Imatges de pàgina
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Will your high wisdoms to our scheme incline,
That kings, queens, heroes, gods, and ghosts may dine?
Olympus shakes !—that omen all secures ;

May every joy you give be ten-fold yours! Garrick.

39.—Awful Description of the Deities engaged in Combat.

BUT when the powers descending swell'd the fight,
Then tumult rose; fierce rage and pale affright
Varied each face; then discord sounds alarms,
Earth echoes, and the nations rush to arms.
Now thro' the trembling shores Minerva calls,
And now she thunders from the Grecian walls.
Mars hov'ring o'er his Troy, his terror shrouds
In gloomy tempests, and a night of clouds:
Now thro' the Trojan heart he fury pours,
With voice divine from Ilion's topmost towers,
Now shouts to Simois, from her beauteous hill;
The mountains shook, the rapid stream stood still.
Above, the sire of gods his thunder rolls,
And peals on peals redoubled rend the poles.
Beneath, stern Neptune shakes the solid ground
The forests wave, the mountains nod around:
Through all their summits tremble Ida's woods,
And from their sources boil her hundred floods.
Troy's turrets totter on the rocking plain,
And the toss'd navies beat the heaving main.
Deep in the dismal regions of the dead,
Th' infernal monarch rear'd his horrid head,

Leap'd from his throne, lest Neptune's arm should lay
His dark dominions open to the day,

And pour in light on Pluto's drear abodes,

Abhorr'd by men, and dreadful even to gods.

Pope's Homer's Iliad.

40.-The Art of Criticism.

Tis hard to say, if greater' want of skill
Appear in writing', or in judging ill;
But, of the two, less' dang'rous is th' offence
To tire' our patience', than mislead' our sense':

Some few' in that', but numbers' err in this';
Ten' censure' wrong, for one' who writes' amiss.
A fool' might once himself' alone expose;
Now one' in verse' makes many more' in prose'.
'Tis with our judgments' as our watches', none
Go just alike', yet each believes his own'.
In Poets' as true Genius' is but rare,

True Taste' as seldom is the Critic's' share:
Both' must alike from Heaven' 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' are partial to their wit', 'tis true;
But are not Critics' to their judgment' too?

Yet, if we look more closely', we shall find
Most have the seeds' of judgment in their mind:
Nature affords at least a glimmering' light;
The lines, tho' touch'd' but faintly, are drawn' right.
But as the slightest sketch, if justly trac❜d,
Is by ill-colouring' but the more disgrac'd',
So by false learning is good-sense' defac'd:
Some are bewilder'd in the maze of schools',
And some made coxcombs' Nature meant for fools'.
In search of wit' these lose their common-sense',
And then turn Critics'/in their own defence'.
All fools have still an itching to deride',
And fain would be upon the laughing' side.
If Mævius scribble' in Apollo's spite,

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`.

41.-Harmony of Expression.

Pope.

But most, by numbers judge a poet's song;
And smooth or rough, with them is right or wrong:
In the bright Muse though thousand charms conspire,
Her voice is all these tuneful fools admire;

Who haunt Parnassus but to please the ear,
Not mend their minds; as some to church repair,
Not 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;
While they ring round the same unvaried chimes,
With sure returns of still-expected rhymes:
Where'er you find " the cooling western breeze,"
In the next line it " whispers through the trees;"
If chrystal streams" with pleasing murmurs creep,"
The reader's threaten'd (not in vain) with "sleep :"
Then, at the last and only couplet, fraught
With some unmeaning thing they call a thought,
A needless Alexandrine ends the song,

That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.

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Leave such to tune their own dull rhymes, and know
What's roundly smooth, or languishingly slow;
And praise the easy vigour of a line,

Where Denham's strength and Waller's sweetness join.
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance;
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.
'Tis not enough no harshness give 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 the unbending corn, and skims along the main.

Pope.

42.-On Man.

LET us (since life can little more sup
Than just to look about us, and to dep
Expatiate free o'er all this scene of Man
A mighty maze! but not without a plag

A wild, where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot;
Or garden, tempting with forbidden fruit.
Together let us beat this ample field,
Try what the open, what the covert yield!
The latent tracts, the giddy heights explore,
Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar;
Eye Nature's walks, shoot Folly as it flies,
And catch the Manners living as they rise;
Laugh where we must, be candid where we can ;
But vindicate the ways of God to Man.
Say first, of God above, or Man below,
What can we reason, but from what we know?
Of Man, what see we but his station here,
From which to reason, or to which refer!

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Thro' worlds unnumber'd tho' the God be known.
'Tis ours to trace him only in our own.
He, who through vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compose one universe,
Observe how system into system runs,
What other planets circle other suns,
What varied Being peoples every star,
May tell why Heaven has made us as we are.
But of this frame the bearings and the ties,
The strong connections, nice dependencies,
Gradations just, has thy pervading soul
Look'd thro'? or can a part contain the whole?
Is the great chain, that draws all to agree,
And drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee?
Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou find,
Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind?
First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,
Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less.
Ask of thy mother Earth, why oaks are made
Taller and stronger than the weeds they shade;
Or ask of yonder argent fields above,
Why Jove's Satellites are less than Jove?

Of systems possible, if 'tis confest
That Wisdom infinite must form the best,
Where all must fall, or not coherent be,
And all that rises, rise in due degree;

Then, in the scale of reasoning life, 'tis plain,
There must be somewhere such a rank as Man:
And all the question (wrangle e'er so long)
Is only this, if God has plac'd him wrong?

Respecting Man, whatever wrong we call
May, must be right, as relative to all.

In human works, though labour'd on with pain,
A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain:
In God's, one single can its end produce;
Yet serves to second too some other use.
So Man, who here seems principal alone,
Perhaps acts second to some spliere unknown,
Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal;
'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.

When the proud steed shall know why man restrains
His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains;
When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod,
Is now a victim, and now Egypt's God;
Then shall Man's pride and dulness comprehend
His actions', passions', being's use and end;
Why doing, suff'ring, check'd, impell'd; and why
This hour a slave, the next a deity.

Then say not Man's imperfect, Heaven in fault;
Say rather, Man's as perfect as he ought;
His knowledge measur❜d to his state and place;
His time a moment, and a point his space.

43.-Universal Order.

Pope.

ALL are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;
That, chang'd thro' all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame;
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees;
Lives through all life, extends through all extent;
Spreads undivided, operates unspent;
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;

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