An Essay on Criticism | Page 2

church at Twickenham.
Pope was of very diminutive stature and deformed from his birth. His
physical infirmity, susceptible temperament, and incessant study
rendered his life one long disease. He was, as his friend Lord

Chesterfield said, "the most irritable of all the _genus irritabile vatum_,
offended with trifles and never forgetting or forgiving them." His
literary stratagems, disguises, assertions, denials, and (we must add)
misrepresentations would fill volumes. Yet when no disturbing
jealousy vanity, or rivalry intervened was generous and affectionate,
and he had a manly, independent spirit. As a poet he was deficient in
originality and creative power, and thus was inferior to his prototype,
Dryden, but as a literary artist, and brilliant declaimer satirist and
moralizer in verse he is still unrivaled. He is the English Horace, and
will as surely descend with honors to the latest posterity.

AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM,
WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1709
[The title, An Essay on Criticism hardly indicates all that is included in
the poem. It would have been impossible to give a full and exact idea
of the art of poetical criticism without entering into the consideration of
the art of poetry. Accordingly Pope has interwoven the precepts of both
throughout the poem which might more properly have been styled an
essay on the Art of Criticism and of Poetry.]
* * * * *


PART I.
'Tis hard to say if greater want of skill Appear in writing or in judging
ill, But of the two less dangerous is the offense 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 share Both must alike from Heaven 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, 'tis true [17] 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 glimmering light The
lines though touched but faintly are drawn right, But as the slightest
sketch if justly traced Is by ill coloring but the more disgraced So by
false learning is good sense defaced Some are bewildered in the maze
of schools [26] And some made coxcombs nature meant but fools In
search of wit these lose their common sense And then turn critics in
their own defense 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 Maevius scribble in Apollo's
spite [34] There are who judge still worse than he can write.
Some have at first for wits then poets passed Turned critics next and
proved plain fools at last Some neither can for wits nor critics pass As
heavy mules are neither horse nor ass. Those half-learned witlings,
numerous in our isle, As half-formed insects on the banks of Nile
Unfinished things one knows not what to call Their generation is so
equivocal To tell them would a hundred tongues require, Or one vain
wits 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 dullness meet.
Nature to all things fixed the limits fit And wisely curbed 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 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, Life force and beauty, must to all impart,
At once the source