"HORACE avec BOILEAU;

"Vous y cherchiez le vrai, vous y goutiez le beau ; "Quelques traits échappés d'une utile morale, " Dans leurs piquans écrits brillent par intervale. "Mais Pope approfondit ce q'ils ont effleuré; " D'un efprit plus hardi, d'un pas plus afsuré, "Il porta le flambeau dans l'abîme de l'Etre, "Et l'homme avec lui seul apprit à se connoitre. "L'art quelquefois frivole et quelquefois divin, "L'art des vers est dans POPE UTILE AU GENRE

"HUMAIN."

VOLTAIRE, au Roi de Prusse.

PREFACE.

AM inclined to think, that both the writers of

books and the readers of them are generally not a little unreasonable in their expectations. The first seem to fancy that the world must approve of whatever they produce, and the latter to imagine that authors are obliged to please them at any rate. Methinks, as on the one band, no fingle man is born with a right of controling the opinions of all the rest; so on the other, the world has no title to demand, that the whole care and time of any particular person should be facrificed to its entertrinment. Therefore I cannot but believe that writers and readers are under equal obligations, for as much fame, or pleasure, as each affords the other.

Every one acknowledges, it would be a wild notion to expect perfection in any work of man: and yet one would think the contrary was taken for granted, by the judgment commonly passed upon Poems. A Critic supposes he has done his part, if he proves a writer to have failed in an expression, or erred in any particular point: and can it then be wondered at, if the Poets, in general, seem refolved not to own themselves in any error? For as long as one fide will make no allowances, the other will be brought to no acknowledgments *.

I am

* In the former editions it was thus" For as long " as one fide despises a well-meant endeavour, the other "will not be fatisfied with a moderate approbation."

But

I am afraid this extreme zeal on both fides is illplaced; Poetry and Criticism being by no means the univerfal concern of the world, but only the affair of idle men who write in their closets, and of idle men who read there.

Yet fure, upon the whole, a bad Author deserves better usage than a bad Critic: for a Writer's endeavour, for the most part, is to please his Readers, and he fails merely through the misfortune of an ill judgment; but such a Critic's is to put them out of humour; a design he could never go upon without both that and an ill temper.

I think a good deal may be faid to extenuate the fault of bad Poets. What we call a Genius, is hard to be diftinguished by a man himself, from a strong inclination: and if his genius be ever so great, he cannot at first discover it any other way, than by giving way to that prevalent propensity which renders him the more liable to be mistaken. The only method he has, is to make the experiment by writing, and appealing to the judgment of others: now if he happens to write ill (which is certainly no fin in itself), he is immediately made an object of ridicule. I wish we had the humanity to reflect, that even the worst authors might, in their endeavour to please us, deserve something at our hands. We have no cause to quarrel with them but for their obstinacy in perfisting to write; and this too may

But the Author altered it, as these words were rather a confequence from the conclufion he would draw, than the conclufion itself, which he has now inferted.