Such late was Walsh-the Muse's judge and friend, Who justly knew to blame or to commend; 730 To failings mild, but zealous for defert; This humble praise, lamented shade! receive, NOTES. (Her him so eminent in the didactical manner, that no man, with justice, can affirm, he was ever equalled by any of our own nation, without confeffing, at the fame time, that he is inferior to none. In fome other kinds of writing, his genius seems to have wanted fire to attain the point of perfection; but who can attain it?" Edit. 12mo. p. 136. WARTON. VER. 729.] Several lines were here added to the first edition, WARTON. concerning Walfh. VER. 729. Such late was Walsh - the Muse's judge and friend,] If Pope has here given too magnificent an eulogy to Walsh, it must be attributed to friendship, rather than to judgment. Walsh was, in general, a flimsy and frigid writer. The Rambler calls his works, pages of inanity. His three letters to Pope, however, are well written. His remarks on the nature of pastoral poetry, on borrowing from the ancients, and against florid conceits, are worthy perusal. Pope owed much to Walsh; it was he who gave him a very important piece of advice, in his early youth; for he used to tell our author, that there was one way still left open for him, by which he might excel any of his predeceffors, which was, by correctness: that though, indeed, we had feveral great poets, we as yet could boast of none that were perfectly correct; and that therefore he advised him to make this quality his particular study. Correctness is a vague term, frequently used without meaning and precision. It is perpetually the nauseous cant of the French critics, and of their advocates and pupils, that the English writers are generally incorrect. If correctness implies an abfence of petty (Her guide now loft) no more attempts to rise, Content, if hence th' unlearn'd their wants may view, NOTES. Averse petty faults, this perhaps may be granted. If it means, that, because their tragedians have avoided the irregularities of Shake. fpear, and have obferved a juster economy in their fables, therefore the Athalia, for instance, is preferable to Lear, the notion is groundless and abfurd. Though the Henriade should be allowed to be free from any very gross absurdities, yet who will dare to rank it with the Paradise Loft? Some of their most perfect tragedies abound in faults as contrary to the nature of that fpecies of poetry, and as destructive to its end, as the fools or grave-diggers of Shakespear. That the French may boast fome excellent critics, particularly Bossu, Boileau, Fenelon, and Brumoy, cannot be denied; but that these are fufficient to form a taste upon, without having recourse to the genuine fountains of all polite literature, I mean the Grecian writers, no one but a fuperficial reader can allow. WARTON. VER. 741. Careless of cenfure,] These concluding lines bear a great resemblance to Boileau's conclufion of his Art of Poetry, but are perhaps superior. " Cenfeur un peu facheux, mais souvent necessaire; Our author has not, in this piece, followed the examples of the ancients, in addressing their didactic poems to some particular perfon; as Hefiod to Perfes; Lucretius to Memmius; Virgil to Mecænas; Horace to the Pifos; Ovid, his Fasti, to Germanicus; Oppian to Caracalla. In later times, Fracastorius addressed P. Bembo; Vida, the Dauphin of France. But neither Boileau in his Art, nor Rofcommon nor Buckingham in their Effays, * nor Akenside nor Armstrong, have followed this practice. WARTON. * Akenside's last copy of the Pleasures of Imagination, is addressed to his friend Dyson, and he mentions the circumstance of their early friendship, in a most interesting manner, and with uncommon sweetness of verfe. Averse alike to flatter, or offend; I CONCLUDE these remarks with a remarkable fact. In no polished nation, after criticism has been much studied, and the rules of writing established, has any very extraordinary work appeared. This has vifibly been the cafe in Greece, in Rome, and in France; after Aristotle, Horace, and Boileau, had written their Arts of Poetry. In our own country the rules of the drama, for instance, were never more completely understood than at present; yet what uninteresting, though faultless, tragedies have we lately feen? So much better is our judgment than our execution. How to account for the fact here mentioned, adequately and justly, would be attended with all those difficulties that await discussions relative to the productions of the human mind; and to the delicate and fecret causes that influence them. Whether or no, the natural powers be not confined and debilitated by that timidity and caution which is occafioned by a rigid regard to the dictates of art? or whether that philofophical, that geometrical, and systematical spirit so much in vogue, which has spread itself from the sciences even into polite literature, by consulting only reason, has not diminished and destroyed sentiment; and made our poets write from and to the head, rather than the heart? or whether, lastly, when just models, from which the rules have necessarily been drawn, have once appeared, succeeding writers, by vainly and ambitiously striving to furpass those just models, and to shine and surprise, do not become stiff, and forced and affected, in their thoughts and diction? It is not improper to obferve what great improvements the Art of Criticism has received since this Essay was written. For without recurring to pieces of earlier date, and nearer the time in which it was written; namely, the essays in the Spectator and Guardian; Shaftesbury's Advice to an Author; Spence on the Odyssey; Fenton on Waller; Blackwell's Enquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer: even of late years, we have had the Treatifes of Harris; Hurd's Remarks on Horace; Obfervations on the Fairy Queen; Webb on Poetry and Music; Brown's Difsertation on the fame; the Dissertations of Beattie; the Elements of Criticism, of Kaims; the Lectures of Blair; the Editions of Milton, VOL. I. U Milton, by Newton and Warton; and of Shakespear and Spenser, by Malone, Steevens, and Upton: the History of English Poetry; the critical papers of the Rambler, Adventurer, World, and Connoiffeur; and The Lives of the Poets, by Johnson; the Biographia Britannica; and the Poetics of Aristotle, translated, and accompanied with judicious notes, by Twining and Pye; and the tranflation, with notes, of Horace's Art of Poetry, by Hurd and Colman; and the Epistles of Hayley. WARTON. Dr. Warton's observation that few poetical pieces of high merit have appeared, after criticism has been studied, and the rules of writing established, is undoubtedly juft; but there is nothing very extraordinary in the circumstance. As the wildest countries are by nature more picturesque, the rude banks, the aged forests, and unfubdued scenery of the Missisippi, more romantic, than the course of the Thames through its domain of elegant cultivation, so in Poetry, those ages that are comparatively rude and fimple, in which the language is figurative, the traditions wild, the cast of manners original, or tinctured with ideas of fuperftition, chivalry, and romance, are most favourable to works of fancy. When we confider the works of genius which imply great art and design in the structure, such as Epic Poems and Tragedies, we shall find in general that the time most favourable to their production, is when civilization has advanced beyond the limits of fimplicity and rudeness, but ftill is marked with energy, originality, and native vigour. This period is pe. culiarly friendly to works of high yet cultivated imagination. Criticism implies an age of reason and refinement, when Imagination is fubdued to Truth. This is as it should be, for Poetry is certainly fecondary to Truth, and we cannot have from the fame tree, at the fame time, bloffoms and fruits. It often however happens, that an age becomes too refined either for Poetry or Truth, and we know extravagant Philofophy is much more dangerous than romantic Poetry; it is for this reason that the mind often flies from vain and vifionary systems of licentious philosophy, to repose upon the ideas of virtue, the dignified confolations, the enchanting pictures, or the pathetic incidents which the Muse presents. Let me here be indulged in faying a word, concerning my predeceffor in this work, the late editor, Dr. Warton, my master and friend. No one excelled him in pure critical taste, and an accurate appreciation of whatever was truly poetical. To his criticisms, and to thofe of his brother Thomas Warton, we are indebted, in fome respects, I fincerely believe, for a juster idea of genuine poetic excellence; and though the present age be not that of romance or chivalry, it is by no means deficient in compositions that are fanciful, pathetic, and in some instances fublime. This may be owing to our attention having been more strongly excited to the poetic character of Milton. His great genius has at least been more fully appreciated. When he first wrote, not only the part he took in Politics, but the general "chidings" of the times, were unfavourable to Poetry. After the Restoration, the "barbarous dissonance Of Bacchus, and his revellers, drown'd When the public taste became habituated to the elegant, but totally different, melodies of Dryden and Pope, he, of whom it might most truly have been said, that Heaven, Οφθαλμων μεν αμερτε, διδε δ' αδειαν αοιδην, was scarcely ever confidered in that fupereminent light in which he now appears. With respect to language, the different verfification of Dryden and Pope has been confidered as having completed the polished melody of the English couplet, while the earlier refiners of our language have been degraded, or forgotten. Johnson, speaking of Dryden's improvement of English verfification, fays, "Lateritiam invenit, marmoream reliquit:" He found it "brick," and he left it "marble." - I have already mentioned Sandys, and I fubjoin some specimens of his verse, that the reader may judge how far it may be called " Lateritiam :" In his defcent bow'd Heav'n with Earth did meet, I follow'd, overtook, nor made retreat, So charg'd with wounds that they no longer stood, They cried aloud; - but found no fuccour near; TO THEE, JEHOVAH; but thou would'st not hear. The whole of his verfification of the Pfalms is equally correct and melodious. Soon after this Essay was published, "Addison, in the Spectator, speaking of it, (Dec. 20th, 1711;) fays: |