let us beat this ample field,
            10Try what the open, what the covert yield;
            11The latent tracts, the giddy heights explore
            12Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar;
            13Eye Nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies,
            14And catch the manners living as they rise;
            15Laugh where we must, be candid where we can;
            16But vindicate the ways of God to man.

I.
            17     Say first, of God above, or man below,
            18What can we reason, but from what we know?
            19Of man what see we, but his station here,
            20From which to reason, or to which refer?
            21Through worlds unnumber'd though the God be known,
            22'Tis ours to trace him only in our own.
            23He, who through vast immensity can pierce,
            24See worlds on worlds compose one universe,
            25Observe how system into system runs,
            26What other planets circle other suns,
            27What varied being peoples ev'ry star,
            28May tell why Heav'n has made us as we are.
            29But of this frame the bearings, and the ties,
            30The strong connections, nice dependencies,
            31Gradations just, has thy pervading soul
            32Look'd through? or can a part contain the whole?

            33     Is the great chain, that draws all to agree,
            34And drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee?

II.
            35     Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou find,
            36Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind?
            37First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,
            38Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less?
            39Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made
            40Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade?
            41Or ask of yonder argent fields above,
            42Why Jove's satellites are less than Jove?

            43     Of systems possible, if 'tis confest
            44That Wisdom infinite must form the best,
            45Where all must full or not coherent be,
            46And all that rises, rise in due degree;
            47Then, in the scale of reas'ning life, 'tis plain
            48There must be somewhere, such a rank as man:
            49And all the question (wrangle e'er so long)
            50Is only this, if God has plac'd him wrong?

            51     Respecting man, whatever wrong we call,
            52May, must be right, as relative to all.
            53In human works, though labour'd on with pain,
            54A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain;
            55In God's, one single can its end produce;
            56Yet serves to second too some other use.
            57So man, who here seems principal alone,
            58Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown,
            59Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal;
            60'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.

            61     When the proud steed shall know why man restrains
            62His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains:
            63When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod,
            64Is now a victim, and now Egypt's God:
            65Then shall man's pride and dulness comprehend
            66His actions', passions', being's, use and end;
            67Why doing, suff'ring, check'd, impell'd; and why
            68This hour a slave, the next a deity.

            69     Then say not man's imperfect, Heav'n in fault;
            70Say rather, man's as perfect as he ought:
            71His knowledge measur'd to his state and place;
            72His time a moment, and a point his space.
            73If to be perfect in a certain sphere,
            74What matter, soon or late, or here or there?
            75The blest today is as completely so,
            76As who began a thousand years ago.

III.
            77     Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate,
            78All but the page prescrib'd, their present state:
            79From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:
            80Or who could suffer being here below?
            81The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed today,
            82Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
            83Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food,
            84And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
            85Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv'n,
            86That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n:
            87Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
            88A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
            89Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,
            90And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

            91     Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;
            92Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.
            93What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
            94But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
            95Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
            96Man never is, but always to be blest:
            97The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,
            98Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

            99     Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutor'd mind
          100Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
          101His soul, proud science never taught to stray
          102Far as the solar walk, or milky way;
          103Yet simple nature to his hope has giv'n,
          104Behind the cloud topp'd hill, an humbler heav'n;
          105Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
          106Some happier island in the wat'ry waste,
          107Where slaves once more their native land behold,
          108No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
          109To be, contents his natural desire,
          110He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire;
          111But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
          112His faithful dog shall bear him company.

IV.
          113     Go, wiser thou! and, in thy scale of sense
          114Weigh thy opinion against Providence;
          115Call imperfection what thou fanciest such,
          116Say, here he gives too little, there too much:
          117Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,
          118Yet cry, if man's unhappy, God's unjust;
          119If man alone engross not Heav'n's high care,
          120Alone made perfect here, immortal there:
          121Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
          122Rejudge his justice, be the God of God.
          123In pride, in reas'ning pride, our error lies;
          124All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
          125Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes,
          126Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
          127Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell,
          128Aspiring to be angels, men rebel:
          129And who but wishes to invert the laws
          130Of order, sins against th' Eternal Cause.

V.
          131     Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies shine,
          132Earth for whose use? Pride answers, " 'Tis for mine:
          133For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r,
          134Suckles each herb, and spreads out ev'ry flow'r;
          135Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew,
          136The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew;
          137For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings;
          138For me, health gushes from a thousand springs;
          139Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise;
          140My foot-stool earth, my canopy the skies."

          141     But errs not Nature from this gracious end,
          142From burning suns when livid deaths descend,
          143When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep
          144Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep?
          145"No, ('tis replied) the first Almighty Cause
          146Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws;
          147Th' exceptions few; some change since all began:
          148And what created perfect?"--Why then man?
          149If the great end be human happiness,
          150Then Nature deviates; and can man do less?
          151As much that end a constant course requires
          152Of show'rs and sunshine, as of man's desires;
          153As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,
          154As men for ever temp'rate, calm, and wise.
          155If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav'n's design,
          156Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline?
          157Who knows but he, whose hand the lightning forms,
          158Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms;
          159Pours fierce ambition in a Cæsar's mind,
          160Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind?
          161From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning springs;
          162Account for moral, as for nat'ral things:
          163Why charge we Heav'n in those, in these acquit?
          164In both, to reason right is to submit.

          165     Better for us, perhaps, it might appear,
          166Were there all harmony, all virtue here;
          167That never air or ocean felt the wind;
          168That never passion discompos'd the mind.
          169But ALL subsists by elemental strife;
          170And passions are the elements of life.
          171The gen'ral order, since the whole began,
          172Is kept in nature, and is kept in man.

VI.
          173     What would this man? Now upward will he soar,
          174And little less than angel, would be more;
          175Now looking downwards, just as griev'd appears
          176To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears.
          177Made for his use all creatures if he call,
          178Say what their use, had he the pow'rs of all?
          179Nature to these, without profusion, kind,
          180The proper organs, proper pow'rs assign'd;
          181Each seeming want compensated of course,
          182Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force;
          183All in exact proportion to the state;
          184Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.
          185Each beast, each insect, happy in its own:
          186Is Heav'n unkind to man, and man alone?
          187Shall he alone, whom rational we call,
          188Be pleas'd with nothing, if not bless'd with all?

          189     The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find)
          190Is not to act or think beyond mankind;
          191No pow'rs of body or of soul to share,
          192But what his nature and his state can bear.
          193Why has not man a microscopic eye?
          194For this plain reason, man is not a fly.
          195Say what the use, were finer optics giv'n,
          196T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n?
          197Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,
          198To smart and agonize at ev'ry pore?
          199Or quick effluvia darting through the brain,
          200Die of a rose in aromatic pain?
          201If nature thunder'd in his op'ning ears,
          202And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres,
          203How would he wish that Heav'n had left him still
          204The whisp'ring zephyr, and the purling rill?
          205Who finds not Providence all good and wise,
          206Alike in what it gives, and what denies?

VII.
          207     Far as creation's ample range extends,
          208The scale of sensual, mental pow'rs ascends:
          209Mark how it mounts, to man's imperial race,
          210From the green myriads in the peopled grass:
          211What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme,
          212The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam:
          213Of smell, the headlong lioness between,
          214And hound sagacious on the tainted green:
          215Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood,
          216To that which warbles through the vernal wood:
          217The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
          218Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:
          219In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true
          220From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew?
          221How instinct varies in the grov'lling swine,
          222Compar'd, half-reas'ning elephant, with thine!
          223'Twixt that, and reason, what a nice barrier;
          224For ever sep'rate, yet for ever near!
          225Remembrance and reflection how allied;
          226What thin partitions sense from thought divide:
          227And middle natures, how they long to join,
          228Yet never pass th' insuperable line!
          229Without this just gradation, could they be
          230Subjected, these to those, or all to thee?
          231The pow'rs of all subdu'd by thee alone,
          232Is not thy reason all these pow'rs in one?

VIII.
          233     See, through this air, this ocean, and this earth,
          234All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
          235Above, how high, progressive life may go!
          236Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
          237Vast chain of being, which from God began,
          238Natures ethereal, human, angel, man,
          239Beast, bird, fish, insect! what no eye can see,
          240No glass can reach! from infinite to thee,
          241From thee to nothing!--On superior pow'rs
          242Were we to press, inferior might on ours:
          243Or in the full creation leave a void,
          244Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd:
          245From nature's chain whatever link you strike,
          246Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.

          247     And, if each system in gradation roll
          248Alike essential to th' amazing whole,
          249The least confusion but in one, not all
          250That system only, but the whole must fall.
          251Let earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly,
          252Planets and suns run lawless through the sky;
          253Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurl'd,
          254Being on being wreck'd, and world on world;
          255Heav'n's whole foundations to their centre nod,
          256And nature trembles to the throne of God.
          257All this dread order break--for whom? for thee?
          258Vile worm!--Oh madness, pride, impiety!

IX.
          259     What if the foot ordain'd the dust to tread,
          260Or hand, to toil, aspir'd to be the head?
          261What if the head, the eye, or ear repin'd
          262To serve mere engines to the ruling mind?
          263Just as absurd for any part to claim
          264To be another, in this gen'ral frame:
          265Just as absurd, to mourn the tasks or pains,
          266The great directing Mind of All ordains.

          267     All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
          268Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;
          269That, chang'd through all, and yet in all the same,
          270Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame,
          271Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
          272Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,
          273Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
          274Spreads undivided, operates unspent,
          275Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
          276As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
          277As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
          278As the rapt seraph that adores and burns;
          279To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
          280He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.

X.
          281     Cease then, nor order imperfection name:
          282Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.
          283Know thy own point: This kind, this due degree
          284Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee.
          285Submit.--In this, or any other sphere,
          286Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:
          287Safe in the hand of one disposing pow'r,
          288Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
          289All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
          290All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
          291All discord, harmony, not understood;
          292All partial evil, universal good:
          293And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
          294One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.

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