70 Unerring NATURE, still divinely bright, Some, to whom Heav'n in wit has been profuse, 76 81 NOTES. when his Cid appeared. Despereaux was full thirty when he published his Satires, such as we now have them. Moliere was full forty when he wrote the first of those comedies on which his reputation is founded. But to excel in this species of composition, it was not sufficient for Moliere to be only a great poet; it was rather necessary for him to gain a thorough knowledge of men and the world, which is seldom attained so early in life; but without which, the best poet would be able to write but very indifferent comedies. Congreve however was but nineteen when he wrote his Old Bachelor. Raphael was about thirty years old when he displayed the beauty and sublimity of his genius in the Vatican, for it is there we behold the first of his works, that are worthy the great name he at present so deservedly possesses. When Shakspeare wrote his Lear, Milton his Paradise Lost, Spenser his Fairy Queen, and Dryden his Music Ode, they had all exceeded the middle age of man. Ver. 80. Some, to whom Heav'n, &c.] Here the Poet (in a sense he was not, at first, aware of) has given an example of the truth of his observation, in the observation itself. The two lines stood originally thus, "There are whom Heav'n has blest with store of Wit, In the first line, wit is used, in the modern sense, for the effort of Fancy; in the second line it is used, in the ancient sense, For wit and judgment often are at strife, 85 Tho' meant each other's aid, like man and wife. NOTES. for the result of Judgment. This trick, played the Reader, he endeavoured to keep out of sight, by altering the lines as they now stand, "Some, to whom Heav'n in Wit has been profuse, For the words, to manage it, as the lines were at first, too plainly discovered the change put upon the Reader, in the use of the word, wit. This is now a little covered by the latter expression of--turn it to its use. But then the alteration, in the preceding line, from-store of wit, to profuse, was an unlucky change. For though he who has store of wit may want more, yet he to whom it was given in profusion could hardly be said to want more. The truth is, the Poet has said a lively thing, and would, at all hazards, preserve the reputation of it, though the very topic he is upon obliged him to detect the imposition, in the very next lines, which shew he meant two very different things, by the same term, in the two preceding, "For wit and judgment often are at strife, Tho' meant each other's aid, like man and wife." W. Ver. 82. wit] " If all wisdom be science, and it be the business of science, as well to compound as to separate, may we not say, that those philosophers took half of wisdom for the whole, who distinguished it from wit, as if wisdom only separated, and wit only brought it together? Yet, so held the Philosopher of Malmesbury, and Author of the Essay on the Human Understanding." Harris's Hermes, page 368. Ver. 88. Those Rules of old, &c.] Cicero has, best of any one I know, explained what that thing is which reduces the wild and scattered parts of human knowledge into arts—“ Nihil est Nature, like liberty, is but restrain'd By the same Laws which first herself ordain'd. NOTES. 90 quod ad artem redigi possit, nisi ille prius, qui illa tenet, quorum artem instituere vult, habeat illam scientiam, ut ex iis rebus, quarum ars nondum sit, artem efficere possit. Omnia fere, quæ sunt conclusa nunc artibus, dispersa et dissipata quondam fuerunt, ut in Musicis, etc. Adhibita est igitur ars quædam extrinsecus ex alio genere quodam, quod sibi totum PHILOSOPHI assumunt, quæ rem dissolutam divulsamque conglutinaret, et ratione quadam constringeret." De Orat. 1. i. c. 41, 2. W. The precepts of the art of poesy were posterior to practice; the rules of the Epopea were all drawn from the Iliad, and the Odyssey; and of Tragedy, from the Edipus of Sophocles. A petulant rejection, and an implicit veneration, of the rules of the ancient critics, are equally destructive of true taste. "It ought to be the first endeavour of a writer (says the Rambler, No 156.) to distinguish nature from custom; or that which is established because it is right, from that which is right only because it is established; that he may neither violate essential principles by a desire of novelty, nor debar himself from the attainment of any beauties within his view, by a needless fear of breaking rules, which no literary dictator had authority to prescribe." This liberal and manly censure of critical bigotry, extends not to those fundamental and indispensable rules, which nature and necessity dictate, and demand to be observed; such, for instance, as in the higher kinds of poetry, that the action of the epopea, be one, great, and entire; that the hero be eminently distinguished, move our concern, and deeply interest us; that the episodes arise easily out of the main fable; that the action commence as near the catastrophe as possible; and, in the drama, that no more events be crowded together, than can be justly supposed to happen during the time of representation, or to be transacted on one individual spot, and the like. But the absurdity here animadverted on, is the scrupulous nicety of those who bind themselves to obey frivolous and unimportant laws; such as, that an epic poem should consist not of less than twelve books; that it should end fortunately; that in the first book there should be no simile; Hear how learn'd Greece her useful rules indites, When to repress, and when indulge our flights: 93 NOTES. that the exordium should be very simple and unadorned; that in a tragedy, only three personages should appear at once upon the stage; and that every tragedy should consist of five acts; by the rigid observation of which last unnecessary precept, the poet is deprived of using many a moving story, that would furnish matter enough for three perhaps, but not for five acts; with other rules of the like indifferent nature. For the rest, as Voltaire observes, whether the action of an epopea be simple or complex, completed in a month, or a year, or a longer time, whether the scene be fixed on one spot, as in the Iliad; or that the hero voyages from sea to sea, as in the Odyssey; whether he be furious like Achilles, or pious like Eneas; whether the action pass on land or sea; on the coast of Africa, as in the Luziada of Camoens; in America, as in the Araucana of Alonzo D'Ercilla; in Heaven, in Hell, beyond the limits of our world, as in the Paradise Lost; all these circumstances are of no consequence: the poem will be for ever an epic poem, an heroic poem; at least, till another new title be found proportioned to its merit. "If you scruple (says Addison) to give the title of an Epic Poem to the Paradise Lost of Milton, call it, if you choose, a Divine Poem; give it whatever name you please; provided you confess, that it is a work as admirable in its kind as the Iliad. It has become a fashionable attempt of late, to censure and decry an obedience to the rules laid down by ancient critics; while one party, loudly and frequently exclaim, -Vos exemplaria Græca Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna; Another, instantly answers, ---O imitatores servum pecus! One of the ablest defenders of literary liberty expresses himself thus ; "From the time of Homer, epic poetry became an artificial composition, whose rules were, in reality, drawn from the practice of the Grecian Bard, rather than from the principles of Nature. Lyric and dramatic poetry were in like manner fixed, though at a later period, by Grecian models; so that the Roman writers of High on Parnassus' top her sons she shew'd, NOTES. similar performances could not be said to bring any thing of their own to their works. The same shackles of imitation have hung upon the poetry of modern Europe; whence a fair comparison of the powers and genius of different periods is rendered scarcely practicable. The leading species of poetry, like the orders of architecture, have come down to us subject to certain proportions, and requiring certain ornamental accompaniments, which, perhaps, have had no foundation whatever but the casual practice of the earliest masters; nay, possibly, the whole existence of some of the species has had the same accidental origin. 66 Meantime, the veneration for the ancients has been raised to the highest pitch by this perpetual reference to them as models; and it has been concluded, that works which have engaged the study, and called forth the imitation, of so many succeeding ages, must possess a superior degree of excellence. But after all, their reputation may have been much more owing to accident than is commonly supposed. That the Grecian poets, continually recording the deeds of their countrymen, and offering incense to the national vanity, should have been held in high esteem at home, was natural. That the Romans, receiving all their literature from Greece, should adopt its principles and prejudices, was also to be expected. But that they should transmit them to so large a portion of the civilized world, and this, not only during the period of their domination, but to new races of men, so many centuries after the downfal of their empire, must be reckoned accident, as far as any thing in human affairs can be called accidental. Had not the Christian religion established a kind of second Roman empire, even more capable of swaying the opinions of mankind than the first, it is highly improbable that we should at this day have been commenting upon the classical writers of Greece and Rome. It is, indeed, astonishing to reflect, by what a strange concatenation of cause and effect, the youth of Christian Europe should be instructed in the fables of Greek and Latin Mythology, which were fallen into contempt even before Rome ceased to be heathen. It certainly has not been on account of their wisdom and beauty that they have survived the wreck of so many better things. They have been embalmed in the languages which |