Learning and wit were friends designed by heav'n;
Those arms to guard it, not to wound, were giv'n.
[219] Dryden's Prologue to the University of Oxford:
Be kind to wit, which but endeavours well,
And, where you judge, presumes not to excel.
The feelings of antiquity were doubtless represented truly by Horace when he said that indifferent poets were not tolerated by anybody. There is not the least foundation for Pope's statement that it was the habit of old to praise bad authors for endeavouring well, and if it had been, the authors would not have cared for commendations on their abortive industry to the disparagement of their intellect.
[220] Wakefield remarks upon the unhappy effect of "crowns" and "crown" in consecutive lines, and thinks the phrase "some others" in the next verse too mean and elliptical. Soame and Dryden, in their translation of Boileau's Art of Poetry, speak of the "base rivals" who
aspire to gain renown
By standing up and pulling others down.
[221] Mr. Harte related to me, that being with Mr. Pope when he received the news of Swift's death, Harte said to him, he thought it a fortunate circumstance for their friendship, that they had lived so distant from each other. Pope resented the reflection, but yet, said Harte, I am convinced it was true.—Warton.
[222] That is, all the unsuccessful authors maligned the successful. The unsuccessful writers never said anything more slanderous.
[223] Boileau's Art of Poetry, translated by Soame and Dryden:
Never debase yourself by treach'rous ways
Nor by such abject methods seek for praise.