Blest with a taste exact, yet unconfin'd, POPE. Criticism. 'Tis hard to say if greater want of skill True taste as seldom is the critics' share, Both must alike from heav'n derive their light, These born to judge, as well as those to write. Let such teach others who themselves excel, And censure freely who have written well. Authors Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true, Yet, if we look more closely, we shall find Most have the seeds of judgment in their mind :: Nature affords at least a glimm'ring light; The lines, tho' touch'd but faintly, are drawn right. But as the slightest sketch, if justly trac'd,. And some made coxcombs Nature meant but fools. In search of wit these lose their common sense, - And fain would be upon the laughing side. There are who judge still worse than he can write. Some have at first for wits, then poets past, Turn'd critics next, and prov'd plain fools at last. Some neither can for wits nor critics pass, As heavy mules are neither horse nor ass. Those Those half-learn'd witlings, num'rous in our isle, To tell 'em, would a hundred tongues require, POPE. False Greatness. Milo, forbear to call him blest, Should all the treasures of the west Meet, and conspire to make him great. Let a broad stream with golden sands He's but a wretch with all his lands Were I so tall to reach the pole, Or grasp the ocean with my span, I must be measured by my soul: The mind's the standard of the man! WATTS. Homer. BE Homer's works your study and delight, Read them by day, and meditate by night; Thence form your judgment, thence your maxims bring, And trace the muses upward to their spring. When first young Maro in his boundless mind A work t'outlast immortal Rome design'd, Perhaps he seem'd above the critic's law, And but from Nature's fountains scorn'd to draw: But when t'examine ev'ry part he came, Nature and Homer were, he found, the same. POPE. Horace. HORACE still charms with graceful negligence, The truest notions in the easiest way. He, He, who supreme in judgment as in wit, Human Acquisitions. HONOUR and shame from no condition rise; 66 What differ more (you cry) than crown and I'll tell you, friend! a wise man and a fool. Stuck o'er with titles and hung round with strings, That thou may'st be by kings, or whores of kings, Boast the pure blood of an illustrious race, In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece : But, |