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A little learning is a dang'rous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.

Fir'd at first sight with what the Muse imparts,

215

In fearless youth we tempt the heights of Arts, 220
While from the bounded level of our mind,
Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind;
But more advanc'd, behold with strange surprise
New distant scenes of endless science rise!
So pleas'd at first the tow'ring Alps we try,
Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky,

225

VARIATIONS.

Ver. 225.

So pleas'd at first the tow'ring Alps to try,
Fill'd with ideas of fair Italy,

The Traveller beholds with cheerful eyes

The less'ning vales, and seems to tread the skies.

NOTES.

of Rochefocault's Maxims were corrected and new written more than thirty times. The Provincial Letters of Pascal, the model of good style in the French language, were submitted to the judgment of twelve members of the Port Royal, who made many corrections in them. Voltaire says, "That in all the books of Fenelon's Telemaque, of which he had seen the original, there were not ten rasures and alterations. All that can be said about correction, is contained in these few incomparable words of Quintilian. "Hujus operis est, adjicere, detrahere, mutare. Sed facilius in his simpliciusque judicium, quæ replenda vel dejicienda sunt: premere vero tumentia, humilia extollere, luxuriantia astringere, inordinata derigere, soluta componere, exultantia coercere, duplicis operæ." Quint. Lib. x. c. 3.

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Ver. 225. So pleas'd] Dr. Johnson thinks this simile the most apt, the most proper, most sublime, of any in the English, language. I will own I am not of this opinion. It appears evidently to have been suggested by the following one in the Works of Drummond, p. 38. 4to.

Th' eternal snows appear already past,

230

And the first clouds and mountains seem the last:
But, those attain'd, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthen'd way,
Th' increasing prospect tires our wand'ring eyes,
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!

234

A perfect Judge will read each work of Wit With the same spirit that its author writ: Survey the WHOLE, nor seek slight faults to find Where nature moves, and rapture warms the mind;

NOTES.

"Ah! as a pilgrim who the Alpes doth passé,
Or Atlas' temples crown'd with winter's glasse,
The airy Caucasus, the Apennine,

Pyrene's cliffes where sunne doth never shine,
When he some heapes of hills hath overwent,
Beginnes to think on rest, his journey spent,
Till mounting some tall mountaine he doth finde
More hights before him thann he left behind."

See also Silias Italicus, Lib. iii. 528.

Ver. 233. A perfect Judge, &c.] "Diligenter legendum est ac pæne ad scribendi sollicitudinem: Nec per partes modo scrutanda sunt omnia, sed perlectus liber utique ex integro resumendus." Quint. P.

It is observable that our Author makes it almost the necessary consequence of judging by parts, to find fault: and this not without much discernment: for the several parts of a complete whole, when seen only singly, and known only independently, must always have the appearance of irregularity; often of deformity: because the Poet's design being to create a resultive beauty from the artful assemblage of several various parts into one natural whole; those parts must be fashioned with regard to their mutual relations in the stations they occupy in that whole, from whence, the beauty required is to arise: but that regard will occasion so unreducible a form in each part, when considered singly, as to present a very misshapen form. W.

Ver. 235. Survey the Whole, nor seek slight faults to find

Where nature moves, and rapture warms the mind;]

Nor lose for that malignant dull delight,
The gen'rous pleasure to be charm'd with wit.
But in such lays as neither ebb nor flow,
Correctly cold, and regularly low,

240

That shunning faults, one quiet tenor keep;
We cannot blame indeed-but we may sleep.
In Wit, as Nature, what affects our hearts
Is not th' exactness of peculiar parts;
"Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call,
But the joint force and full result of all.
Thus when we view some well-proportion'd dome,
(The world's just wonder, and ev'n thine, O Rome!)

NOTES.

245

The second line, in apologizing for those faults which the first says should be overlooked, gives the reason of the precept. For when a great writer's attention is fixed on a general view of Nature, and his imagination become warmed with the contemplation of great ideas, it can hardly be, but that there must be small irregularities in the disposition both of matter and style, because the avoiding these requires a coolness of recollection, which a writer so qualified and so busied is not master of. W.

According to a most just and judicious observation in the first book of Strabo, “ Καθάπερ γε ἐν τοῖς κολοσσικοῖς ἔργοις, οὐ τὸ καθ' ὅλον ἕκαστον ἀκριβὲς ζητοῦμεν, ἀλλὰ τοῖς καθ' ὅλου προσέχου μεν μᾶλλον εἰ εἴῃ καλῶς τὸ ὅλον· οὕτως καν τούτοις ποιεῖσθαι δεῖ Tỳν кρlow." As in great colossal works, we do not seek for exactness and accuracy in every part, but rather attend to the general affect and beauty of the whole; so ought we to judge of compositions. And, as Quintilian says, Ungues polire, et capillum reponere, is a useless and ill-placed care. Ver. 239. But in such lays] These four lines are superior to Horace's,

"Serpit humi tutus nimium," &c.

Ver. 247. Thus when we view] This is justly and elegantly expressed; and though it may seem difficult to speak of the same subject after such a description, yet Akenside has ventured, and nobly succeeded:

No single parts unequally surprise,

All comes united to th' admiring eyes;

250

No monstrous height, or breadth, or length, appear;

The Whole at once is bold and regular.

Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,

Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.

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Ver. 248. The world's just wonder, and ev'n thine, O Rome !] The Pantheon, I would suppose; perhaps St. Peter's; no matter which; the observation is true of both. There is something very Gothic in the taste and judgment of a learned man, who despises this master-piece of Art, the Pantheon, for those very qualities which deserve our admiration.- "Nous esmerveillons comme l'on fait si grand cas de ce Pantheon, veu que son edifice n'est de si grande industrie comme l'on crie: car chaque petit Masson peut bien concevoir la maniere de se façon tout en un instant: car estant la base si massive, et les murailles si espaisses, ne nous a semblé difficile d'y adjouster la voute à claire voye." Pierre Belon's Observations, &c. The nature of the Gothic structures apparently led him into this mistake of the Architectonic art in general; that the excellency of it consists in raising the greatest weight on the least assignable support, so that the edifice should have strength without the appearance of it, in order to excite admiration. But to a judicious eye such a building would have a contrary effect, the Appearance (as our poet expresses it) of a monstrous height, or breadth, or length. Indeed did the just proportions in regular Architecture take off from the grandeur of a building, by all the single parts coming united to the eye, as this learned traveller seems to insinuate, it would be a reasonable objection to those rules on which this Master-piece of Art was constructed. But it is not so. The Poet tells us truly,

"The Whole at once is bold and regular." W. Ver. 253. Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,] He shews next [from ver. 252 to 263], that to fix our censure on single

In ev'ry work regard the writer's End,

Since none can compass more than they intend;
And if the means be just, the conduct true,
Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due.
As men of breeding, sometimes men of wit,
T'avoid great errors, must the less commit:
Neglect the rules each verbal Critic lays,
For not to know some trifles, is a praise.
Most Critics, fond of some subservient art,
Still make the Whole depend upon a Part:
They talk of principles, but notions prize,
And all to one lov'd Folly sacrifice.

255

260

265

Once on a time, La Mancha's Knight they say, A certain Bard encount'ring on the way,

NOTES.

parts, though they happen to want an exactness consistent enough with their relation to the rest, is even then very unjust and for these reasons, 1. Because it implies an expectation of a faultless piece, which is a vain fancy. 2. Because no more is to be expected of any work than that it fairly attains its end: but the end may be attained, and yet these trivial faults committed: therefore, in spite of such faults, the work will merit that praise that is due to every thing which attains its end. 3. Because sometimes a great beauty is not to be procured, nor a notorious blemish to be avoided, but by suffering one of these minute and trivial errors. 4. And lastly, because the general neglect of them is a praise; as it is the indication of a Genius, attentive to greater matters. W.

Ver. 258. in spite of trivial] As if one was to condemn the divine Paradise Lost, on account of some low puns there introduced; or some passages in Ariosto, on account of vulgar and familiar images and expressions, that have crept unaccountably into that enchanting and original Poem.

Ver. 261. Critic lays,] The word lays is very exceptionable: in an inferior and common Writer it would not be worth while to mark such improper expressions.

Ver. 267. Once on a time, La Mancha's Knight they say,] By

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