The Works of the English Poets: Pope

Thus let me live, unfeen, unknown,

Thus unlamented let me die,

Steal from the world, and not a stone

Tell where I lie.

O D E.

THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL.

VITAL fpark of heavenly flame!

Quit, oh quit this mortal frame :
Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying,
Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!
Ceafe, fond Nature, cease thy ftrife,
And let me languish into life.

II.

Hark! they whisper; Angels fay,
Sifter Spirit, come away.
What is this abforbs me quite?

Steals my fenfes, fhuts my fight,
Drowns my fpirits, draws my breath?
Tell me, my Soul, can this be Death?

III.

The world recedes; it disappears!

ΤΟ

Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears

With founds feraphic ring:

Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!

O Grave! where is thy Victory?

O Death! where is thy Sting?

ΑΝ

ESSA Y

CRITICIS

Written in the Year M DCCIX*.

"Si quid novifti rectius iftis,

"Candidus imperti; fi non, his utere mecum."

HOR.

*Mr. Pope told me himself, that the "Effay on "Criticifm" was indeed written in 1707, though said 1709 by mistake, J. RICHARDSON.

the

THE Poem is in one book, but divided into three principal parts or members. The firft [to ver. 201.] gives rules for the Study of the Art of Criticism; fecond [from thence to ver. 560.] expofes the Caufes of wrong Judgment; and the third [from thence to the end] marks out the Morals of the Critic. When the Reader hath well confidered the whole, and hath obferved the regularity of the plan, the masterly conduct of the feveral parts, the penetration into Nature, and the compass of learning fo confpicuous throughout, he should then be told that it was the work of an Author who had not attained the twentieth year of his age. A very learned Critic has fhewn, that Ho

race had the fame attention to method in his Art of

Poetry.

со

CONTENTS

OF THE

ESSAY ON CRITICISM,

PART I.

NTRODUCTION. That 'tis as great a fault to judge
ill, as to write ill, and a more dangerous one to the

public, ver. 1.

That a true Tafte is as rare to be found as a true Ge-

nius, ver: 9 to 18.

That most men are born with fome Tafte, but spoil'd