Till the freed Indians in their native groves Here cease thy flight, nor with unhallow'd lays Touch the fair fame of Albion's golden days: The thoughts of gods let Granville's verse recite, And bring the scenes of opening fate to light: My humble Muse, in unambitious strains, Paints the green forests and the flowery plains, Where Peace descending bids her olive spring, And scatters blessings from her dove-like wing. Ev'n I more sweetly pass my careless days, Pleas'd in the silent shade with empty praise; Enough to me, that to the listening swains First in these fields I sung the sylvan strains. ODE ON ST. CECILIA'S DAY, M DCC VIII. AND OTHER PIECES FOR MUSIC. ODE FOR MUSIC ON ST. CECILIA'S DAY. DESCEND, ye Nine! descend, and sing; In a sadly-pleasing strain The shrill echoes rebound: While, in more lengthen'd notes and slow, Now louder, and yet louder rise, And fill with spreading sounds the skies; Exulting in triumph now swell the bold notes, In broken air trembling, the wild music floats; Till, by degrees, remote and small, The strains decay, And melt away, By Music, minds an equal temper know, Or, when the soul is press'd with cares, Melancholy lifts ber head, Morpheus rouses from his bed, Sloth unfolds her arms and wakes, Listening Envy drops her snakes; Intestine war no more our passions wage, And giddy factions hear away their rage. But when our country's cause provokes to arms, To arms, to arms, to arms! But when through all th' infernal bounds, Love, strong as Death, the poets led O'er all the dreary coasts! Hollow groans, And cries of tortur'd ghosts! But hark! he strikes the golden lyre; And see! the tortur'd ghosts respire. See, shady forms advance! Thy stone, O Sisyphus, stands still, Ixion rests upon his wheel, And the pale spectres dance! The Furies sink upon their iron beds, [hoads, And snakes uncurl'd hang listening round their By the streams that ever flow, By the fragrant winds that blow By those happy souls who dwell Now under hanging mountains, Beside the falls of fountains, Or where Hebrus wanders, Rolling in meanders All alone, Unheard, unknown, He makes his moan; And calls her ghost, For ever, ever, ever lost! Now with Furies surrounded, Despairing, confounded, He trembles, he glows, Amid t Rhodope's snows: See, wild as the winds, o'er the desert he flies; Hark! Hæmus resounds with the Bacchanals' criesAh see, he dies! Yet ev'n in death Eurydice he sung; Eurydice still trembled on his tongue; Eurydice the woods, Eurydice the floods, Eurydice the rocks and hollow mountains rung. Music the fiercest grief can charm, And make despair and madness please: Th' immortal powers incline their ear; TWO CHORUSES, TO THE TRAGEDY OF BRUTUS. ALTERED FROM SHAKESPEARE BY THE DUKE OF BUCK-, NGHAM, AT WHOSE DESIRE these two CHORUSES WERE COMPOSED, TO SUPPLY AS MANY, WANTING IN HIS PLAY. THEY WERE SET MANY YEARS AFTERWARDS BY THE FAMOUS BONONCINI, AND PERFORMED AT BUCKINGHAM-HOUSE, CHORUS OF ATHENIANS, STROPHE I. YE shades, where sacred truth is sought; In vain your guiltless laurels stood War, horrid war, your thoughtful walks invades, ANTISTROPHE I. Oh heaven-born sisters! source of art! To what new crime, what distant sky, Forsaken, friendless, shall ye fly? Say, will ye bless the bleak Atlantic shore? Or bid the furious Gaul be rude no more? STROPHE II. When Athens sinks by fates unjust, When wild Barbarians spurn her dust; Perhaps ev'n Britain's utmost shore Shall cease to blush with stranger's gore: See Arts her savage sons control, And Athens rising near the pole ! Till some new tyrant lifts his purple hand, And civil madness tears them from the land. ANTISTROPHE II. Ye gods! what justice rules the ball!' In every age, in every state! Still, when the lust of tyrant power succeeds, Some Athens perishes, some Tully bleeds. CHORUS OF YOUTHS AND VIRGINS Qu tyrant Love! hast thou possest Why, Nature, dost thou soonest fire CHORUS. Love's purer flames the gods approve; Chaste as cold Cynthia's virgin light, SEMICHORUS. Oh source of every social tye, As son, as father, brother, husband, friend! While thousand grateful thoughts arise; Or views his smiling progeny; What tender passions take their turns, His heart now melts, now leaps, now burns CHORUS. Hence, guilty joys, distastes, surmises; Hence, false tears, deceits, disguises, Dangers, doubts, delays, surprizes į VITAL ODE. THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL ITAL spark of heavenly flame! Quit, oh quit this mortal frame: Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying, Oh the pain, the bliss of dying! Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife, And let me languish into life. Hark! they whisper; angels say, Lend, lend your wings! I mount! Ifly! AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM. WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1709'. Si quid novisti rectius istis, Candidus imperti; si non, his utere mecum. Hor. THE Poem is in one book, but divided into three principal parts or members. The first [to ver. Mr. Pope told me himself, that the Essay on Criticism was indeed written in 1707, though said 1709 by mistake. J. Richardson. 201.] give rules for the study of the art of criticism; the second [from thence to 'ver. 560.] exposes the causes of wrong judgment; and the third [from thence to the end] marks out the morals of the critic. When the reader hath well considered the whole, and hath observed the regularity of the plan, the masterly conduct of the several parts, the penetration into Nature, and the compass of learning so conspicuous throughout, he should then be told, that it was the work of an author' who had not attained the twentieth year of his age.-A very learned critic has shown, that Horace had the same attention to method in his Art of Poetry. CONTENTS OF THE ESSAY ON CRITICISM. PART I. INTRODUCTION. That it is as great a fault to judge ill, as to write ill, and a more dangerous one to to the public, ver. 1. That a true taste is as rare to be found as a true genius, ver. 9 to 18. That most men are born with some taste, but spoiled by false education, ver. 10 to 25. The multitude of critics, and causes of them, ver. 26 to 45. That we are to study our own taste, and know the limits of it, ver. 46 to 67. Nature the best guide of judgment, ver. 68 to 87. Improved by art and rules, which are but methodized nature, ver. 88. Rules derived from the practice of ancient poets, ver. 88 to 110. That therefore the ancients are necessary to be studied by a critic, particularly Homer and Virgil, ver. 120 to 138. Of licences, and the use of them by the ancients, ver. 140 to 180. Reverence due to the ancients, and praise of them, ver. 181, &c. 4. PART II. VER. 203, &c. Causes hindering a true judgment. 1. Pride, ver. 201. 2. Imperfect learning, ver. 215. 3. Judging by parts, and not by the whole, ver. 233 to 288. Critics in wit, language, versification, only, 288, 305, 339, &c. Being too hard to please, or too apt to admire, ver. 384. 5. Partiality-too much love to a sect, to the ancients or moderns, ver. 394. 6. Prejudice or prevention, ver. 408. 7. Singularity, ver. 424. 8. Inconstancy, ver. 430. 9. Party spirit, ver. 352, &c. 10. Envy, ver. 466. Against envy, and in praise of good-nature, ver. 508, &c. When severity is chiefly to be used by the critics, ver. 526, &c. PART III. VER. 560, &c. Rules for the conduct of manners in a critic. 1. Candour, ver. 563. Modesty, ver. 566. Good-breeding, ver. 572. Sincerity and freedom of advice, ver. 578. 2. When one's counsel is to be restrained, ver. 584. Character of an incorrigible poet, ver. 600; and of an impertinent critic, ver. 610, &c. Character of a good critic, ver. 629. The history of criticism, and characters of the best critics: Aristotle, ver. 645. Horace, ver. 653. Dionysius, ver. 665. Petronius, ver. 667. Quin tilian, ver. 670, Longinus, ver. 675. Of the decay of criticism, and its revival. Erasmus, ver. 693. Vida, ver. 705. Boileau, ver. 714. Lord Roscommon, &c. ver. 725. Conclusion. AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM. Tis hard to say, if greater want of skill But of the two, less dangerous is th' offence 30 Yet, if we look more closely, we shall find To tell them would a hundred tongues require, VARIATIONS. But you, who seek to give and merit fame, 63 First follow Nature, and your judgment frame By her just standard, which is still the same: Unerring Nature, still divinely bright, One clear, unchang'd, 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; 74 Works without show, and without pomp presides: In some 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 Heaven in wit has been profuše, 80 Want as much more, to turn it to its use; For wit and judgment often are at strife, Though meant each other's ail, 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 generous horse, Shows most true mettle when you check his course. Those rules of old discover'd, not devis'd, Are Nature still, but Nature methodis'd: Nature, like Liberty, is but restrain'd By the same laws which first herself ordain'd. Hear ho 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 urg'd the rest by equal steps to rise. Just precepts thus from great example given, She drew from them what they deriv'd from Heaven, VARIATIONS. Ver. 63. Ed. 1. But cv'n in those, &c. Between ver. 25 and 26 were these lines, since Ver. 74. omitted by the author: Many are spoil'd by that pedantic throng, Those hate as rivals all that write; and others That art is best, which most resembles her; Which still presides, yet never does appear. Ver. 76. -the secret soul. Ver. 80. 90 98 There are whom Heaven has blest with store of Yet want as much again to manage it. [wit, Ver. 90. Ed. 1. Nature, like Monarchy, &c. Ver. 92. First learned Greece just precepts did indite, When to repress, and when indulge our fight. Ver 32. All fools," in the first edition: "All Ver. 98. From great examples useful rules were such," in edition, 1717; since restored. given. The gen'rous critic fann'd the poet's fire, 123 Be Homer's works your study and delight, And trace the Muses upward to their spring: 145 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 propos'd, that license is a rule. Thus Pegasus, a nearer way to take, May boldly deviate from the common track; 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. Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend, And rise to faults true critics dare not mend. But though 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. 158 I know there are, to whose presumptuous thoughts Those freer beauties, ev'n in them, seem faults. Some figures monstrous and mis-shap'd 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, nay sometimes seem to fly. 178 Those oft are stratagems which errours seem, Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream. 184 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 Paans ring! In praise so just let every voice be join'd, And fill the general chorus of mankind. Hail, bards triumphant! born in happier days; Immortal heirs of universal praise! Whose honours with increase of ages grow, As streams 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, Ver 145. Ed. 1. VARIATIONS. And which a master's hand, &c After ver. 158, the first edition reads, But care in poetry must still be had, It asks discretion ev'n in running mad; And though the ancients, &c. And what are now ver. 159, 160, followed ver. 151. Ver. 178. Ed. 1. Oft hide his force, nay seem sometimes to fly. Ver. 184. Ed. 1. Destructive War, and all-devouring Age. Ver. 186. Ed. 1. Hear, in all tongues applauding Pæans ring! |