Another Fault which often does befall,
Is when the Wit of some great Poet shall
So overflow, as to be none at all.
}
Again,
That silly Thing we call sheer Wit avoid.
This probably was a Rebuke to the Author of the Plain-Dealer and Country-Wife, who has transgressed in this kind as much as any Body, and was the best able to do it. The Author of the Relapse is not entirely free from this Censure, nor the Authors of Love for Love, and the Funeral. But it will not be more surprising than it is true, that Peter Motteux declared he had taken a great deal of pains with a Character in a Farce of his, to bring it within the Duke of Buckingham's Rule in those Places where he told me he had given it too much Wit. Mr. Walsh, one of the greatest Criticks of our Nation, observes, that the Softness, Tenderness, and Violence of Passion, are wanting in Mr. Cowley's Love Verses, insomuch that he could hardly fancy he was in Love when he wrote them. Pref. to Lett. Yet there were Variety and Learning enough in them, and more Wit than in all our witty Poets since the Restoration, excepting those above-mentioned. Mr. Wycherly, who wrote as good Comedies as any in the English, or any other Tongue, did not value himself so much upon them as on a Folio of as bad Verses as any. Creech having had Success in Lucretius, was put upon translating Horace, and it is said by Dryden, that he might lose so much of his Reputation, as to prevent Rivalship. Nay, Butler, tho' he knew the Follies of Mankind so perfectly well, did not perceive that there is no greater Folly than to undertake what one is not fit for, and was persuaded to let Hudibras translate Ovid. On this Rock many Authors have split, who would have succeeded had they consulted their Talents, and taken the right Course: but it is a general Maxim with us in England, Verses are Verses. He that can write one Thing, can write another, and till our Taste is so refined, that we can distinguish the Good and the Bad in the various Kinds of Thinking, Writers will not be at the Pains to consult their Talents, but content themselves with pleasing their own Fancy, or that of the Publick, by which Means, like Flies, they make a buzzing for a Day or two, and are forgotten for ever. The Spectator very judiciously animadverts on this Weakness: Our general Taste in England is for Epigram, Turns of Wit, and forced Conceits, which have no manner of Influence, either for the bettering or enlarging the Mind of him who reads them, and have been carefully avoided by the greatest Writers, both among the Antients and Moderns. He adds after Mr. Dryden, The Taste of most of our English Poets is extreamly Gothick, which I have endeavoured to banish in several of my Speculations.
Another remarkable Observation of Dr. Felton's is, that the best Performers are the best Judges. He has only Horace against him of the Antients, and Dacier of the Moderns, as is already observed in this Essay. I believe no Body will deny, but Mr. Walsh before-mentioned was one of our best Judges of Regularity and Wit, yet hardly any Body will say he was one of our best Performers. There's nothing more common with small Genius's and small Judges, than to demand of all Criticks to write themselves before they criticise upon others Writings. They would stare if it should be said, that Dursey knew no more of Poetry than he did of Philosophy, nor of English than of Hebrew; though it is very true, if it be understood of the Art of Poetry, and the Beauty of Language; yet, that he was a Performer, is I doubt not well known to the Doctor, and well approved of. To teach us good Language by Example, Dr. Felton expresses himself thus elegantly and unaffectedly. When I wrote these Sheets, my Lord Landsdown's Poems lay dispersed up and down in the Miscellanies; but some kind Hand, as for Instance the Bookseller, upon a very laudable Motive, hath assembled those scattered Stars, and added another Lyre to the Constellation; which, though it is meant, to do singular Honour to those Poems, must have an ill Effect in astronomical Observations; it makes thirteen to the Dozen in the twelve Houses, and must cause as much Confusion, as two Signs of the Harp in a short Lane. The Modesty of the following Passage adds as much to its Merit as to the Truth of it: If I offered any Thing which is not commonly observed, I hope it will not be interpreted any Singularity, but such as may render your Lordship more eminent and distinguished in the World; and having taught his noble Pupil what he should imitate, he gives him warning what he should avoid, and that is the Reading any Thing written by a Presbyterian: What crude indigested Volumes! How many tedious Sheets without Argument or Consistency, are the Writings of some of the Dissenters! whom does he mean, such as Bates, Manton, How, Pool, Clarkson, Alsop, &c. He and some other good Church-Criticks make Presbyterianism to be a Sort of Hellebore, if you do but snuff it up in your Nose you run mad immediately. Thence it is, that the Presbyterians are termed Fanatici, by the learned and sober Writers of our two famous Universities. Is it expected, that every Orthodox Doctor should know as much as Bishop Stillingfleet, or write as well as Archbishop Tillotson? Where is the Reason or Justice of censuring a Body of Men for the Enthusiasm and Ignorance of a few? Would this Doctor suffer the Tables to be turn'd, and a Judgement to be made of the Writings of good Church-men, by the Argument and Consistency of the Works, with which the learned World are obliged by those of the Country Clergy, whose Pieces can crawl to the Press, whether in Prose or Verse, Meditations or Hymns. I do verily believe he did not think of Dr. Bates, when he fell thus furiously on Dissenters, or had ever seen any of his Writings, which are as polite as the Politest of our Age; the Sentiments as pious, as great, as noble, and as just, according to the Subject, and the Language as pure and as harmonious. What can be more so, than this Passage of his Harmony of the divine Attributes, speaking of the Fall of Adam: Prodigious Pride! He was scarce out of the State of Nothing, no sooner created but he aspired to be as God; not content with his Image, he would rob God of his Eternity to live without End; of his Sovereignty to command without Dependance; of his Wisdom to know all Things without Reserve. Infinite Insolence! that Man the Son of Earth, forgetful of his Original, should usurp the Prerogatives, which are essential to the Deity, and set himself up a real Idol, was a Strain of the same Arrogancy which corrupted the Angels. This is what Dr. Felton calls Presbyterian Crudity. It is strange, but it is true, that there is a Narrowness of Soul, and a Conceit in some of our Ecclesiasticks founded on the Establishment which we do not meet with in others; nay, not in those who pretend to Supremacy and Infallibility. Father Bouhours, though as zealous a Jesuit as any in France, yet had so just a Notion of every one's Merit in polite Learning, that he freely owns the Refinement of the French Tongue, and the French Manners was owing to those of the reformed Religion, even to Presbyterians. Nous devons aux dernieres Heresies une partie de l'Embellissement de notre Langue, & de la politesse de notre Siecle.
And another French Bigot tells us; One of their Historians has observed, that the pretended Reformers began to speak well and write well, and were the First that shewed their Way to others. They were all of them Presbyterians:
————Parvos femando libellos
Sucratis populumq; rudem amorcando parolis.
Our Staunch Criticks will not allow, that a Presbyterian ever had or could have any Wit or any Eloquence, though it was only to make an ill Use of it. No, no Body must be well-born or well-bred, that is without the Pale. No Man must be brave, nor Woman beautiful. The Men are all painted with cropt Hair, and the Women with Forehead-Cloaths, unless they assent and consent. No Wit, no Language, no Honour, nor any Thing that's good, is to be had any more than Matrimony without a Licence. Vide Grand Rebellion, and Mr. Echard's History of England.
I am so very well entertain'd with Dryden's Virgil, that I am glad to meet with any Excuse for his Translation; and would allow Dr. Felton's, that the Faults are to be ascribed partly to some Defects of our Language; if the Doctor himself, a few Lines before, had not said of the same Language, that it is capable of all the Beauty, Strength, and Significancy of the Greek and Latin. The Faults which have been generally found with Dryden as to Virgil, have been his mistaking or altering the Sense of the Original, and turning the Epick Stile into Elegiack. I doubt not but the English Tongue has Expression for English Sentiments, let them be ever so great and sublime; but I may very well doubt whether it has Diction equal to the Strength and Dignity of the Ilias, without the Helps Milton made use of, as compounding of Words and reviving some old Teutonicks, which would look very uncouthly among the Softnesses and Gingles of our fine Writers of late.