Ver. 285. Thus critics, &c.] In these two lines the poet finely describes the way in which bad writers are wont to imitate the qualities of good ones. As true judgment generally draws men out of popular opinions, so he who cannot get from the crowd by the assistance of this guide, willingly follows caprice, which will be sure to lead him into singularities. Again, true knowledge is the art of treasuring up only that which, from its use in life, is worthy of being lodged in the memory, and this makes the philosopher; but curiosity consists in a vain attention to every thing out of the way, and which for its inutility the world least regards, and this makes the antiquarian. Lastly, exactness is the just proportion of parts to one another, and their harmony in a whole; but he who has not extent of capacity for the exercise of this quality, contents himself with nicety, which is a busying oneself about points and syllables, and this makes the grammarian.
Ver. 297. True wit is nature to advantage dressed, &c.] This definition is very exact. Mr. Locke had defined wit to consist "in the assemblage of ideas, and putting those together, with quickness and variety, wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity, whereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy." But that great philosopher, in separating wit from judgment, as he does in this place, has given us (and he could therefore give us no other) only an account of wit in general, in which false wit, though not every species of it, is included. A striking image, therefore, of nature is, as Mr. Locke observes, certainly wit; but this image may strike on several other accounts, as well as for its truth and beauty, and the philosopher has explained the manner how. But it never becomes that wit which is the ornament of true poesy, whose end is to represent nature, but when it dresses that nature to advantage, and presents her to us in the brightest and most amiable light. And to know when the fancy has done its office truly, the poet subjoins this admirable test, viz. When we perceive that it gives us back the image of our mind. When it does that, we may be sure it plays no tricks with us; for this image is the creature of the judgment, and whenever wit corresponds with judgment, we may safely pronounce it to be true.
Ver. 311. False eloquence, &c.] This simile is beautiful. For the false colouring given to objects by the prismatic glass is owing to its untwisting, by its obliquities, those threads of light which nature had put together, in order to spread over its work an ingenious and simple candour, that should not hide but only heighten the native complexion of the objects. And false expression is nothing else but the straining and divaricating the parts of true expression; and then daubing them over with what the rhetoricians very properly term colours, in lieu of that candid light, now lost, which was reflected from them in their natural state, while sincere and entire.
| Ver. 364. | 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence, |
| The sound must seem an echo to the sense. |
The judicious introduction of this precept is remarkable. The poets, and even some of the best of them, have been so fond of the beauty arising from this trivial observance, that their practice has violated the very end of the precept, which is the increase of harmony; and so they could but raise an echo, did not care whose ears they offended by its dissonance. To remedy this abuse therefore, our poet, by the introductory line, would insinuate, that harmony is always to be presupposed as observed, though it may and ought to be perpetually varied, so as to produce the effect here recommended.
Ver. 365. The sound must seem an echo to the sense.] Lord Roscommon says,
The sound is still a comment to the sense.
They are both well expressed, although so differently; for Lord Roscommon is showing how the sense is assisted by the sound; Mr. Pope, how the sound is assisted by the sense.
Ver. 402. Which, from the first, &c.] Genius is the same in all ages; but its fruits are various, and more or less excellent as they are checked or matured by the influence of government or religion upon them. Hence in some parts of literature the ancients excel; in others, the moderns, just as those accidental circumstances occurred.
Ver. 444. Scotists.] So denominated from Johannes Duns Scotus. Erasmus tells us, an eminent Scotist assured him, that it was impossible to understand one single proposition of this famous Duns, unless you had his whole metaphysics by heart. This hero of incomprehensible fame suffered a miserable reverse at Oxford in the time of Henry VIII. That grave antiquary, Mr. Antony Wood (in the vindication of himself and his writings from the reproaches of the Bishop of Salisbury), sadly laments the deformation, as he calls it, of that university, by the King's commissioners; and even records the blasphemous speeches of one of them, in his own words: "We have set Duns in Boccardo, with all his blind glossers, fast nailed up upon posts in all common houses of easement." Upon which our venerable antiquary thus exclaims: "If so be, the commissioners had such disrespect for that most famous author, J. Duns, who was so much admired by our predecessors, and so difficult to be understood, that the doctors of those times, namely, Dr. William Roper, Dr. John Keynton, Dr. William Mowse, &c. professed that, in twenty-eight years' study, they could not understand him rightly, what then had they for others of inferior note?" What indeed! But if so be, that most famous J. Duns was so difficult to be understood (for that this is a most theologic proof of his great worth is past all doubt), I should conceive our good old antiquary to be a little mistaken, and that the nailing up this Proteus of the schools was done by the commissioners in honour of the most famous Duns, there being no other way of catching the sense of so slippery and dodging an author, who had eluded the pursuit of three of their most renowned doctors in full cry after him, for eight and twenty years together. And this Boccardo in which he was confined, seemed very fit for the purpose, it being observed that men are never more serious and thoughtful than in that place of retirement.—Scribl.