Both must alike from Heav'n 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.

NOTES.

15

Preface to Rapin, and Letter on Tragedy, and Dennis's Reformation of Poetry, and the Essays of Roscommon and Buckingham. These were the critical pieces that preceded our Author's Essay, which was published without his name, May 1711, about the same time with Fenton's Epistle to Southerne; and did not, as Lewis the bookseller told me, sell at first, till our Author sent copies, as presents, to several eminent persons.

It is said, very sensibly, by La Bruyere, "I will allow that good writers are scarce enough; but then I ask, where are the people that know to read and judge? A union of these qualities, which are seldom found in the same person, seem to be indispensably necessary to form an able critic; he ought to possess strong good sense, lively imagination, and exquisite sensibility. And of these three qualities, the last is the most important; since, after all that can be said on the utility or necessity of rules and precepts, it must be confessed, that the merit of all works of genius, must be determined by taste and sentiment. Why do you so much admire the Helen of Zeuxis?" said one to Nicostratus; "You would not wonder why I so much admired it (replied the painter), if you had my eyes." Of the three requisites to make a just critic, mentioned above, Aristotle seems to have possessed the first, in the highest degree; Longinus the second; and Addison the third; on whom, however, a celebrated writer has passed the following censure: "It must not be dissembled that criticism was by no means the talent of Addison. His taste was truly elegant; but he had neither that vigour of understanding, nor chastised philosophical spirit, which are so essential to this character, and which we find in hardly any of the ancients, besides Aristotle, and but in a very few of the moderns. For what concerns his criticism on Milton, in particular, there was this accidental benefit arising from it, that it occasioned an admirable poet to be read, and his excellences to be observed. But, for the merit of the work itself, if there be any thing just in the plan, it was because Aristotle and Bossu had taken the same route before him. And as to his own proper observations, they are

Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true,
But are not Critics to their judgment too?

NOTES.

for the most part so general and indeterminate, as to afford but little instruction to the reader, and are not unfrequently altogether frivolous. They are of a kind with those with which the French critics (for I rather instance in the defects of foreign writers than our own) so much abound; and which good judges agree to rank in the worst sort of criticism." Hurd, Notes on the Epistle to Augustus, v. 210.

Thus far Dr.

To this censure on Addison Dr. Johnson replied in the following excellent words: "It is not uncommon for those who have grown wise by the labour of others, to add a little of their own, and overlook their masters. Addison is now despised by some, who, perhaps, would never have seen his defects, but by the lights which he afforded them. That he always wrote, as he would think it necessary to write now, cannot be affirmed; his instructions were such as the character of his readers made proper. That general knowledge which now circulates in common talk, was in his time rarely to be found. Men not professing learning, were not ashamed of ignorance; and in the female world, any acquaintance with books, was distinguished only to be censured. His purpose was to infuse literary curiosity, by gentle and unsuspected conveyance, into the gay, the idle, and the wealthy; he therefore presented knowledge in the most alluring form; not lofty and austere, but accessible and familiar. When he shewed them their defects, he shewed them likewise that they might be easily supplied; his attempt succeeded, inquiry was awakened, and comprehension expanded. An emulation of intellectual elegance was excited, and from his time to our own, life has been gradually exalted, and conversation purified and enlarged. Before the profound observers of the present race repose too securely on the consciousness of their superiority to Addison, let them consider his Remarks on Ovid, in which may be found specimens of criticism, sufficiently subtle and refined; let them peruse likewise his Essays on Wit, and on The Plea sures of Imagination, in which he founds art on the base of nature, and draws the principles of invention, from dispositions inherent in the mind of man, with skill and elegance, such as his contemners will not easily attain." Lives of the Poets, vol. ii. page 442.

Yet if we look more closely, we shall find

Most have the seeds of judgment in their mind :

NOTES.

19

Many men are to be found who can judge truly, though they may want the power of execution. And it was a proper answer of the Misanthrope, in Moliere, who had blamed some bad verses, to the poet who defied him to make better;

"J'en pourrois par malheur faire d'aussi mechans,

Mais je me garderois de les montrer aux gens."

Ver. 15. Let such teach others,] "Qui scribit artificiose, ab aliis commode scripta facile intelligere poterit." Cic. ad Herenn. lib. iv. "De pictore, sculptore, fictore, nisi artifex, judicare non potest." Pliny. P.

"Publish some work of your own (said a certain angry author to a critic) before you censure mine.

Cum tua non edas, carpis mea carmina;

You print nothing for fear of reprisals.'

Regnier, the predecessor of Boileau, in his ninth satire, calls on his censors to publish something; and adds a ludicrous tale of a peasant who applied to the Pope, and begged he would suffer priests to marry; "that we laymen (said he) may caress their wives, as well as they caress ours."

"In the large city of Paris (says Voltaire), containing six hundred thousand inhabitants, there are not three thousand who have any true taste for literature and the arts."

It is remarked by Dryden, I think, that none but a poet is qualified to judge of a poet. The maxim is however contradicted by experience. Aristotle is said indeed to have written one ode; but neither Bossu nor Hurd are poets. The penetrating author of The Reflections on Poetry, Painting, and Music, will for ever be read with delight, and with profit, by all ingenious artists; "nevertheless (says Voltaire) he did not understand music, could never make verses, and was not possessed of a single picture; but he had read, seen, heard, and reflected a great deal." And Lord Shaftesbury speaks with some indignation on this subject; "If a musician performs his part well in the hardest symphonies, he must necessarily know the notes, and understand the rules of harmony and music. But must a man, therefore, who has an ear, and has studied the rules of music, of necessity have a voice, or hand? Can no one possibly judge a fiddle, but who is himself a fiddler? Can no one judge a picture, but who is

Nature affords at least a glimm'ring light;

The lines, tho' touch'd but faintly, are drawn right.
But as the slightest sketch, if justly trac'd,
Is by ill-colouring but the more disgrac'd,
So by false learning is good sense defac'd :)

VARIATIONS.

25

Between ver. 25 and 26 were these lines, since omitted by the author.

Many are spoil'd by that pedantic throng,

Who with great pains teach youth to reason wrong,
Tutors, like Virtuosos, oft inclin'd

By strange transfusion to improve the mind,
Draw off the sense we have, to pour in new;

Which yet, with all their skill, they ne'er could do.

NOTES.

P.

himself a layer of colours ?" Quintilian and Pliny, who speak of the works of the ancient painters and statuaries with so much taste and sentiment, handled not themselves either the pencil or the chisel, nor Longinus and Dionysius the harp. But although such as have actually performed nothing in the art itself, may not, on that account, be totally disqualified to judge with accuracy of any piece of workmanship, yet, perhaps, a judgment will come with more authority and force from an artist himself. Hence the connoisseurs highly prize the treatise of Ruben's concerning the Imitation of Antique Statues, the Art of Painting by Leonardo da Vinci, and the Lives of the Painters by Vasari. As, for the same reasons, Rameau's Dissertation on the Thorough Bass; and The Introduction to a Good Taste in Music, by the excellent, but neglected, Geminiani, demand a particular regard. The prefaces of Dryden would be equally valuable, if he did not so frequently contradict himself, and advance opinions diametrically opposite to each other. Some of Corneille's discourses on his own tragedies are admirably just. And one of the best pieces of modern criticism, The Academy's Observations on the Cid, was, we know, the work of persons who had themselves written well. And our Author's own excellent preface to his translation of the Iliad, one of the best pieces of prose in the English language, is an example how well poets are qualified to be critics.

Some are bewilder'd in the maze of schools,
And some made coxcombs Nature meant but fools.

NOTES.

Ver. 20. Most have the seeds] "Omnes tacito quodam sensu, sine ulla arte, aut ratione, quæ sint in artibus, ac rationibus recta et prava dijudicant." Cic. de Orat. lib. iii. P.

Ver. 25. So by false learning] “Plus sine doctrina prudentia, quam sine prudentia valet doctrina." Quint. P.

Ver. 27. Made coxcombs] It is hardly possible to find an example of an affected critic so ridiculous as the following, taken from Spence's Anecdotes.

"The famous Lord Halifax was rather a pretender to taste than really possessed of it. When I had finished the two or three first books of my translation of the Iliad, that Lord desired to have the pleasure of hearing them read at his house. Addison, Congreve, and Garth, were there at the reading. In four or five places Lord Halifax stopped me very civilly, and with a speech each time, much of the same kind, 'I beg your pardon Mr. Pope, but there is something in that passage which does not quite please me ;-be so good as to mark the place, and consider it a little at your leisure;-I am sure you can give it a little turn.' I returned from Lord Halifax's with Dr. Garth in his chariot; and, as we were going along, was saying to the Doctor, that my Lord had laid me under a good deal of difficulty by such loose and general observations; that I had been thinking over the passages almost ever since, and could not guess at what it was that had offended his Lordship in either of them. Garth laughed heartily at my embarrassment: said, I had not been long enough acquainted with Lord Halifax to know his way yet; that I need not puzzle myself about looking those places over and over when I got home. All you need do (says he) is to leave them just as they are; call on Lord Halifax two or three months hence, thank him for his kind observations on those passages, and then read them to him, as altered. I have known him much longer than you have, and will be answerable for the event.' I followed his advice, waited on Lord Halifax some time after; said, I hoped he would find his objections to those passages removed; read them to him, exactly as they were at first and then his Lordship was extremely pleased with them, and cried out, Aye, now they are perfectly right; nothing can be better.'"

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