An Essay on Criticism | Page 5

combat out?" exclaims the knight. "Yes, or we must renounce the
Stagirite." "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 glittering thoughts
struck out at every line; Pleased with a work where nothing's just or fit;
One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit. Poets, like painters, thus,
unskilled 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 dressed; What oft was thought, but ne'er
so well expressed; 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
through 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 [308] Words are like leaves, and where
they most abound Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found. False

eloquence, like the prismatic glass. [311] Its gaudy colors spreads on
every place, The face of nature we no more survey. All glares alike
without distinction gay: But true expression, like the 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 expressed, Is
like a clown in regal purple dressed For different styles with different
subjects sort, As several garbs with country town and court Some by
old words to fame have made pretense, Ancients in phrase, mere
moderns in their sense; Such labored nothings, in so strange a style,
Amaze the unlearned, and make the learned smile. Unlucky, as
Fungoso in the play, [328] These sparks with awkward vanity display
What the fine gentleman wore yesterday; And but so mimic ancient
wits at best, As apes our grandsires in their doublets dressed. 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 though 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, Though 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 through the trees" If
crystal streams "with pleasing murmurs creep" The reader's threatened
(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 [356] 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 vigor of a line,
Where Denham's strength, and Waller's sweetness join. [361] True ease

in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have
learned to dance 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offense, The sound
must seem an echo to the sense. Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently
blows, [366] 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 labors, and the words move slow; Not so, when
swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims
along the main. [373] Hear how Timotheus' varied lays surprise, [374]
And bid alternate passions fall and rise! While, at each change, the son
of Libyan Jove [376] 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