* There's somewhat that borders upon Madness in every exalted Wit.
* One of the most remarkable Fools that resort to Will's, is the Fop-Poet, who is one that has always more Wit in his Pockets than any where else, yet seldom or never any of his own there. Æsop's Daw was a Type of him, for he makes himself fine with the Plunder of all Parties; He is a smuggler of Wit, and steals French Fancies, without paying the customary Duties; Verse is his Manufacture; for it is more the Labour of his Fingers, than his Brain: He spends much time in writing, but ten times more in reading what he has written: He asks your Opinion, yet for fear you should not jump with him, tells you his own first: He desires no Favour, yet is disappointed if he is not Flatter'd, and is always offended at the Truth. He is a Poetical Haberdasher of small Wares, and deals very much in Novels, Madrigals, Funeral and Love Odes, Panegyricks, Elegies, and other Toys of Parnassus, which he has a Shop so well furnish'd with, that he can fit you with all sorts in the twinkling of an Eye. He talks much of Wycherley, Garth, and Congreve, and protests, he can't help having some Respect for them, because they have so much for him and his Writings, otherwise he could make it appear that they understand little of Poetry in comparison of himself, but he forbears 'em meerly out of Gratitude and Compassion. He is the Oracle of those that want Wit, and the Plague of those that have it; for he haunts their Lodgings, and is more terrible to them than their Duns.
* Brutus for want of Wit, sets up for Criticism; yet has so much ambition to be thought a Wit, that he lets his Spleen prevail against Nature, and turns Poet. In this Capacity he is as just to the World as in the other injurious. For, as the Critick wrong'd every Body in his Censure, and snarl'd and grin'd at their Writings, the Poet gives 'em opportunity to do themselves Justice, to return the Compliment, and laugh at, or despise his. He takes his Malice for a Muse, and thinks himself Inspir'd, when he is only Possess'd, and blown up with a Flatus of Envy and Vanity. His Works are Libels upon others, but Satyrs upon himself; and while they bark at Men of Sense, call him Fool that writ 'em. He has a very great Antipathy to his own Species, and hates to see a Fool any where but in his Glass; for, as he says, they provoke him, and offend his Eyes. His Fund of Criticism, is a set of Terms of Art, pick'd out of the French Criticks, or their Translators; and his Poetical Stock, is a common Place of certain Forms and manners of Expression. He writes better in Verse than Prose; for in that there is Rhime, in this, neither Rhime nor Reason. He rails both at the French Writers, "whom he does not understand, and at those English Authors, whose Excellencies he cannot reach; with him Voiture is flat and dull, Corneille a stranger to the Passions, Racine, Starch'd and Affected, Moliere, Jejune, la Fontaine a poor Teller of Tales; and even the Divine Boileau, little better than a Plagiary. As for the English Poets, he treats almost with the same Freedom; Shakespear with him has neither Language nor Manners; Ben. Johnson is a Pedant; Dryden little more than a tolerable Versifier; Congreve a laborious Writer; Garth, an indifferent imitator of Boileau. He traduces Oldham, for want of Breeding and good Manners, without a grain of either, and steals his own Wit to bespatter him with; but like an ill Chymist, he lets the Spirit fly off in the drawing over and retains only the Phlegm. He Censures Cowley for too much Wit, and corrects him with none. He is a great Admirer of the incomparable Milton, but while he fondly endeavours to imitate his Sublime, he is blown up with Bombast and puffy Expressions. He is a great stickler for Euripides, Sophocles, Horace, Virgil, Ovid, and the rest of the Ancients; but his ill and lame Translations of 'em, ridicule those he would commend. He ventures to write for the Play-Houses, but having his stol'n, ill-patch'd fustian Plays Damn'd upon the Stage, he ransacks Bossu, Rapin, and Dacier, to arraign the ill-taste of the Town. To compleat himself in the Formalities of Parnassus, he falls in Love, and tells his Mistress in a very pathetick Letter, he is oblig'd to her bright Beauty for his Poetry; but if this Damsel prove no more indulgent than his Muse, his Amour is like to conclude but unluckily."
Demetrius before the Curse of Poetry had seiz'd him, was in a pretty way of Thriving Business, but having lately sold his Chambers in one of the Inns of Court, and taken a Lodging near the Play-house, is now in a fair way of Starving. This Gentleman is frequently possest with Poetick Raptures; and all the Family complains, that he disturbs 'em at Midnight, by reciting some incomparable sublime Fustian of his own Composing. When he is in Bed, one wou'd imagine he might be quiet for that Night, but 'tis quite otherwise with him; for when a new Thought, as he calls it, comes into his Head, up he gets, sets it down in Writing, and so gradually encreases the detested Bulk of his Poetick Fooleries, which, Heaven avert it! he threatens to Print. Demetrius having had the misfortune of miscarrying upon the Stage, endeavours to preserve his unlawful Title to Wit, by bringing all the Dramatick Poets down to his own Level. And wanting Spirit to set up for a Critick, turns Spy and Informer of Parnassus. He frequents Apollo's Court at Will's, and picks up the freshest Intelligence, what Plays are upon the Stocks, what ready to be Launch'd; and if he can be inform'd, from the Establish'd Wits, of any remarkable Fault in the new Play upon the Bills, he is indefatigably industrious in whispering it about, to bespeak its Damnation before its Representation.
* Curculio is a Semi-Wit, that has a great Veneration for the Moderns, and no less a Contempt for the Ancients: But his own ill Composures destroy the force of his Arguments, and do the Ancients full Justice. This Gentleman having had the good Fortune to write a very taking, undigested medly of Comedy and Farce, is so puff'd up with his Success, that nothing will serve him, but he must bring this new fantastick way of writing, into Esteem. To compass this Noble Design, he tells you what a Coxcomb Aristotle was with his Rules of the three Unities; and what a Company of Senseless Pedants the Scaligers, Rapins, Bossu's, and Daciers are. He proves that Aristotle and Horace, knew nothing of Poetry; that Common Sense and Nature were not the same in Athens, and Rome, as they are in London; that Incoherence, Irregularity and Nonsense are the Chief Perfections of the Drama, and, by a necessary Consequence that the Silent woman, is below his own Performance.
"No new Doctrine in Religion, ever got any considerable Footing except it was grounded on Miracles; Nor any new Hypothesis was ever established in natural Philolqphy, unless it was confirm'd by Experience. The same Rule holds, in some measure, in all Arts and Sciences, particularly in Dramatick Poetry. It will be a hard matter for any Man to trump up any new set of Precepts, in opposition to those of Aristotle and Horace, except by following them, he writes several approved Plays. The great success of the first Part of the T—-p was sufficient I must confess, to justifie the Authors Conceit; But then the Explosion of the Second ought to have cur'd him of it.
"Writers like Women seldom give one another a good Word; that's most certain. Now if the Poets and Criticks of all Ages have allowed Sophocles, Euripides, and Terence to have been good Dramatick Writers, and Aristotle and Horace to have been judicious Criticks, ought not their Censure to weigh more with Men of Sense, than the Fancies, of a Modern Pretender. To be plain, whoever Disputes Aristotle and Horace, Rules does as good as call the Scaligers, Vossii, Rapins, Bossu's, Daciers, Corneilles, Roscommons, Normanby's and Rymers, Blockheads: A man must have a great deal of Assurance, to be so free with such illustrious Judges.
"Of all the modern Dramatick Poets the Author of the Trip to the Jubilee has the least Reason to turn into Ridicule Aristotle and Horace, since 'tis to their Rules which he has, in some measure followed, that he owed the great success of that Play. Those Rules are no thing but a strict imitation of Nature, which is still the same in all Ages and Nations: And because the Characters of Wildair, Angelica, Standard and Smuggler are natural, and well pursued, They have justly met with Applause; but then the Characters of Lurewell and Clincher Sen. being out of Nature they have as justly been condemned by all the Good Judges."
* Some Scholars, tho' by their constant Conversation with Antiquity, they may know perfectly the sense of the Learned dead, and be perfect masters of the Wisdom, be throughly informed of the State, and nicely skill'd in the Policies of Ages long since past, yet by their retired and unactive Life, and their neglect of Business, they are such strangers to the Domestick Affairs and manners of their own Country and Times, that they appear like the Ghosts of old Romans rais'd by Magick. Talk to them of the Assyrian or Persian Monarchies of the Grecian or Roman Commonwealths, they answer like Oracles; They are such finished States-men that we should scarce take 'em to have been less than Privy-Councellors to Semiramis, Tutors to Cyrus the Great, and old Cronies of Solon, Licurgus, and Numa Pompilius. But ingage them in a discourse that concerns the present Times, and their Native Country, and they hardly speak the language of it; Ask them how many Kings there have been in England since the Conquest, or in what Reign the Reformation happened, and they'll be puzzled with the Question; They know all the minutest Circumstances of Catiline's Conspiracy, but are hardly acquainted with the late Plot. They'll tell you the Names of such Romans as were called to an Account by the Senate for their Briberies, Extortions and Depredations, but know nothing of the four impeached Lords; They talk of the ancient way of Fighting, and warlike Engines, as if they had been Lieutenant Generals under Alexander, Scipio, Annibal or Julius Cæsar; but are perfectly ignorant of the modern military Discipline, Fortification and Artillery; and of the very names of Nassau, Condé, Turenne, Luxembourg, Eugene, Villeroy and Catinat. They are excellent Guides, and can direct you to every Alley, and Turning in old Rome yet lose their way home in their own Parish. They are mighty Admirers of the Wit and Eloquence of the Ancients; Yet had they lived in the Time of Demosthenes, and Cicero, would have treated them with as much supercilious Pride, and disrespect as they do now the Moderns. They are great Hunters of Ancient Manuscripts, and have in great Veneration any thing that has escaped the Teeth of Time; and if Age has obliterated the Characters, 'tis the more valuable for not being legible. These Superstitious bigotted idolaters of time past, are children in their Understanding all their lives, for they hang so incessantly upon the leading-strings of Authority, that their Judgments like the Limbs of some Indian Penitents, become altogether crampt and motionless for want of use. In fine, they think it a disparagement of their Learning to talk what other Men understand, and will scarce believe that two and two make four, under a Demonstration from Euclid, or a Quotation from Aristotle.
The World shall allow a Man to be a wise Man, a good Naturalist, a good Mathematician, Politician or Poet, but not a Scholar, or Learned Man, unless he be a Philologer and understands Greek and Latin. But for my part I take these Gentlemen have just inverted the life of the Term, and given that to the Knowledge of Words, which belongs more properly to Things. I take Nature to be the Book of Universal Learning, which he that reads best in all or any of its Parts, is the greatest Scholar, the most Learned Man; and 'tis as ridiculous for a Man to count himself more learned than another, if he have no greater Extent of Knowledge of things, because he is more vers'd in Languages, as it would be for an old fellow to tell a young One, his own Eyes were better than the other's because he reads with spectacles, the other without.