An Essay on Criticism

by Mr. Oldmixon

The last Word puts me in Mind of a lower Order of Criticks, which are rarely heard of within the Sound of Bow-Bell; and these are your Etymologists and your Orthographists, who turn to Rider or Holy Oak for the Derivation of Words, and have the learned Garretson and other Helps for Spelling: But I know not whether this Essay may travel far enough into the Country to be of any Use; and besides, I have not converst enough with those Criticks that deal in Words and Letters only, to be Master of the Subject, which is generally learn'd by such as make a Penny of it in Conversation by laying Wagers, the Power and Test of all rural Argument.

I must own the Etymologists are by much the greater Men of the Two than the Orthographists. I do affirm this, not only because it is necessary to know the Roots of Languages, but because it is a greater Mark of Scholarship, and has the Sanction of the most learned Universities. The profoundest of our own Antiquaries have, in Favour of the University of Oxford, found out an Etymology, that may match with the famous One of Diaper Napkin: From whence comes King Pepin. Bishop Stillingfleet informs us, that the Champions for the Antiquity of Oxford say, that the old Name is British, and it is read somewhere Iren which should be read Icen, and that again Ychen, and that Rydychen, and Rydychen in the British Tongue is Vadum Boum in Latin, and that in English, Oxenford, Oxford, and Oxon. Such wonderful Discoveries are made by the venerable Antiquaries. Iren runs the Gauntlet through three Languages Irish, Welsh, and Latin, before it drops into English, but considering there is more Greek in the Welsh Tongue than there is Latin, it may make Work for great Scholars, to shew their Scholarship in settling the Matter as it should be with a Salvo for the Rights of the University of Cambridge.

The Learned in France have an Etymology almost as good as that of Oxford from Iren, which is the Word Cemetiere a Church-yard; They derive it from the Latin Word cum with, and mittere to put, as much as to say the dead Bodies are put together in one burying Place. Thus the Boxes at the Opera are a Cemetiere or Church-yard, because the Ladies and Gentlemen are put with one another there, and thus by Virtue of the same Etymology, the Place where People are born and where they are bury'd are all one, from Cum with, and Mittere to put, as I have heard, that the same Word serves for Life and Death in one of the oriental Languages.

As to Orthography, the only Passage I have read in a polite Author concerning it is that of Boileau, who taxes Perrault with false Spelling, by putting an s in one Word, and leaving out an s in another. By putting an s into the Word Contemples, it lost the Imperative Mood which is Contemple; and by leaving out an s in the Word Casuiste, written Casuite, it became no Word at all. When Moods and Tenses, Numbers and Cases, Substantives and Adjectives, suffer by Orthography, the curious Country-man has reason to cry out, otherwise the Printer may be answerable for the Spelling.

After all that has been said of the Sublime, &c. perhaps the Criticks do make more of Things than is necessary, or in Nature: Tho' Poets pretend to Inspiration, and cry out, The god, the god, they are, in the Main, but meer Men, and have their Tricks and Quirks to keep up the Reputation of that Art: Nay, like other Professions, they would have us believe, that there's Mystery in it too; not, I suppose, as Divines understand it, but in the vulgar Sense, as it is understood when we say, the Trade or Mystery of a Cordwainer. Some of these Poetical Mysteries are as follow.

We are told that this Verse of Homer's Third Iliad was said, by Alexander the Great, to be the best in all the Poem:

Great in the Wars, and great in Arts of Sway.

Methinks our Gazette Men, and Courant Men, express themselves every whit as well, when in Honour of a defunct General, whose Activity had long furnish'd them with Matter for their News-Books, they tell us, He was great alike in the Camp, and in the Cabinet, which easily runs into as good a Verse as the other.

Great in the Camp, and in the Cabinet.

The next best Verses that ever were, are Boileaus; and they were said to be the best in all his Works, by La Fontaine: The Subject is the French King's setting up Lace-making at Roan.