What oft was thought, but ne'er fo well exprefs'd,
Something, whofe truth convinc'd at fight we find,
That gives us back the image of our mind.
As fhades more fweetly recommend the light,
So modeft plainnefs fets off fprightly wit.

300

For works may have more wit than does 'em good, As bodies perifh thro' excess of blood.

Others for Language all their care exprefs, And value books, as women men, for Drefs:

COMMENTARY.

305

VER. 305. Others of Language, etc.) He proceeds fecondly to thofe narrow-minded Critics, whofe Whole concern turns upon Language, and shews from 304 to 337.) that this quality, where it holds the principal place, deferves no commendation. 1. Becaufe it excludes qualities more effential. And when the abounding Verbiage has excluded the fenfe, the writer has nothing to do but to gild over the defect, by giving his words all the falfe colorring in his power. 2. He fhews, that the Critic who bufies, himfelf with quality alone, is altogether unable to make a right Judgment of it; because true Expreffion is only the dress of thought; and fo must be perpetually varied according to the fubject, and manner of thinking. But thofe who never concern themselves with the Senfe, can form no judgment of the correfpondence between that and the Language:

Expreffion is the drefs of thought, and ftill

Appears more decent as more fuitable, etc.

Now as thefe Critics are ignorant of this correspondence, their whole judgment in Language is reduced to the examination of fingle words; and often, fuch as are most to his tafte, are thofe that fmack moft of Antiquity: On which our Author has there fore beftowed a little railiery; coocluding with a fhort and proper direction concerning the #fe of words, fo far as regards their apvelty and ancientry,

NOTES.

Y

fure it plays no tricks with us: For this image is the creature of Judgment; and whenever wit correfponds with Judgment, we may fafely pronounce it to be true.

,,Naturam intueamur, hanc fequamur: id facillime accipiunt ,animi quod agnofcunt.,, Quintil. lib. viii. c. 3.

Their praise is ftill, the Style is excellent:
The Senfe, they humbly take upon content.

310

Words are like leaves; and where they most abound,
Much fruit of fenfe beneath is rarely found.
False eloquence, like the prifinatic glass,
Its gaudy colours fpreads on ev'ry place;
The face of Nature we no more furvey,

All glares alike, without diftinction gay:

320

But true Expreffion, like th' unchanging Sun, 315
Clears and improves whate'er it fhines upon,
It gilds all objects, but it alters none.
Expreffion is the drefs of thought, and still
Appears more decent, as more fuitable;
A vile conceit in pompous words exprefs'd
Is like a clown in regal purple dress'd:'
For diff'rent ftyles with diff'rent fubjects fort,
As feveral garbs with country, town, and court
Some by old words to fame have inade pretence,
Ancients in phrafe, meer moderns in their fenfe;
Such labour'd nothings, in fo ftrange a ftyle, 326

NOTES.

VER. 311. Falfe eloquence, like the prifmatic glass, etc.) This fimile is beautiful. For the falfe colouring, given to obiects by the prifmatic glass, is owing to its untwifing, by its obliquities, those threads of light, which Nature had put together in order to spread over its works an ingenious and fimple candour, that fhould not hide, but only heighten the native complexion of the objects. And false Eloquence is nothing else but the straining and divaricating the parts of true expreffion, and then daubing them over with what the Rhetoricians very properly term COLOURS; in lieu of that candid light, now loft, which was reflected from them in their natural ftate while fincere and entire.

VER. 324.

Some by old words, etc.) ,,Abolita & abrogata ,,retinere, infolentiæ cujusdam eft, & frivolæ in parvis jactantiæ.,, Quintil. lib.i. c.6.

Amaze th' unlearn'd, and make the learned fmile.
Unlucky, as Fungofo in the Play,

These fparks with aukward vanity display
What the fine gentleman wore yesterday;
And but fo mimic ancient wits at beft,

As apes our grandfires, in their doublers dreft.
In words, as fashions, the fame rule will hold;
Alike fantaftic, if too new or old:

330

Be not the first by whom the new are try'd, 335 Nor yet the laft to lay the old aside.

But moft by Numbers judge a Poet's fong;

And smooth or rough, with them, is right or wrong:

COMMENTARY.

VER. 337. But most by Numbers judge, etc.) The last fort are thofe (from v 336 to 384.) whofe ears are attached only to the Harmony of a poem, Of which they judge aspignorantly and as perverfely as the other fort did of Eloquence; and for the very fame reafon. He first defcribes that falfe Harmony with which they are fo much captivated; and fhews, that is wretchedly flat and

anvaried: For

Smooth or rough with them is right or wrong. He then defcribes the true. 1. As it is in itself, conftant; with a happy mixture of firength and sweetness, in contradiction to the roughness and flatness of falfe Harmony: And 2. as it is varied in compliance to the subject, where the found becomes an echo to the Jenfe, fo far as is confiftent with the prefervation of numbers; in contradiction to the monotony of falfe Harmony: Of this he gives us, in the delivery of his precepts, four fine examples of smooth

NOTES.

Opus eft, ut verba a vetuftate repetita neque crebra fint neque ,,manifefta, quia nil eft odiofius affectatione, nec utique ab ultimis

,,repetita temporibus. Oratio cujus fumma virtus eft perfpicuitas,

,,quam fit vitiofa, fi egeat interprete ? Ergo ut novorum optima ,,erunt maxime vetera, ita veterum maxime nova.,, Idem.

VER. 328.

unlucky as Fungofo, etc.)

Every Man in his humour.

VER. 337. But moft by numbers, etc.)

See Ben Johnson's

340

In the bright Mufe tho' thousand charms confpire,
Her Voice is all these tuneful fools admire;
Who haunt Parnaffus but to please their ear,
Not mend their minds; as fome to Church repair"
Not for the doctrine but the mufic there.
Thefe equal fyllables alone require,

Tho' oft the ear the open vowels tire;

While expletives their feeble aid do join;

345

And ten low words oft creep in one dull line: While they ring round the fame unvary'd chimes,

COMMENTRAY.

ness, roughness, flowness, and rapidity. The firft ufe of this correspondence of the found to the fenfe, is to aid the fancy in acquiring a perfecter and more lively image of the thing reprefented. A fecond and nobler, is to calm and fubdue the turbulent and selfish passions, and to raise and warm the beneficient: Which he illuftrates in the famous adventure of Timotheus and Alexander & where in referring to Mr. Dryden's Ode on that fubject, he turns it to a high compliment on that great poet.

NOTES.

Quis populi fermo eft? quis enim? nifi carmina molli
Nunc demum numero fuere, ut per læve feveros
Effundat jun&tura ungues: fcit tendere versum
Non fecus ac fi oculo rubricam dirigat uno.

Perf. Sat, i.

VER. 345. Tho' of the ear, etc.) Fugiemus crebras vocalium ,,concurfiones, quæ vaftam atque hiantem orationem reddunt, Cic. ad Heren. lib. iv. Vide ctiam Quint. lib. ix. c. 4.

IMITATIONS.

VER. 346. While expletives their feeble aid to join, And ten low words oft creep in one dull line :) From Dryden. He creeps along with ten little words in every line, and helps out his numbers with (for) (to) and (unto) and all the pretty expletives he can find, while the fenfe is left ,,half tired behind it.,, Effay en Dram Poetry.

HS

With fure returns of ftill expected rhymes;
Where'er you find "the cooling western breeze.”
In the next line, it " whispers thro' the trees:"
If crystal ftreams" with pleafing murmurs creep,"
The reader's threat'n'd (not in vain) with " fleep:"
Then, at the last and only couplet fraught
With fome unmeaning thing they call a thought,
A needlefs Alexandrine ends the fong,
That, like a wounded fnake, drags its flow length

along.

356

Leave fuch to tune their own dull rhimes, and know
What's roundly smooth, or languifhingly flow;
And praise the easy vigour of a line,

360

Where Denham's strength, and Waller's sweetness join.
True eafe in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.
'Tis not enough no harfhness gives offence,
The found muft feem an Echo to the fense:

NOTES.

VER. 364. 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence;

365

The found muft seem an Echo to the fenfe:) The ju-
The poets,

dicious introductions of this precept is remarkable.
and even fome of the best of them, have been fo fond of the
beauty arifing from this trivial precept, that in their practice,
they have violated the very End of it, which is the encrease of
harmony; and fo they could but raife an Echo, did not care whofe
ears they offended by its diffonance. To remedy this abufe there-
fore, the poet, by the introductory line, would infinuate, that
Harmony is always prefuppofed as obferved; tho' it may and ought
to be perpetually varied, fo as to produce the effect here recom-
mended.

VER. 365.

Rofcommon fays,

The found muft feem an Echo to the fenfe,) Lord

The found is ftill a comment to the fenfe.

They are both well expreffed: only this fuppofes the fenfe to be

affifted by the found; that, the found affifted by the fenfe.