Judgment alone, it is allowed, will not make a poet; where is the wonder then, that it will not make a critic in poetry? For on examination we shall find, that genius and taste are but one and the same faculty, differently exerting itself under different names, in the two professions of poetry and criticism. The art of poetry consists in selecting, out of all those images which present themselves to the fancy, such of them as are truly beautiful; and the art of criticism in discerning, and fully relishing what it finds so selected. The main difference is, that in the poet, this faculty is eminently joined to a bright imagination, and extensive comprehension, which provide stores for the selection, and can form that selection, by proportioned parts, into a regular whole: in the critic, it is joined to a solid judgment and accurate discernment, which can penetrate into the causes of an excellence, and display that excellence in all its variety of lights. Longinus had taste in an eminent degree; therefore, this quality, which all true critics have in common, our author makes his distinguishing character:
Thee, bold Longinus! all the Nine inspire,
And bless their critic with a poet's fire.
i. e. with taste, or genius.
Ver. 15. Let such teach others, &c.] But it is not enough that the critic hath these natural endowments of judgment and taste, to entitle him to exercise his art; he should, as our author shows us, from ver. 14 to 19, in order to give a further test of his qualification, have put them successfully into use. And this on two accounts: 1. Because the office of a critic is an exercise of authority. 2. Because he being naturally as partial to his judgment as the poet is to his wit, his partiality would have nothing to correct it, as that of the person judged hath by the very terms. Therefore some test is necessary; and the best and most unexceptionable, is his having written well himself—an approved remedy against critical partiality, and the surest means of so maturing the judgment as to reap with glory what Longinus calls "the last and most perfect fruits of much study and experience." Η γαρ των λογων κρισις πολλης εστι πειρας τελευταιον επιγεννημα.
Ver. 19. Yet, if we look, &c.] But the author having been thus free with the fundamental quality of criticism, judgment, so as to charge it with inconstancy and partiality, and to be often warped by custom and affection, that he may not be misunderstood, he next explains, from ver. 18 to 36, the nature of judgment, and the accidents occasioning those miscarriages before objected to it. He owns, that the seeds of judgment are indeed sown in the minds of most men, but by ill culture, as it springs up, it generally runs wild, either on the one hand, by false learning, which pedants call philology, and by false reasoning, which philosophers call school-learning, or, on the other, by false wit, which is not regulated by sense, and by false politeness, which is solely regulated by the fashion. Both these sorts, who have their judgment thus doubly depraved, the poet observes, are naturally turned to censure and abuse, only with this difference, that the learned dunce always affects to be on the reasoning, and the unlearned fool on the laughing side. And thus, at the same time, our author proves the truth of his introductory observation, that the number of bad critics is vastly superior to that of bad poets.
Ver. 36. Some have at first for wits, &c.] The poet having enumerated, in this account of the nature of judgment and its various depravations, the several sorts of bad critics, and ranked them into two general classes, as the first sort,—namely, the men spoiled by false learning—are but few in comparison of the other, and likewise come less within his main view (which is poetical criticism) but keep grovelling at the bottom amongst words and syllables, he thought it enough for his purpose here, just to have mentioned them, proposing to do them right hereafter. But the men spoiled by false taste are innumerable, and these are his proper concern. He therefore, from ver. 35 to 46, subdivides them again into the two classes of the volatile and heavy. He describes, in few words, the quick progression of the one through criticism, from false wit to plain folly, where they end; and the fixed station of the other, between the confines of both; who under the name of witlings, have neither end nor measure. A kind of half-formed creature from the equivocal generation of vivacity and dulness, like those on the banks of Nile, from heat and mud.
Ver. 46. But you who seek, &c.] Our author having thus far, by way of introduction, explained the nature, use, and abuse of criticism, in a figurative description of the qualities and characters of critics, proceeds now to deliver the precepts of the art. The first of which, from ver. 45 to 68, is, that he who sets up for a critic should previously examine his own strength, and see how far he is qualified for the exercise of his profession. He puts him in a way to make this discovery, in that admirable direction given ver. 51.
And mark that point where sense and dulness meet.
He had shown above, that judgment, without taste or genius, is equally incapable of making a critic or a poet. In whatsoever subject then the critic's taste no longer accompanies his judgment, there he may be assured he is going out of his depth. This our author finely calls,