Art of Poetry an Epistle to the Pisos | Page 2

and able writer, about thirty years ago, republished the original Epistle, giving the text chiefly after Dr. Bentley, subjoining an English Commentary and Notes, and prefixing an Introduction, from which I beg leave to transcribe most part of the three first paragraphs,
"It is agreed on all hands, that the antients are our masters in the art of composition. Such of their writings, therefore, as deliver instructions for the exercise of this art, must be of the highest value. And, if any of them hath acquired a credit, in this respect, superior to the rest, it is, perhaps, the following work: which the learned have long since considered as a kind of summary of the rules of good writing; to be gotten by heart by every young student; and to whose decisive authority the greatest masters in taste and composition must finally submit.
"But the more unquestioned the credit of this poem is, the more it will concern the publick, that it be justly and accurately understood. The writer of these sheets then believed it might be of use, if he took some pains to clear the sense, connect the method, and ascertain the scope and purpose, of this admired epistle. Others, he knew indeed, and some of the first fame for critical learning, had been before him in this attempt. Yet he did not find himself prevented by their labours; in which, besides innumerable lesser faults, he, more especially, observed two inveterate errors, of such a fort, as must needs perplex the genius, and distress the learning, of any_ commentator. The _one of these respects the SUBJECT; the other, the METHOD of the Art of Poetry. It will be necessary to say something upon each.
"1. That the Art of Poetry_, at large, is not the _proper subject of this piece, is so apparent, that it hath not escaped the dullest and least attentive of its Criticks. For, however all the different kinds of poetry might appear to enter into it, yet every one saw, that some at least were very slightly considered: whence the frequent attempts, the artes et institutiones poetica, of writers both at home and abroad, to supply its deficiencies. But, though this truth was seen and confessed, it unluckily happened, that the sagacity of his numerous commentators went no further. They still considered this famous Epistle as a collection_, though not a _system, of criticisms on poetry in general; with this concession however, that the stage had evidently the largest share in it [Footnote: Satyra hac est in fui faeculi poetas, praecipui yero in Romanum Drama, Baxter.]. Under the influence of this prejudice, several writers of name took upon them to comment and explain it: and with the success, which was to be expected from so fatal a mistake on setting out, as the not seeing, 'that the proper and sole purpose of the Author, was, not to abridge the Greek Criticks, whom he probably never thought of; nor to amuse himself with composing a short critical system, for the general use of poets, which every line of it absolutely confutes; but, simply to criticize the Roman drama.' For to this end, not the tenor of the work only, but as will appear, every single precept in it, ultimately refers. The mischiefs of this original error have been long felt. It hath occasioned a constant perplexity in defining the general_ method, and in fixing the import of _particular rules. Nay its effects have reached still further. For conceiving, as they did, that the whole had been composed out of the Greek Criticks, the labour and ingenuity of its interpreters have been misemployed in picking out authorities, which were not wanted, and in producing, or, more properly, by their studied refinements in creating, conformities, which were never designed. Whence it hath come to pass that, instead of investigating the order of the Poet's own reflexions, and scrutinizing the peculiar state of the Roman Stage (the methods, which common sense and common criticism would prescribe) the world hath been nauseated with, insipid lectures on Aristotle_ and _Phalereus; whose solid sense hath been so attenuated and subtilized by the delicate operation of French criticism, as hath even gone some way towards bringing the art itself into disrepute.
"2. But the wrong explications of this poem have arisen, not from the misconception of the subject only, but from an inattention to the method of it. The latter was, in part the genuine consequence of the former. For, not suspecting an unity of design in the subject it's interpreters never looked for, or could never find, a consistency of disposition in the method. And this was indeed the very block upon which HEINSIUS, and, before him,. JULIUS SCALIGER, himself fumbled. These illustrious Criticks, with all the force of genius, which is required to disembarrass