Ver. 92. Hear how learn'd Greece, &c.] He speaks of the ancient critics first, and with great judgment, as the previous knowledge of them is necessary for reading the poets, with that fruit which the end here proposed requires. But having, in the foregoing observation, sufficiently explained the nature of ancient criticism, he enters on the subject treated of from ver. 91 to 118, with a sublime description of its end; which was to illustrate the beauties of the best writers, in order to excite others to an emulation of their excellence. From the raptures which these ideas inspire, the poet is brought back, by the follies of modern criticism, now before his eyes, to reflect on its base degeneracy. And as the restoring the art to its original purity and splendour is the great purpose of this poem, he first takes notice of those, who seem not to understand that nature is exhaustless; that new models of good writing may be produced in every age; and consequently, that new rules may be formed from these models, in the same manner as the old critics formed theirs, which was, from the writings of the ancient poets: but men wanting art and ability to form these new rules, were content to receive and file up for use, the old ones of Aristotle, Quintilian, Longinus, Horace, &c. with the same vanity and boldness that apothecaries practise, with their doctors' bills: and then rashly applying them to new originals (cases which they did not hit) it was no more in their power, than in their inclination, to imitate the candid practice of the ancients when
The gen'rous critic fanned the poet's fire,
And taught the world with reason to admire.
For, as ignorance, when joined with humility, produces stupid admiration, on which account it is commonly observed to be the mother of devotion and blind homage, so when joined with vanity (as it always is in bad critics) it gives birth to every iniquity of impudent abuse and slander. See an example (for want of a better) in a late ridiculous and now forgotten thing, called the Life of Socrates;[298] where the head of the author (as a man of wit observed) has just made a shift to do the office of a camera obscura, and represent things in an inverted order, himself above, and Sprat, Rollin, Voltaire, and every other writer of reputation, below.
Ver. 118. You then whose judgment, &c.] He comes next to the ancient poets, the other and more intimate commentators of nature, and shows, from ver. 117 to 141, that the study of these must indispensably follow that of the ancient critics, as they furnish us with what the critics, who only give us general rules, cannot supply, while the study of a great original poet, in
His fable, subject, scope in ev'ry page:
Religion, country, genius of his age;
will help us to those particular rules which only can conduct us safely through every considerable work we undertake to examine; and without which, we may cavil indeed, as the poet truly observes, but can never criticise. We might as well suppose that Vitruvius's book alone would make a perfect judge of architecture, without the knowledge of some great master-piece of science, such as the rotunda at Rome, or the temple of Minerva at Athens, as that Aristotle's should make a perfect judge of wit, without the study of Homer and Virgil. These therefore he principally recommends to complete the critic in his art. But as the latter of these poets has, by superficial judges, been considered rather as a copier of Homer, than an original from nature, our author obviates that common error, and shows it to have arisen (as often error does) from a truth, viz., that Homer and nature were the same; that the ambitious young poet, though he scorned to stoop at anything short of nature, when he came to understand this great truth, had the prudence to contemplate nature in the place where she was seen to most advantage, collected in all her charms in the clear mirror of Homer. Hence it would follow, that though Virgil studied nature, yet the vulgar reader would believe him to be a copier of Homer; and though he copied Homer, yet the judicious reader would see him to be an imitator of nature, the finest praise which any one, who came after Homer, could receive.
Ver. 141. Some beauties yet no precepts can declare, &c.] Our author, in these two general directions for studying nature and her commentators, having considered poetry as it is, or may be reduced to rule, lest this should be mistaken as sufficient to attain perfection either in writing or judging, he proceeds from ver. 140 to 201, to point up to those sublimer beauties which rules will never reach, nor enable us either to execute or taste,—beauties, which rise so high above all precept as not even to be described by it; but being entirely the gift of heaven, art and reason have no further share in them than just to regulate their operations. These sublimities of poetry (like the mysteries of religion, some of which are above reason, and some contrary to it) may be divided into two sorts, such as are above rules, and such as are contrary to them.
Ver. 146. If, where the rules, &c.] The first sort our author describes from ver. 145 to 152, and shows that where a great beauty is in the poet's view, which no stated rules will authorise him how to reach, there, as the purpose of rules is only to attain an end like this, a lucky licence will supply the place of them: nor can the critic fairly object, since this licence, for the reason given above, has the proper force and authority of a rule.
Ver. 152. Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend, &c.] He describes next the second sort, the beauties against rule. And even here, as he observes, from ver. 151 to 161, the offence is so glorious, and the fault so sublime, that the true critic will not dare either to censure or reform them. Yet still the poet is never to abandon himself to his imagination. The rules laid down for his conduct in this respect are these: 1. That though he transgress the letter of some one particular precept, yet that he be still careful to adhere to the end or spirit of them all, which end is the creation of one uniform perfect whole. And 2. That he have, in each instance, the authority of the dispensing power of the ancients to plead for him. These rules observed, this licence will be seldom used, and only when he is compelled by need, which will disarm the critic, and screen the offender from his laws.
Ver. 169. I know there are, &c.] But as some modern critics have pretended to say, that this last reason is only justifying one fault by another, our author goes on, from ver. 168 to 181, to vindicate the ancients; and to show that this presumptuous thought, as he calls it, proceeds from mere ignorance,—as where their partiality will not let them see that this licence is sometimes necessary for the symmetry and proportion of a perfect whole, in the light, and from the point, wherein it must be viewed; or where their haste will not give them time to observe, that a deviation from rule is for the sake of attaining some great and admirable purpose. These observations are further useful, as they tend to give modern critics an humbler opinion of their own abilities, and a higher of the authors they undertake to criticise. On which account he concludes with a fine reproof of their use of that common proverb perpetually in the mouths of the critics, "quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus;" misunderstanding the sense of Horace, and taking quandoque for aliquando: