Aristotle, Horace, Bossu, Boileau, Dacier, and several other Criticks, have directed us right in the Rules of Epick and Dramatick Poetry, and Rapin has done the same as to History, and other Parts of polite Learning. Several Attempts have been made in England to instruct us, as well as the French have been instructed; but far from striking out any new Lights, our Essays are infinitely short of the Criticisms of our Neighbours. They teach us nothing which is not to be found there, and give us what they take thence curtailed and imperfect. 'Tis true, they have drest up their Rules in Verse, and have succeeded in it very well. There is something so just and beautiful in my Lord Roscommon's Essay and Translation of Horace's Ars Poetica, as excels any Thing in French within the like Compass. I have read the late Duke of Buckingham's Essay very often, but I don't think it such a perfect Piece as Dryden represents it, in his long and tedious Dedication to that noble Lord before the Æneis. There are many Things very well thought in it, and they do not seem to be much the better for the Poetry; which is so prosaick, that if the Rhimes were pared away, it would be reduced to downright Prose. Indeed Horace's Epistle to the Piso's is not much more poetick; and I do not think, that the modern Criticks, like the Oracles of Old, give the greater Sanction to their Rules, for that they are put into Rhime.
I dare not say any Thing of the last Essay on Criticism in Verse, but that if any more curious Reader has discovered in it something new, which is not in Dryden's Prefaces, Dedications, and his Essay on Dramatick Poetry, not to mention the French Criticks, I should be very glad to have the Benefit of the Discovery.
I was strangely surprised to meet with such a Passage, as what follows, in the Writings of so good an Author as Sir Robert Howard. Preface to Duke of Lerma: "In the Difference of Tragedy and Comedy, there can be no Determination but by the Taste; and whoever would endeavour to like or dislike by the Rules of others, he will be as unsuccessful as if he should try to be perswaded into a Power of believing, not what he must, but what others direct him to believe."
Thus are Aristotle, Horace, and all that have commented on them; thus are Boileau, the Lord Roscommon, the Duke of Bucks, and all the modern Criticks, confounded with a Word or two, and the Rules of Writing rendered useless and ridiculous.
The Rules laid down by those great Criticks are not to be valu'd, because they are given by Aristotle, Horace, &c. but because they are in Nature and in Truth. Homer, Sophocles, and Euripides, wrote before Aristotle, and the Observations he made upon their Poems, were to shew us how they succeeded by a happy Imitation of Nature, and without such Imitation there can be no Poetry; but according to Sir Robert Howard's Assertion, that only which a Man likes is good; and if you are pleas'd with seeing or hearing any Thing unnatural or even monstruous,
A Woman's Head joyn'd to a Fishes Tail;
it is preferable to what is just and true, to the Venus of Medicis, or the most perfect Madonna in Italy. Thus a wrong Taste is as good as a right one, and the Smell of a Pole-cat to be preferr'd to that of a Civet, if a Man's Nose is so irregular. After this Rate, there never was a Poet who could write up to the Frenchman's Ladder-dance, or Rich's Harlequin; and whereas Sir Robert says, we may as well believe, because others do, as judge, because Aristotle, Horace, &c. do, there is no Agreement in the Proposition, or it is not rightly stated; for we do not judge so because Aristotle and Horace did so judge; but because it is in Nature and in Truth, and they first shew'd us the Way to find it out.
Criticism is so far from being well understood by us Englishmen, that it is generally mistaken to be an Effect of Envy, Jealousy, and Spleen; an invidious Desire to find Faults only to discredit the Author, and build a Reputation on the Ruin of his.
One has great Reason to think so, when the Critick looks only on one Side; when he hunts after little Slips and Negligences, and will not, or cannot see, what is beautiful and praise-worthy. If an historical or poetical Performance can no sooner acquire Applause, than he falls upon it without Mercy, neglects every Thing commendable in it, and skims off the Filth that rises on the Top of it; one may be sure his Jealousy is piqu'd, and he is alarm'd for fear every Encrease of Honour to another should be a Diminution of his own Glory; such Sort of Criticism is easily learnt. A Wen or Mole in the Face is sooner perceiv'd than the Harmony of Features, and the fine Proportion of Beauty; or, as Dryden says,
Errours like Straws upon the Surface flow,
He who would search for Pearls must dive below.