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Before her, Fancy's gilded clouds decay,
And all its varying rainbows die away.
Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires,
The meteor drops, and in a flash expires.
As one by one, at dread Medea's strain,
The sickening stars fade off th' ethereal plain;
As Argus' eyes, by Hermes' wand opprest,
Closed one by one to everlasting rest;
Thus at her felt approach, and secret might,
Art after Art goes out, and all is night.
See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled,
Mountains of casuistry heap'd o'er her head!
Philosophy, that lean'd on Heaven before,
Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more.
Physic of Metaphysic begs defence,
And Metaphysic calls for aid on sense !
See Mystery to Mathematics fly !

In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die.
Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires,
And unawares Morality expires.

Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine;
Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine!
Lo: thy dread empire, Chaos! is restored;
Light dies before thy uncreating word:
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall;
And universal darkness buries all.

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640

NOTES.

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ESSAY ON CRITICISM.

L. 4. Mislead our sense: 'Sense' means here, critical appreciation.

L. 6. Censure: The verb has here the meaning of the Latin censeo, censura, and expresses the enunciation of critical opinions simply; modern usage confines it to unfavourable opinions.

L. 17. Their wit: On the different senses in which the word 'wit' is used in the Essay on Criticism, see Introd. p. xix.

L. 18. But are not critics, &c.: The meaning is :although the partiality of authors to their own works requires no doubt to be corrected in the external tribunal of criticism, yet that tribunal itself must be constituted with vigilant care, for there is a partiality among critics also to that especial line of appreciation or depreciation in matters literary which they have taken up.

L. 23. Traced—disgraced—defaced : This is the first of a number of triple rhymes, or triplets, which Pope admitted into the Essay on Criticism. The example of Dryden, who was very partial to triplets, influenced him at this early period of his career; but he gradually abandoned the use of them, and in the Essay on Man and the Dunciad there is not one to be found. The breach of continuity in the verse caused by the triplet probably appeared to Pope to be a disadvantage which was not compensated by the emphasis and sweep of cadence which it secures. Dryden's partiality for them is indicated, when Pope, wishing to imitate the style of his great master, gives us the following triplet :

Waller was smooth, but Dryden taught to join

The varying verse, the full resounding line,

The long majestic march, and energy divine.--Imit. Hor.

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L. 27. Nature meant but fools: Mr. Elwin taxes Pope with contradicting himself 'when he says in the text that the men made coxcombs by study were meant by Nature but for fools, since they are among his instances of persons upon whom Nature had bestowed the "seeds of judgment," and who possessed "good sense" till it was “defaced by false learning.' There is no contradiction. First,—if we place a full stop after 'defaced,' we may take the two following lines as descriptive of two classes of critics different from that large class which possesses the 'seeds of judgment.' Secondly, even if we allow that the critics whom 'Nature meant but fools' are a subdivision of that larger class in whose minds are the 'seeds of judgment,' what then? Are not the seeds of judgment even in the mind of a born fool? His folly makes him overlay those seeds with a heap of crude notions and the rubbish of 'false learning,' so that they never sprout out to any purpose; but it remains true, on the one hand that he has received 'a glimmering light' from Nature, and on the other that Nature meant him but for a fool after all.

L. 28. Turn critics in their own defence: Rymer might be meant, who justified his ridiculous tragedies (Edgar, &c.) by equally ridiculous criticisms on those of Shakespeare. On this see Addison in the 'Spectator,' No. 592. Or it might even be a stroke at Dryden and Heroic plays, which he defended in his Essay on Dramatic Poetry.

L. 30. Each burns alike: See the list of Variants, p. 223. L. 33. If Mævius scribble: Mævius was the bad poet of whom Virgil wrote (Ecl. III., 90) :

:

Qui Bavium non odit, amet tua carmina, Mævi.

Who hates not living Bavius, let him be,

Dead Mævius, damn'd to love thy works and thee.-Dryden.

Ib. In Apollo's spite: That is, when his natural genius does not justify him in writing; against the grain. Compare Horace's phrase 'invita Minerva' (Ars Poet. 385) :—

Tu nihil invita dices faciesve Minerva.

L. 39. As heavy mules: Mr. Elwin thinks that the comparison fails in the essential point,' because a mule, though inferior to a horse, is better than an ass, whereas those who have not wit enough to be either poets or critics are inferior to both. This does not appear to be sound criticism. Mr. Elwin misses the point. These poor fellows who fall between two stools, and can make

nothing of either poetry or criticism, are compared to mules on account of their barrenness. Like the mule, they may be showy to

look at, but they produce nothing.

L. 41. The banks of Nile: 'I am confident,' says Dryden in the Dedication of his Virgil, 'that you will look on those half lines hereafter as the imperfect products of a hasty muse, like the frogs and serpents in the Nile, part of them kindled into life, and part a lump of unformed, unanimated mud' (Elwin). Compare, too, Milton's half-created lion, 'pawing to get free his hinder parts;' (P. L. VII. 463.)

L. 42. One knows not what to call: The expression here is elliptical beyond what even poetic license permits. Either it should be 'which one knows not what to call,' or one knows not what to call them.' The former was probably what Pope intended, for this suppression of the relative common with him: e.g. 'the

lamb thy riot dooms,' and 1. 27 above.

L. 43. So equivocal: ‘Equivocal generation,' says Mr. Elwin, is the production of animals without parents.' This is unsatisfactory. An equivocal word is a word which has two or more meanings; hence it comes to signify 'ambiguous,' 'doubtful,' questionable; ' as when we speak of an 'equivocal situation.' The generation of these 'unfinish'd things' was of a doubtful, questionable, anomalous character.

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L. 44. To tell 'em: This 'em, instead of being a vulgarism for them, analogous to the modern dropping of the h, really represents the old hem of the Southern English dialect, which again represented the dative plural of the third personal pronoun in AngloSaxon, him or heom. Chaucer's Clerke of Oxenford

besily gan for the soules praie

Of hem, that yave him wherwith to scolaie.

L. 56. While memory prevails: Needless exception has been taken to these lines by several critics. Pope refers to the ancient division (adopted by Bacon in his Advancement of Learning) of the human intellect into three principal faculties, memory, reason, and imagination; to which correspond respectively the three parts of learning, history, philosophy, and poetry; and he merely means to say that, on account of the limitations imposed by nature upon our intelligence, a great historian is not likely to be a philosopher, nor a poet a historian.

L. 64. Like kings: Louis XIV. and Charles XII. were pro

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