"another's: maxims are drawn from notions, "and (') thofe from guess." "What shall we fay of this paffage ?---Why "that it is moft excellent fenfe, but juft as poeti"cal as the qui fit Maecenas of the author who recommends this method of trial. Take ten "lines of the Iliad, Paradife Loft, or even of "the Georgics of Virgil, and fee whether, by 1 any procefs of critical chemistry, you can "lower and reduce them to the tameness of profe. You will find that they will appear "like Ulyffes in his disguise of rags, ftill a "hero, though lodged in the cottage of the "herdfman Eumaeus." Though nothing, perhaps, could display a ftronger proof of prejudice, than this method of determining the nature of Mr.POPE's poetical Genius; yet I would by no means be thought to impute the want of candor to the critic, being (1) The copulative is not in the Epistle. I am far from fufpecting the writer of any invidious intention, to pervert and falfify Mr. POPE's writing, in order to establish a judgment injurious to his reputation: at the fame time I muft obferve, that in the inftances pointed out in the foregoing notes, he has been guilty of unpardonable inattention, to say no more. The reader will perceive, that inftead of inverting and tranfpofing, he has taken the liberty of adding to and altering the Poet's expreffions; which was not neceffary in order to make profe of it: And there never yet was a poem penned which might not be rendered flat and profais, by fuch unjust and injurious liberties. fenfible fenfible that when the mind has once haftily. adopted an opinion, it is too apt to feize those particulars only which favour its rafh conclufion, and to be unmindful of every circumstance, which may tend to remove the first impreffion. It is obfervable, that the inftance here felected to fhew that Mr. POPE had not the true poetical fpirit, is taken from the opening of his Epiftle on the Characters of Men: and, perhaps, its being the opening, might alone have afforded a reafon against its being fingled out to prove, what the critic would endeavour to infer from it. For the poetical fpirit, the vivida vis is not to be expected, nay, perhaps, ought not to be confpicuous, in the very outfet of a poem, more efpecially of a familiar epiftle. What farther proves the partiality of this examination, is the critic's challenging a comparison between a familiar epiftle of this kind, and the two moft finished epic pieces, perhaps, extant in any language. Surely, unlefs Mr. POPE meant to have defcended to burlefque, it would have been very prepofterous to have imitated in this epiftle, the folemnity and dignity of the epopeia. Our poet had tranfgreffed common fenfe and decorum, had he difplayed all that acer fpiritus ac vis, of which our critic is fo fond, in an epiftle intended to reprefent the ftile of familiar converfation. At the fame time, our critic takes no notice of a thousand paffages in the Effay ont Man, Man, and in the Ethic Epiftles, &c. which, transpose and invert them as you will, breathe nothing but poetic fire and fublimity. Nay, he has paid the fame inattention to numerous paffages in these very Imitations. It would feem as if he thought that the true poet, was to write nothing but what bore the stamp of poetic fury and inspiration: And that our critic inherited the fublime tafte of Martinus Scriblerus, who required every thing to be in the bufkin or florid ftile. So when the unpoetical POPE fays "Shut, shut the door, good John— Martinus the critic, would have had him say→→ "The wooden guardian of our privacy "Quick on it's axle turn Again, when POPE fays "Tye up the knocker. Martin would with the expreffion altered thus- Gag my loud-tongued gate." To be more serious, however, it may be obferved, that it is by no means just to try and determine our poet's merit, by a single inftance, thus partially felected; and opposed to some of the most celebrated poems now extant. It may be added, that there cannot be á ftronger inftance of a blind veneration for thefe admired pieces, than the bold challenge which the effayift has given, and which we need not decline accepting. There is fo little neceffity, however, of being induftrious in the choice of ten lines from the eminent bards he mentions, that I will do what the critic has done by Mr. POPE; I will take the first ten lines from the beginning of each, and will try the effects of what he calls critical chemistry, by throwing them out of their metrical order,and firft on the Meonian bard. Θεὰ ἄειδε οὐλεμενεν μηνιν πηληΐαδεω Αχιλῆς ἢ ἔθηκε μυρί ἀλγε' Αχαιοῖς δ ̓ προΐαψεν πολλὰς ἰφθίμες ψυχὰς ἀιδί, δ' τεῦχε αὐτὸς ἑλωρια Κυνέσσιν, τε πᾶσι εἰωνοῖσι, δ' βελή διός ἐτελέιτο εξ = δη τὰ πρῶτα Ατρείδης τε άναξ ανδρών και δια Αχιλλεύς ἐρίσαντε διασήτην. Τίς τ' ἂρ θεῶν ξυνέηκε σφῶε μάχεσθαι ἔριδι; υἱος Διὸς καὶ Λητᾶς, ὁ γὰρ χολωθεὶς βασιλῆι ἄρσε κακήν νέσον ανά σρατὸν. αρ Let us now make the fame experiment on the Mantuan Mufe. "Maecenas incipiam canere hinc quid faciat * alias fegetes: quo fidere conveniat vertere terram, et adjungere vites ulmis; quae fit cura "bovum, qui cultis pecori habendo, atque quanta experientia parcis apibus. Vos Liber et alma « Ceres, Ο clarifima lumina mundi, quae ducitis "annum labentem coelo; fi tellus mutavit cho«niam glandem pingni Arifta, et mifcuit Ache "loia pocula inventis uvis veftro munere et vos "Fauni praefentia numina agreftum, ferte, &'c." Laftly, let us fee how the great Milton will sustain this trial by inversion. "Heavenly mufe, that on the fecret top of "Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire that shepherd, "who first taught the chofen feed, how the heaven "and the earth in the beginning rofe out of "chaos, fing of man's firft difobedience, and "the fruit of that forbidden tree, whofe mortal "taste brought all our woe, and death into the "world, with lofs of Eden; till one greater 66 man reftore us, and regain the blifsful feat." We are so far, in any of the foregoing inftances, from difcovering the appearance of any hero in his difguife of rags, that they rather prefent to us the image of a peafant, firutting in regal purple and perhaps it is not too much to fay, that they are inferior in fpirit and dignity to Mr. POPE'S *. Never *Too many, it is to be feared, are apt to suppose, that high founding words conftitute the force and fublimity of poetical expreffion: and Horace himself does not feem exempt from this kind of mistake. His authority, indeed, has been so firmly established, that It may feem prefumption now to call it in queftion. Nevertheless, the inftance by which Horace illuftrates his own rules, is not, perhaps, the most happily chofen. In the paffage of the fatire alluded to, where he recommends the Ff2 experi |
