Moral Essays continued.]

Rise, honest muse! and sing The Man of Ross.

Epistle iii. Line 250.

Epistle iii. Line 282.

Ye little stars! hide your diminish'd rays.1

Who builds a church to God, and not to fame, Will never mark the marble with his name. Epistle iii. Line 285.

In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung.
Epistle iii. Line 299.

Where London's column, pointing at the skies,
Like a tall bully, lifts the head and lies.
Epistle iii. Line 339.

Good sense, which only is the gift of Heaven,
And though no science, fairly worth the seven.
Epistle iv. Line 43.

To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite,

Who never mentions hell to ears polite.2

Epistle iv. Line 149.

Statesman, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere,
In action faithful, and in honour clear;
Who broke no promise, serv'd no private end,
Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend.

Epistle to Mr. Addison, Line 67.

1 See Milton, Par. Lost, Book iv. Line 34.

2 In the reign of Charles II. a certain worthy divine at Whitehall thus addressed himself to the auditory at the conclusion of his sermon :- "In short, if you don't live up to the precepts of the Gospel, but abandon yourselves to your irregular appetites, you must expect to receive your reward in a certain place which 't is not good manners to mention here." - Tom Brown, Laconics.

AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM.

'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none Go just alike, yet each believes his own.1

Parti. Line 9.

One Science only will one genius fit;
So vast is art, so narrow human wit.

Parti. Line 60.

From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part, And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art. Part i. Line 152.

Of all the causes which conspire to blind Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind, What the weak head with strongest bias rules, Is pride, the never failing vice of fools.

Part ii. Line 1.

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.2

Hills

Part ii. Line 15.

peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise! Part ii. Line 32.

1 But as when an authentic watch is shown, Each man winds up and rectifies his own, So in our very judgments, &c.

Suckling, Epilogue to Aglaura.

2 Compare Bacon, Essay xvi. Atheism.

Essay on Criticism continued.]

Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,

Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.1

Part ii. Line 53.

True wit is nature to advantage dress'd,

What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd. Part ii. Line 97.

Words are like leaves; and where they most abound,

Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found. Part ii. Line 109.

Such labour'd nothings, in so strange a style, Amaze th' unlearn'd, and make the learned smile. Part ii. Line 126.

In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold,
Alike fantastic if too new or old :

Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

Part ii. Line 133.

Some to church repair,

Nor for the doctrine, but the music there.
These equal syllables alone require,
Though oft the ear the open vowels tire,
While expletives their feeble aid do join,
And ten low words oft creep in one dull line.
Part ii. Line 142.

1 "High characters," cries one, and he would see
Things that ne'er were, nor are, nor e'er will be.
Suckling, Epilogue to The Goblin.
There's no such thing in nature, and you 'll draw
A faultless monster, which the world ne'er saw.

Sheffield, Essay on Poetry.

[Essay on Criticism continued.

A needless Alexandrine ends the song,
That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length
Part ii. Line 156.

along.1

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence;
The sound must seem an echo to the sense.
Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers

flows;

But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent

roar.

When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,

The line too labours, and the words move slow; Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along

the main.

Part ii. Line 162.

For fools admire, but men of sense approve.

Part ii. Line 191.

But let a lord once own the happy lines,

How the wit brightens! how the style refines!

Part ii. Line 220.

Envy will merit as its shade pursue,

But, like a shadow, proves the substance true.

Part ii. Line 266.

1 Solvuntur, tardosque trahit sinus ultimus orbes.

Virgil, Georgics, Lib. iii. 424.

Essay on Criticism continued.]
To err is human, to forgive divine.

Part ii. Line 325.

All seems infected that th' infected spy,
As all looks yellow to the jaundic'd eye.

Part ii. Line 358.

And make each day a critic on the last.

Part iii. Line 12.

Men must be taught as if you taught them not,
And things unknown propos'd as things forgot.
Part iii. Line 15.

The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,
With loads of learned lumber in his head.

1 That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch. Shakespeare, Richard III., Act i. Sc. 3.

2 "Indocti discant et ament meminisse periti."

This Latin hexameter, which is commonly ascribed to Horace, appeared for the first time as an epigraph to President Hénault's Abrégé Chronologique, and in the preface to the third edition of this work, Hénault acknowledges that he had given it as a translation of this couplet.