"While THEY ring round?"
He who looks for it will arrive first at the "THESE," who "equal syllables alone require." But he has now escaped from the bad poet's into almost worse company. The said "THESE" are clearly a SECOND smaller division of the condemned EAR-CRITICS. The greater division, the "MOST", have ears, forsooth, and can distinguish "smooth" and "rough." But "THESE" WOULD HAVE ears. They have none; they have only FINGERS. They can tell that the syllables keep the RULE of the measure, and that is all. They stand on the lowest round of the ladder, or on the ground at the foot of the ladder.
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Tho' oft the ear the open vowels tire,
is to them "excellent music," an unimpeachable verse, for it COUNTS RIGHT. They are the arithmeticians of the Muse—no musicians.
We agree with Warburton, who says that it is "impossible to give a full and exact idea of poetical criticism without considering at the same time the art of poetry, so far as poetry is an ART." But we must contend, that a poet who addresses or discourses of two such distinct species as the writer who criticizes, and the writer who is criticized—two human beings, at least, placed in such very different predicaments—is bound continually to know and to keep his reader aware, which he exhorts and which he smites—the sacrificer or the victim.
You have in your memory, and a thousand times recollected, the following fine passage; but are you sure that you have fully and clearly understood, as well as felt it?
"A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring;
There shallow drafts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts,
While from the bounded level of our mind
Short views we take, nor see the length behind;
But more advanced, behold with strange surprise,
Far distant views of endless science rise!
So pleased at first the towering Alps we try,
Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky,
Th' eternal snows appear already past,
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last.
But those attain'd, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthen'd way,
Th' increasing prospect tires our wondering eyes,
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise."
The precept must be given to somebody. To whom? The whole Essay addresses itself to two descriptions of persons—to those who will be critics, and to those who will be poets. Both are here addressed, and indistinctively. But we may distinguish—nay, must—in turning verse into prose. What is the counsel bestowed? "Meddle not with criticism, as a professed or unprofessed critic, unless you are prepared to invade the depths of criticism." "Touch not the lyre of Apollo to call forth a tone, unless you are willing to put your hand under the most rigorous discipline in the school of the musicians." What is the motive, the reason of the counsel? The twofold monitory and hortatory counsel, proceeds upon a twofold contemplation; upon the view of the beginning, and upon that of the end.
A taste of criticism—the possession of half a dozen rules—the sitting, for a few furtive and perilous instants, upon that august seat of high judgment, before which the great wits of all ages and nations come to receive their award—infatuates the youthful untempered brain with dazzling, bewildering, and blinding self-opinion. Enough to mislead is easily learned. Right dictates of clearest minds—oracles of the old wisdom—crudely misunderstood. Rules of general enunciation made false in the applying, by the inability of perceiving in the instance the differencing conditions which qualify the rule, or suspend it. So, on the other hand, canons of a narrower scope, stretched beyond their true intent. And last, and worst of all, in the ignorance and in the disdain of statutes, and sanctions, and preceding authoritative judgments—the humours and fancies, the likings and the mislikings, the incapable comprehension and the precipitate misapprehensions of an untrained, uninstructed, inexperienced, self-unknowing spirit, howsoever of Nature gifted or ungifted, to be taken for the standard of the worth which the generations of mankind have approved, or which has newly risen up to enlighten the generations of mankind!
Abstain, then, from judging, O Critic that wilt be! Humble thine understanding in reverence! Open thy soul to beliefs! Yield up thy heart, dissolving and overcome, to love! Cultivate self-suspicion! and learn! learn! learn! The bountiful years that lift up the oak to maturity, shall rear, and strengthen, and ripen thee! Knowledge of books, knowledge of men, knowledge of Nature—and solicited, and roused, and sharpened, in the manifold and studious conversation with books, and with men, and with Nature—last and greatest—the knowledge of thyself—shall bring thee out large-hearted, high-minded, sensitive, apprehensive, comprehensive, informed and original, clear and profound, genial and exact, scrutinizing and pardoning, candid, and generous, and just—in a word, a finished CRITIC. The steadfast and mighty laws of the moral and intellectual world have taken safe care and tutelage of thee, and confer upon thee, in thy now accomplished powers, the natural and well-earned remuneration of honestly, laboriously, and pertinaciously dedicated powers!