An Essay on Criticism by Alexander Pope (best ereader for pdf txt) 📕

offense,

The sound must seem an echo to the sense.

Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, [366]

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 labors, and the words move slow;

Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flies o’er the unbending corn, and skims along the main. [373]

Hear how Timotheus’ varied lays surprise, [374]

And bid alternate passions fall and rise!

While, at each change, the son of Libyan Jove [376]

Now burns with glory, and then melts with love;

Now his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow,

Now sighs steal out, and tears begin to flow:

Persians and Greeks like turns of nature found,

And the world’s victor stood subdued by sound? [381]

The power of music all our hearts allow,

And what Timotheus was, is Dryden now.

 

Avoid extremes, and shun the fault of such,

Who still are pleased too little or too much.

At every trifle scorn to take offense,

That always shows great pride, or little sense:

Those heads, as stomachs, are not sure the best,

Which nauseate all, and nothing can digest.

Yet let not each gay turn thy rapture move;

For fools admire, but men of sense approve:

As things seem large which we through mist descry,

Dullness is ever apt to magnify. [393]

 

Some foreign writers, some our own despise,

The ancients only, or the moderns prize.

Thus wit, like faith, by each man is applied

To one small sect, and all are damned beside.

Meanly they seek the blessing to confine,

And force that sun but on a part to shine,

Which not alone the southern wit sublimes,

But ripens spirits in cold northern climes.

Which from the first has shone on ages past,

Enlights the present, and shall warm the last,

Though each may feel increases and decays,

And see now clearer and now darker days.

Regard not then if wit be old or new,

But blame the false, and value still the true.

 

Some ne’er advance a judgment of their own,

But catch the spreading notion of the town,

They reason and conclude by precedent,

And own stale nonsense which they ne’er invent.

Some judge of authors names not works, and then

Nor praise nor blame the writing, but the men.

Of all this servile herd the worst is he

That in proud dullness joins with quality

A constant critic at the great man’s board,

To fetch and carry nonsense for my lord

What woful stuff this madrigal would be,

In some starved hackney sonnetteer, or me!

But let a lord once own the happy lines,

How the wit brightens! how the style refines!

Before his sacred name flies every fault,

And each exalted stanza teems with thought!

 

The vulgar thus through imitation err;

As oft the learned by being singular.

So much they scorn the crowd that if the throng

By chance go right they purposely go wrong:

So schismatics the plain believers quit,

And are but damned for having too much wit.

Some praise at morning what they blame at night,

But always think the last opinion right.

A muse by these is like a mistress used,

This hour she’s idolized, the next abused;

While their weak heads, like towns unfortified,

‘Twixt sense and nonsense daily change their side.

Ask them the cause, they’re wiser still they say;

And still to-morrow’s wiser than to-day.

We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow;

Our wiser sons, no doubt, will think us so.

Once school-divines this zealous isle o’erspread.

Who knew most sentences was deepest read, [441]

Faith, Gospel, all, seemed made to be disputed,

And none had sense enough to be confuted:

Scotists and Thomists now in peace remain, [444]

Amidst their kindred cobwebs in Duck Lane. [445]

If faith itself has different dresses worn,

What wonder modes in wit should take their turn?

Oft, leaving what is natural and fit,

The current folly proves the ready wit;

And authors think their reputation safe,

Which lives as long as fools are pleased to laugh.

 

Some valuing those of their own side or mind,

Still make themselves the measure of mankind:

Fondly we think we honor merit then,

When we but praise ourselves in other men.

Parties in wit attend on those of state,

And public faction doubles private hate.

Pride, malice, folly against Dryden rose,

In various shapes of parsons, critics, beaux; [459]

But sense survived, when merry jests were past;

For rising merit will buoy up at last.

Might he return, and bless once more our eyes,

New Blackmores and new Millbourns must arise: [463]

Nay, should great Homer lift his awful head,

Zoilus again would start up from the dead [465]

Envy will merit, as its shade, pursue,

But like a shadow, proves the substance true:

For envied wit, like Sol eclipsed, makes known

The opposing body’s grossness, not its own.

When first that sun too powerful beams displays,

It draws up vapors which obscure its rays,

But even those clouds at last adorn its way

Reflect new glories and augment the day

 

Be thou the first true merit to befriend

His praise is lost who stays till all commend

Short is the date alas! of modern rhymes

And ‘tis but just to let them live betimes

No longer now that golden age appears

When patriarch wits survived a thousand years [479]

Now length of fame (our second life) is lost

And bare threescore is all even that can boast,

Our sons their fathers failing language see

And such as Chaucer is shall Dryden be

So when the faithful pencil has designed

Some bright idea of the master’s mind

Where a new world leaps out at his command

And ready nature waits upon his hand

When the ripe colors soften and unite

And sweetly melt into just shade and light

When mellowing years their full perfection give

And each bold figure just begins to live

The treacherous colors the fair art betray

And all the bright creation fades away!

 

Unhappy wit, like most mistaken things

Atones not for that envy which it brings

In youth alone its empty praise we boast

But soon the short lived vanity is lost.

Like some fair flower the early spring supplies

That gayly blooms but even in blooming dies

What is this wit, which must our cares employ?

The owner’s wife that other men enjoy

Then most our trouble still when most admired

And still the more we give the more required

Whose fame with pains we guard, but lose with ease,

Sure some to vex, but never all to please,

‘Tis what the vicious fear, the virtuous shun,

By fools ‘tis hated, and by knaves undone!

 

If wit so much from ignorance undergo,

Ah! let not learning too commence its foe!

Of old, those met rewards who could excel,

And such were praised who but endeavored well:

Though triumphs were to generals only due,

Crowns were reserved to grace the soldiers too.

Now they who reach Parnassus’ lofty crown,

Employ their pains to spurn some others down;

And, while self-love each jealous writer rules,

Contending wits become the sport of fools:

But still the worst with most regret commend,

For each ill author is as bad a friend

To what base ends, and by what abject ways,

Are mortals urged, through sacred lust of praise!

Ah, ne’er so dire a thirst of glory boast,

Nor in the critic let the man be lost

Good-nature and good sense must ever join;

To err is human, to forgive, divine.

 

But if in noble minds some dregs remain,

Not yet purged off, of spleen and sour disdain;

Discharge that rage on more provoking crimes,

Nor fear a dearth in these flagitious times.

No pardon vile obscenity should find,

Though wit and art conspire to move your mind;

But dullness with obscenity must prove

As shameful sure as impotence in love.

In the fat age of pleasure, wealth, and ease,

Sprung the rank weed, and thrived with large increase:

When love was all an easy monarch’s care, [536]

Seldom at council, never in a war

Jilts ruled the state, and statesmen farces writ;

Nay, wits had pensions, and young lords had wit:

The fair sat panting at a courtier’s play,

And not a mask went unimproved away: [541]

The modest fan was lifted up no more,

And virgins smiled at what they blushed before.

The following license of a foreign reign, [544]

Did all the dregs of bold Socinus drain, [545]

Then unbelieving priests reformed the nation.

And taught more pleasant methods of salvation;

Where Heaven’s free subjects might their rights dispute,

Lest God himself should seem too absolute:

Pulpits their sacred satire learned to spare,

And vice admired to find a flatterer there!

Encouraged thus, wit’s Titans braved the skies, [552]

And the press groaned with licensed blasphemies.

These monsters, critics! with your darts engage,

Here point your thunder, and exhaust your rage!

Yet shun their fault, who, scandalously nice,

Will needs mistake an author into vice;

All seems infected that the infected spy,

As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.

 

*

 

PART III.

 

Learn, then, what morals critics ought to show,

For ‘tis but half a judge’s task to know.

‘Tis not enough, taste, judgment, learning, join;

In all you speak, let truth and candor shine:

That not alone what to your sense is due

All may allow, but seek your friendship too.

 

Be silent always, when you doubt your sense;

And speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence:

Some positive persisting fops we know,

Who, if once wrong will needs be always so;

But you, with pleasure, own your errors past,

And make each day a critique on the last.

 

‘Tis not enough your counsel still be true;

Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do;

Men must be taught as if you taught them not,

And things unknown proposed as things forgot.

Without good breeding truth is disapproved;

That only makes superior sense beloved.

 

Be niggards of advice on no pretense;

For the worst avarice is that of sense

With mean complacence, ne’er betray your trust,

Nor be so civil as to prove unjust

Fear not the anger of the wise to raise,

Those best can bear reproof who merit praise.

 

‘Twere well might critics still this freedom take,

But Appius reddens at each word you speak, [585]

And stares, tremendous with a threatening eye,

Like some fierce tyrant in old tapestry

Fear most to tax an honorable fool

Whose right it is uncensured to be dull

Such, without wit are poets when they please,

As without learning they can take degrees

Leave dangerous truths to unsuccessful satires,

And flattery to fulsome dedicators

Whom, when they praise, the world believes no more,

Than when they promise to give scribbling o’er.

 

‘Tis best sometimes your censure to restrain,

And charitably let the dull be vain

Your silence there is better than your spite,

For who can rail so long as they can write?

Still humming on, their drowsy course they keep,

And lashed so long like tops are lashed asleep.

False steps but help them to renew the race,

As after stumbling, jades will mend their pace.

What crowds of these, impenitently bold,

In sounds and jingling syllables grown old,

Still run on poets in a raging vein,

Even to the dregs and squeezing of the brain;

Strain out the last dull droppings of their sense,

And rhyme with all the rage of impotence!

 

Such shameless bards we have, and yet, ‘tis true,

There are as mad abandoned critics, too

The bookful blockhead ignorantly read,

With loads of learned lumber in his head,

With his own tongue still edifies his ears,

And