In all besides let Aristotle sway,
But knighthood's sacred, and he must give way.
[148] The phrase "curious not knowing," is from Petronius, and Pope has written the words of his original on the margin of the manuscript: Est et alter, non quidem doctus, sed curiosus, qui plus docet quam scit.
[149] The conventionalities of foppery and ceremony are always changing, and what Pope says of manners may have been extensively true of his own generation. At present bad manners commonly proceed either from defective sensibility, or from men having more regard to themselves than to their company.
[150] This had been the practice of some artists. "Their heroes," says Reynolds, speaking of the French painters in 1752, "are decked out so nice and fine that they look like knights-errant just entering the lists at a tournament in gilt armour, and loaded most unmercifully with silk, satin, velvet, gold, jewels, &c." Pope had in his mind a passage of Cowley's Ode on Wit:
Yet 'tis not to adorn, and gild each part;
That shows more cost than art.
Jewels at nose and lips but ill appear;
Rather than all things wit, let none be there.
[151] Naturam intueamur, hanc sequamur: id facillimè accipiunt animi quod agnoscunt. Quint. lib. 8, c. 3.—Pope.
Dryden's preface to the State of Innocence: "The definition of wit, which has been so often attempted, and ever unsuccessfully, by many poets, is only this, that it is a propriety of thoughts and words."
[152] Pope's account of wit is undoubtedly erroneous; he depresses it below its natural dignity, and reduces it from strength of thought to happiness of language.—Johnson.
The error was in stating a partial as an universal truth; for the second line of the couplet correctly describes the quality which gives the charm to numberless passages both in prose and verse. Instead of "ne'er so well," the reading of the first edition was "ne'er before," which was not equally true. But Pope followed the passage in Boileau, from which the line in the Essay on Criticism was derived: "Qu'est-ce qu'une pensée neuve, brillante, extraordinaire? Ce n'est point, comme se le persuadent les ignorants, une pensée que personne n'a jamais eu, ni dû avoir. C'est au contraire une pensée qui a dû venir à tout le monde, et que quelqu'un s'avise le premier d'exprimer. Un bon mot n'est bon mot qu'en ce qu'il dit une chose que chacun pensoit, et qu'il la dit d'une manière vive, fine et nouvelle."
[153] Light "sweetly recommended" by shades, is an affected form of speech. "Does 'em good," in the next couplet, offends in the opposite direction, and is meanly colloquial.