Thence form your judgment, thence your maxims bring, And trace the Muses upward to their spring. NOTES. Ver. 128. Still with itself compar'd, &c.] Although perhaps it may seem impossible to produce any new observations on Homer and Virgil, after so many volumes of criticism as have been spent upon them, yet the following remarks have a novelty and penetration in them that may entertain; especially, as the little treatise from which they are taken is extremely scarce, "Quæ variæ inter se notæ atque imagines animorum, a principibus utriusque populi poetis, Homero et Virgilio, mirificè exprimuntur. Siquidem Homeri duces et reges rapacitate, libidine, atque anilibus questibus, lacrymisque puerilibus, Græcam levitatem et inconstantiam referunt. Virgiliani vero principes, ab eximio poeta, qui Romanæ severitatis fastidium, et Latinum supercilium verebatur, et ad heroum populum loquebatur, ita componuntur ad majestatum consularem ut quamvis ab Asiatica mollitie luxuque venerint, inter Furios atque Claudios nati educatique videantur. Neque suam, ullo actu, Æneas originem prodidisset, nisi, a præfactiore aliquanto pietate, fudisset crebro copiam lacrymarum. Qua meliorem expressione morum hac ætate, non modo Virgilius Latinorum poetarum princeps, sed quivis inflatissimus vernaculorum, Homero præfertur: cum hic animos proceribus indurit suos, ille vero alienos. Quamobrem varietas morum, qui carmine reddebantur, et hominum ad quos ea dirigebantur, inter Latinam Græcamque poesin, non inventionis tan tum attulit, sed et elocutionis discrimen illud, quod præcipue inter Homerum et Virgilium deprehenditur; cum sententias et oramenta quæ Homeras sparserat, Virgilius, Romanorum arium causa, contraxerit; atque ad mores et ingenia retulerit eorum, qui a poesi non petebant publicam aut privatem institutionem, quam ipsi Marte suo invenerant; sed tantum delectationem*. Blackwell, in his excellent Enquiry into the Life and Writings * J. Vincentii Gravina de Poesi, ad S. Maffeinno Epist. added to his treatise entitled Della Rasion Poetica, In Napoli, 1716, page 239. 250. When first young Maro in his boundless mind A work t'outlast immortal Rome design'd, 131 Ver. 130.] VARIATIONS. When first young Maro sung of Kings and Wars, NOTES. of Homer, has taken many observations from this valuable book, particularly in his twelfth section. Ver. 130. When first young Maro, &c.] Virg. Eclog. vi. "Cum canerem reges et proelia, Cynthius aurum Vellit." It is a tradition preserved by Servius, that Virgil began with writing a poem of the Alban and Roman affairs; which he found above his years, and descended first to imitate Theocritus on rural subjects, and afterward to copy Homer in Heroic poetry. P. That Virgil, not only in his general plan, but in most of the subordinate parts, was a close copyist of Homer, is undeniable, whatever be thought of the supposition that he set out with a design of drawing from the sources of nature, and was diverted from it by the discovery that "Nature and Homer were the same.” The modern idolatry of Shakspeare has elevated him to the same degree of authority among us; and critics have not been wanting, who have confidently drawn from his characters the proofs and illustrations of their theories on the human mind. But what can be more unworthy of the true critic and philosopher, than such an implicit reliance on any man, how exalted soever his genius, especially on those who lived in the infancy of their art? If an epic poem be a representation of nature in a course of heroic action, it must be susceptible of as much variety as nature herself; and surely it is more desirable that a poet of original genius should give full scope to his inventive powers, under the restriction of such laws only as are founded on nature, than that he should fetter himself with rules derived from the practice of a predecessor. When Pope praises the ancient rules for compo sition on the ground that they were "discovered not devised," and were only "nature methodized," he gives a just notion of what they ought to be. But when he supposes Virgil to have properly"checked in his bold design of drawing from Nature's Perhaps he seem'd above the Critic's law, NOTES. 135 140 fountains," and in consequence, to have confined his work within rules as strict, "As if the Stagyrite o'erlook'd each line;" how can he avoid the force of his own ridicule, where a little farther, in this very piece, he laughs at Dennis for "Concluding all were desperate sots and fools Such are the inconsistencies of a writer who sometimes utters notions derived from reading and education; sometimes the suggestions of native good sense!" Dr. Aikin to his Son. Ver. 138. As if the Stagyrite] According to a fine precept in the fourteenth section of Longinus, who exhorts us, when we aim at any thing elevated and sublime, to ask ourselves while we are composing, "how would Homer, or Plato, or Demosthenes, have exerted and expressed themselves on this subject? And still more, if we should continue to ask ourselves; what would Homer or Demosthenes, if they had been present, and had heard this passage, have thought of it, and how would they have been affected by it?" Ver. 140. To copy nature] It may not be unuseful or unpleasant to see the very different opinion of a writer, who, perhaps, had done better if he had followed this rule. "A spirit of imitation hath many ill effects (says Dr. Young); I shall confine myself to three. First, It deprives the liberal and politer arts of an advantage which the mechanic enjoy; in these, men are ever endeavouring to go beyond their predecessors; in the former to follow them. And since copies surpass not their originals, as streams rise not higher than their spring, rarely so Some beauties yet no Precepts can declare, For there's a happiness as well as care. NOTES. high; hence while arts mechanic are in perpetual progress, and increase, the liberal are in retrogradation, and decay. These resemble pyramids, are broad at bottom, but lessen exceedingly as they rise; those resemble rivers which, from a small fountain-head, are spreading ever wider and wider, as they run. Hence it is evident, that different portions of understanding are not (as some imagine) allotted to different periods of time; for we see, in the same period, understanding rising in one set of artists, and declining in another. Therefore nature stands absolved, and our inferiority in composition must be charged on ourselves. "Nay, so far are we from complying with a necessity, which nature lays us under, that, secondly, by a spirit of imitation we counteract nature, and thwart her design. She brings us into the world all originals. No two faces, no two minds, are just alike; but all bear Nature's evident mark of separation on them. Born originals, how comes it to pass that we die copies? That meddling ape, Imitation, as soon as we come to years of indiscretion (so let me speak), snatches the pen, and blots out Nature's mark of separation, cancels her kind intention, destroys all mental individuality; the lettered world no longer consists of singulars, it is a medley, a mass; and a hundred books, at bottom, are but one. Why are monkies such masters of mimickry? Why receive they such a talent at imitation? Is it not as the Spartan slaves received a licence for ebriety; that their betters might be ashamed of it? "The third fault to be found with a spirit of imitation is, that with great incongruity it makes us poor, and proud; makes us think little, and write much; gives us huge folios, which are little better than more reputable cushions to promote our repose. Have not some seven-fold volumes put us in mind of Ovid's seven-fold channels of the Nile at the conflagration? 'Ostia septem Pulverulenta vacant septem sine flumine valles.' Such leaden labours are like Lycurgus's iron money, which was so much less in value than in bulk, that it required barns for strong boxes, and a yoke of oxen to draw five hundred pounds." Ver. 141. Some beauties yet no Precepts] Pope in this passage Music resembles Poetry, in each Are nameless graces which no methods teach, 145 If, where the rules not far enough extend (Since rules were made but to promote their end), NOTES. seems to have remembered one of the essays of Bacon, of which he is known to have been remarkably fond. "There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. A man cannot tell whether Apelles, or Abel Durer, were the more trifler; whereof the one would make a personage by geometrical proportions; the other, by taking the best parts out of divers faces to make one excellent. Such personages, I think, would please nobody, but the painter that made them. Not but I think, a painter may make a better face than ever was; but he must do it by a kind of felicity, as a musician that maketh an excellent air in music, and not by rule. A man shall see faces, that if you examine them, part by part, you shall find never a good one; and yet altogether do well." "Non ratione aliqua (says Quintilian finely) sed motu nescio an inerrabili judicatur. Neque ab hoc ullo satis explicari puto, licet multi tentaverint." Quintil. Inst. L. vi. In short, in poetry, we must judge by taste and sentiment, not by rules and reasoning. Different theories of philosophy, and different systems of theology, are maintained and exploded in different ages; but true and genuine pictures of nature and passion, are not subject to such revolutions and changes. The doctrines of Plato, Epicurus, and Zeno; of Descartes, Hobbes, and Malebranche, and Gassendi, yield in succession to each other; but Homer, Sophocles, Terence, and Virgil, being felt and relished by all men, still retain and preserve, unaltered and undisputed, admiration and applause. Ver. 143. Music resembles] I am informed by one of the best musicians of the age that this observation is not accurate, nor agreeable to the rules of that art. Ver. 146. If, where the rules, &c.] "Neque enim rogationibus plebisve scitis sancta sunt ista præcepta, sed hoc, quicquid est, Utilitas excogitavit. Non negabo autem sic utile esse plerumque; verum si eadem illa nobis aliud suadebit Utilitas, hanc, relictis magistrorum autoritatibus, sequemur." Quintil. lib. cap. 13. P. |