An Essay on Criticism | Page 4

Conceal his
force, nay, seem sometimes to fly. Those oft are stratagems which
errors seem, Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream. [180]
Still green with bays each ancient altar stands, Above the reach of
sacrilegious hands, Secure from flames, from envy's fiercer rage, [183]
Destructive war, and all-involving age. See, from each clime the
learned their incense bring; Hear, in all tongues consenting Paeans 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 honors with increase of ages grow, As
streams roll down, enlarging as they flow; Nations unborn your mighty
names shall sound, [193] 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!
* * * * *


PART 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 away, Truth
breaks upon us with resistless day Trust not yourself, but your defects
to know, Make use of every friend--and every foe.
A little learning is a dangerous thing Drink deep, or taste not the
Pierian spring [216] There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And
drinking largely sobers us again. Tired 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 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 passed And the first clouds and mountains seem the last.
But those attained we tremble to survey The growing labors 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 some well proportioned
dome (The worlds just wonder, and even thine, O Rome!), [248] 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; And if the means be just, the conduct
true, Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due. As men of breeding,
sometimes men of wit, To 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 loved folly sacrifice.
Once on a time La Mancha's knight, they say, [267] A certain bard
encountering on the way, Discoursed in terms as just, with looks as
sage, As e'er could Dennis, of the Grecian stage; [270] 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 begged 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