Thus in the soul while memory prevails,
The solid pow'r of understanding fails;
Where beams of warm imagination play,
The memory's soft figures melt away.
One science only will one genius fit;
So vast is art, so narrow human wit:
Not only bounded to peculiar arts,

But oft in those confin'd to single parts.
Like kings we lose the conquests gain'd before,
By vain ambition still to make them more:
Each might his sev'ral province well command,
Would all but stoop to what they understand.

First follow Nature, and your judgment frame
By her just standard, which is still the same:
Unerring NATURE, still divinely bright,
One clear, unchang'd, and universal light,
Life, force, and beauty must to all impart,
At once the source, and end, and test of Art.
Art from that fund each just supply provides,
Works without show, and without pomp presides:
In some fair body thus th' informing soul
With spirits feeds, with vigour fills the whole.;
Each motion guides, and ev'ry nerve sustains,
Itself unseen, but in th' effects remains.
Some, to whom Heav'n in wit has been profuse,
Want as much more to turn it to its use;
For wit and judgment often are at strife,

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Tho' meant each other's aid, like man and wife.
'Tis more to guide than spur the Muse's steed,
Restrain his fury than provoke his speed:
The winged courser, like a gen'rous horse,

Shows most true mettle when you check his course.
Those RULES of old, discover'd, not devis'd,

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Are Nature still, but Nature methodiz'd:
Nature, like liberty, is but restrain'd

By the same laws which first herself ordain'd.
Hear how learn'd Greece her useful rules indites,
When to repress and when indulge our flights:
High on Parnassus' top her sons she show'd,
And pointed out those arduous paths they trod;
Held from afar, aloft, th' immortal prize,

And urg'd the rest by equal steps to rise.
Just precepts thus from great examples giv'n,

She drew from them what they deriv'd from Heav'n.
The gen'rous Critic fann'd the Poet's fire,
And taught the world with reason to admire.
Then Criticism the Muse's handmaid prov'd,

To dress her charms, and make her more belov'd:
But following wits from that intention stray'd;
Who could not win the mistress, woo'd the maid;
Against the Poets their own arms they turn'd,
Sure to hate most the men from whom they learn'd.
So modern 'Pothecaries, taught the art
By Doctors' bills to play the Doctor's part,
Bold in the practice of mistaken rules,

Prescribe, apply, and call their masters fools.
Some on the leaves of ancient authors prey;
Nor time nor moths e'er spoil'd so much as they:
Some drily plain, without invention's aid,

Write dull receipts how poems may be made;

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These leave the sense, their learning to display,

And those explain the meaning quite away.,

You then whose judgment the right course would steer, Know well each ANCIENT'S proper character;

His fable subject, scope in ev'rý page;

Religion, Country, genius of his Age:

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Without all these at once before your eyes,
Cavil you may, but never criticize.

Be Homer's works your study and delight,

Read them by day, and meditate by night;

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Thence form your judgment, thence your maxims bring,
And trace the Muses upward to their spring.
Still with itself compar'd, his text peruse;
And let your comment be the Mantuan Muse.
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,

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And but from Nature's fountains scorn'd to draw:
But when t' examine every part he came,

Nature and Homer were, he found, the same.
Convinc'd, amaz'd, he checks the bold design,
And rules as strict his labour'd work confine,
As if the Stagirite o'erlook'd each line.
Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem;
To copy Nature is to copy them.

Some beauties yet no Precepts can declare,
For there's a happiness as well as care.
Music resembles Poetry; in each

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Are nameless graces which no methods teach,

And which a master-hand alone can reach.

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If, where the rules not far enough extend,

(Since rules were made but to promote their end) Some lucky Licence answer to the full

Th' intent propos'd, that Licence is a rule.
Thus Pegasus, a nearer way to take,
May boldly deviate from the common track.
Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend, ·
And rise to faults true Critics dare not mend;
From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part,

W. P. E.

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And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art,
Which, without passing thro' the judgment, gains
The heart, and all its end at once attains.
In prospects thus, some objects please our eyes,
Which out of nature's common order rise,
The shapeless rock, or hanging precipice.
But though the Ancients thus their rules invade,
(As Kings dispense with laws themselves have made)
Moderns, beware! or if you must offend
Against the precept, ne'er transgress its End;
Let it be seldom, and compell'd by need;

our

And have, at least, their precedent to plead ;
The Critic else proceeds without remorse,
Seizes your fame, and puts his laws in force. ✔

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I know there are to whose presumptuous thoughts
Those freer beauties, ev'n in them, seem faults.
Some figures monstrous and misshap'd appear,
Consider'd singly, or beheld too near,

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Which, but proportion'd to their light or place,

Due distance reconciles to form and grace.

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A prudent chief not always must display
His pow'rs in equal ranks and fair array,
But with th' occasion and the place comply,
Conceal his force, nay, seem sometimes to fly.
Those oft are stratagems which errors seem,
Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream.

Still green with bays each ancient Altar stands,
Above the reach of sacrilegious hands;
Secure from Flames, from Envy's fiercer rage,
Destructive War, and all-involving Age.

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See, from each clime the learn'd their incense bring! 185 Hear, in all tongues consenting Pæans ring!

In praise so just let ev'ry voice be join'd,

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And fill the gen'ral chorus of mankind、
Hail, Bards triumphant! born in happier days,
Immortal heirs of universal praise!

Whose honours with increase of ages grow,
As streams roll down, enlarging as they flow;
Nations unborn your mighty names shall sound,
And worlds applaud that must not yet be found!
Oh may some spark of your celestial fire
The last, the meanest of your sons inspire,
(That on weak wings, from far, pursues your flights,
Glows while he reads, but trembles as he writes)
To teach vain Wits a science little known,
T'admire superior sense, and doubt their own!

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II.

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.
Whatever nature has in worth denied,

She gives in large recruits of needful pride;
For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find

What wants in blood and spirits swell'd with wind:

Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence,

And fills up all the mighty Void of sense:

If once right reason drives that cloud away,
Truth breaks upon us with resistless day.
Trust not yourself; but your defects to know,
Make use of ev'ry friend--and ev'ry foe.

A little learning is a dang'rous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

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