365 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence, NOTES. VER. 364. No harshness gives offence,] We are furprised to fee the conftant attention of the ancients, to give melody to their periods, both in profe and verfe; of which so many instances are given in Tully De Oratore, in Dionyfius, and Quintilian. Plato many times altered the order of the four first words of his Republic. Cicero records the approbation he met with for finishing a sentence with the word comprobavit, being a dichorcè. Had he finished it otherwife, he says, it might have been animo fatis, auribus non fatis. We may be equally mortified in finding Quintilian condemning the inharmonioufnefs of many letters with which our language abounds; particularly the letters F, M, B, D, and Dionyfius reprobates the letter S. VER. 365. The found must seem an echo to the fenfe.] Lord Rofcommon fays, "The found is ftill a comment to the fenfe." They are both well expreffed, although fo differently; for Lord R. is fhewing how the fenfe is affifted by the found; Mr. P. how the found is affifted by the sense. VER. 366. Soft is the flrain] See examples in Clarke's Homer, Iliad i. v. 430; ii. v. 102; iii. v. 357; vi. v. 510; vii. v. 157; viii. v. 210, 551; xi. v. 687, 697, 766; and many others. The judicious Heyne, in his Virgil, thinks this beauty of style, as it is called, very fantaftical, and not intended by either Homer or Virgil, fo often as hath been imagined. These lines are usually cited as fine examples of adapting the found to the fenfe. But that Pope has failed in this endeavour has been clearly demonftrated by the Rambler. "The verse intended to represent the whisper of the vernal breeze must surely be confeffed not much to excel in foftnefs or volubility; and the fmooth stream runs with a perpetual clash of jarring confonants. The IMITATIONS. VER. 366. Soft is the rain, &c.] "Tum fi laeta canunt," "" &c. Vida, Poet. 1. iii. ver. 403. But But when loud furges lafh the founding fhoar, NOTES. The noife and turbulence of the torrent is, indeed, diftin&tly imaged; for it requires very little skill to make our language rough. But in the lines which mention the effort of Ajax, there is no particular heavinefs or delay. The fwiftnefs of Camilla, is rather contrasted than exemplified. Why the verse should be lengthened to exprefs fpeed, will not eafily be discovered. In the dactyls, ufed for that purpose by the ancients, two short fyllables were pronounced with fuch rapidity, as to be equal only to one long; they therefore naturally exhibit the act of paffing through a long space in a short time. But the Alexandrine, by its pause in the midft, is a tardy and ftately measure; and the word unbending, one of the most sluggish and flow which our language affords, cannot much accelerate its motion." Aaron Hill, long before this was published by the Rambler, wrote a letter to Pope, pointing out the many inftances in which he had failed to accommodate the found to the fenfe, in this famous paffage. This rule of making the found an echo to the sense, as well as alliteration, has been carried to a ridiculous extreme by feveral late writers. It is worth obferving, that it is treated of at length, and recommended by Taffo, page 168 of his Difcorfi del Poema Eroico. IMITATIONS. VER.368. But when loud furges, &c.] "Tum longe fale faxa fonant," &c. Vida, Poet. 1. iii. v. 388. VER. 370. When Ajax ftrives, &c.] "Atque ideo fi quid geritur molimine magno," &c. VER. 372. Not fo, when fwift Camilla, &c.] Vida, ib. 417. Vida, ib. 420. Hear Hear how Timotheus' vary'd lays furprize, And bid alternate paflions fall and rife! While at each change, the fon of Libyan Jove Now burns with glory, and then melts with love; 375 Now fighs fteal out, and tears begin to flow: Avoid extremes; and fhun the fault of fuch, That always fhews great pride, or little fenfe: NOTES. 385 390 As VER. 374. Hear how Timotheus, &c.] See Alexander's Feaft, or the Power of Mufic; an Ode by Mr. Dryden. P. "Some of the lines (fays Dr. Johnson) are without correspondent rhymes; a defect which the enthusiasm of the writer might hinder him from perceiving." VER. 391. Fools admire, but men of fense approve :] "This prudish fentence has probably made as many formal coxcombs in literature, as Lord Chesterfield's opinion on the vulgarity of laughter, has among men of high breeding. As a general maxim, it has no foundation whatever in truth. "Proneness to admiration is a quality rather of temper than of understanding; and if it often attends light minds, it is alfo infeparable from that warmth of imagination which is requifite for the ftrong perception of what is excellent in art or nature. Innumerable inftances might be produced of the rapturous admiration As things feem large which we through mifts defcry, Dulness is ever apt to magnify. NOTES. admiration with which men of genius have been ftruck at the view of great performances. It is enough here to mention the poet's favourite critic, Longinus, who is far from being contented with cool approbation, but gives free fcope to the moft enraptured praife. Few things indicate a mind more unfavourably constituted for the fine arts, than a flowness in being moved to the admiration of excellence; and it is certainly better that this paffion fhould at first be excited by objects rather inadequate, than that it should not be excited at all." Thefe are the words of a fenfible obferver on this effay, Dr. Aikin, in Letters to his Son. "What I diflike is, the pedantry of appealing to fpeculative principles in oppofition to the decifions of tafte; and what I defpife is, the ridiculous vanity of attempting to demonftrate, by argument, that men ought to admire, when experience proves that no one does or can admire; and, on the other hand, that men are in the wrong to be pleased, when experience proves that it is impoffible to avoid it. In a word, of all kind of literary affectation, that which is most difgufting is, the affectation of judging in matters of tafte by rule, and not by feeling; and this appears to me the fundamental defect of the work to which I have before alluded; I mean the Elements of Criticifm. Lord Kaims was no lefs remarkable for delicacy of tafte than acuteness of understanding; and he evidently feems to have thought it much below the dignity of a critic to embrace any opinion even in a mere matter of tafte, which was not fupported by fome rule. Where the rule was not already eftablished, therefore, he was obliged to have recourse to his invention, which did not always supply him with fuch as were of the moft fatisfactory kind; and he feems, through the whole of his elaborate work, to entertain much too high an idea of the importance of thofe rules; for he feems to confider them as founded in reafon, and as laws by which tafte ought to be regulated; whereas they are properly founded in taste, and the most judicious and best established rules are really nothing more than the different principles by which experience fhews that the decifions of tafle are governed." Effays Philofophical and Literary. The turn and manner of many passages in our author are much like Dryden's prologues; and particularly the famous prologue and epilogue to All for Love. Some foreign writers, fome our own despise; NOTES. 395 400 VER. 394. Our own defpife;] If any proof was wanting how little the Paradife Loft was read and attended to, at this time, our author's total filence on the subject would be sufficient to shew it. That an Effay on Criticism could be written, without a single mention of Milton, appears truly ftrange and incredible; if we did not know that our author feems to have had no idea of any merit fuperior to that of Dryden! and had no relish for an author, who, "Omnes exflinxit ftellas, exortus uti ætherius fol." Lucret. VER. 395. The Antients only,] A very fenfible Frenchman fays, "En un mot, touchez comme Euripide, etonnez comme Sophocle, peignez comme Homere, & compofez d' apres vous. Ces maitres n'ont point eu de regles; ils n'en ont eté que plus grands; & ils n'ont acquis le droit de commander, que parce qu'ils n'ont jamais obei. Il en eft tout autrement en literature qu'en politique; le talent qui a befoin de fubir des loix, n'en donnera jamais." VER. 402. Which from the firft, &c.] Genius is the fame in all ages; but its fruits are various; and more or lefs excellent as they are checked or matured by the influence of government or religion upon them. Hence in fome parts of literature the Ancients excel; in others, the Moderns; juft as those accidental circumstances occurred. VER. 403. Enlights] An improper word for enlightens. W. Tho' |