63. Interdum volgus rectum videt: est ubi peccat.] The capricious levity of popular opinion hath been noted even to a proverb. And yet it is this, which, after all, fixes the fate of authors. This seemingly odd phaenomenon I would thus account for.
What is usually complimented with the high and reverend appellation of public judgment is, in any single instance, but the repetition or echo, for the most part eagerly catched and strongly reverberated on all sides, of a few leading voices, which have happened to gain the confidence, and so direct the cry of the public. But (as, in fact, it too often falls out) this prerogative of the few may be abused to the prejudice of the many. The partialities of friendship, the fashionableness of the writer, his compliance with the reigning taste, the lucky concurrence of time and opportunity, the cabal of a party, nay, the very freaks of whim and caprice, these, or any of them, as occasion serves, can support the dullest, as the opposite disadvantages can depress the noblest performance; and give the currency or neglect to either, far beyond what the genuin character of each demands. Hence the public voice, which is but the aggregate of these corrupt judgments, infinitely multiplied, is, with the wise, at such a juncture, deservedly of little esteem. Yet, in a succession of such judgments, delivered at different times and by different sets or juntos of these sovereign arbiters of the fate of authors, the public opinion naturally gets clear of these accidental corruptions. Every fresh succession shakes off some; till, by degrees, the work is seen in its proper form, unsupported of every other recommendation, than what its native inherent excellence bestows upon it. Then, and not till then, the voice of the people becomes sacred; after which it soon advances into divinity, before which all ages must fall down and worship. For now Reason alone, without her corrupt assessors, takes the chair. And her sentence, when once promulgated and authorized by the general voice, fixes the unalterable doom of authors. ΟΛΩΣ ΚΑΛΑ ΝΟΜΙΖΕ ΥΨΗ ΚΑΙ ΑΛΗΘΙΝΑ, ΤΑ ΔΙΑΠΑΝΤΟΣ ΑΡΕΣΚΟΝΤΑ ΚΑΙ ΠΑΣΙΝ [Longinus, § vii.] And the reason follows, agreeably to the account here given. Ὅταν γὰρ τοῖς ἀπὸ διαφόρων ΕΠΙΤΗΔΕΥΜΑΤΩΝ, ΒΙΩΝ, ΖΗΛΩΝ, ΗΛΙΚΙΩΝ, λόγων, ἕν τι καὶ ταὐτὸν ἅμα περὶ τῶν αὐτῶν ἅπασι δοκῇ, τόθ’ ἡ ἐξ ἀσυμφώνων ὡς κρίσις καὶ συγκατάθεσις τὴν ἐπὶ τῷ θαυμαζομένῳ ΠΙΣΤΙΝ ΙΣΧΥΡΑΝ ΛΑΜΒΑΝΕΙ ΚΑΙ ΑΝΑΜΦΙΛΕΚΤΟΝ. [Ibid.]
This is the true account of popular fame, which, while it well explains the ground of the poet’s aphorism, suggests an obvious remark, but very mortifying to every candidate of literary glory. It is, that, whether he succeeds in his endeavours after public applause, or not, fame is equally out of his reach, and, as the moral poet teaches, a thing beyond him, before his death, on either supposition. For at the very time, that this bewitching music is sounding in his ears, he can never be sure, if, instead of the divine consentient harmony of a just praise, it be not only the discordant din and clamour of ignorance or prepossession.
If there be any exception to this melancholy truth, it must be in the case of some uncommon genius, whose superior power breaks through all impediments in his road to fame, and forces applause even from those very prejudices, that would obstruct his career to it. It was the rare felicity of the poet, just mentioned, to receive, in his life-time, this sure and pleasing augury of immortality.
88. Ingeniis non ille favet, &c.] Malherbe was to the French, pretty much what Horace had been to the Latin, poetry. These great writers had, each of them, rescued the lyric muse of their country out of the rude, ungracious hands of their old poets. And, as their talents of a good ear, elegant judgment, and correct expression, were the same, they presented her to the public in all the air and grace, and yet severity, of beauty, of which her form was susceptible. Their merits and pretensions being thus far resembling, the reader may not be incurious to know the fate and fortune of each. Horace hath very frankly told us, what befel himself from the malevolent and low passions of his countrymen. Malherbe did not come off, with the wits and critics of his time, much better; as we learn from a learned person, who hath very warmly recommended his writings to the public. Speaking of the envy, which pursued him in his prose-works, but, says he, “Comme il faisoit une particuliere profession de la poesie, c’est en cette qualité qu’il a de plus severes censeurs, et receu des injustices plus signalées. Mais il me semble que je fermerai la bouche à ceux, que le blament, quand je leur aurai monstré, que sa façon d’escrire est excellente, quoiqu’elle s’eloigne un peu de celle des NOS ANCIENS POETES, QU’ILS LOUENT PLUSTOT PAR UN DEGOUST DES CHOSES PRESENTES, QUE PAR LES SENTIMENTS D’UNE VERITABLE ESTIME.” [Disc. de M. Godeau sur les oeuvres de M. Malherbe.]
97. Suspendit mentem vultumque.] The expression hath great elegance, and is not liable to the imputation of harsh, or improper construction. For suspendit is not taken, with regard either to mentem or vultum, in its literal, but figurative, signification; and, thus, it becomes, in one and the same sense, applicable to both.
Otherwise, this way of coupling two substantives to a verb, which does not, in strict grammatical usage, govern both; or, if it doth, must needs be construed in different senses; hath given just offence to the best critics.
Mr. Pope censures a passage of this kind, in the Iliad, with severity; and thinks the taste of the ancients was, in general, too good for those fooleries[38].