What the weak head with strongest bias rules, She gives in large recruits of needful Pride; 205 What wants in blood and spirits, swell'd with wind: Pride, where Wit fails, steps in to our defence, And fills up all the mighty void of sense. COMMENTARY. "Trust not yourself; but your defects to know, Make use of ev'ry Friend—and ev'ry Foe. 210 Both the beginning and conclusion of this precept, are remarkable. The question is of the means to subdue Pride: he directs the Critic to begin with a distrust of himself; and this is Modesty, the first mortification of Pride: and then to seek the assistance of others, and make use even of an Enemy; and this is Humility, the last mortification of Pride: for when a man can once bring himself to submit to profit by an enemy, he has either already subdued his Vanity, or is in a fair way of so doing. NOTES. Ver. 206. She gives in large recruits of needful Pride;] So in the Essay on Man: "And each vacuity of sense by Pride.” Ver. 209. Pride, where Wit fails, steps in to our defence, And fills up all the mighty void of sense.] A very sensible French writer makes the following remark on this species of Pride: "Un homme qui sçait plusieurs langues, qui entend les Auteurs Grecs et Latins, qui s'eleve même jusqu'à la dignité de SCHOLIASTE ; si cet homme venoit à peser son véritable mérite, il trouveroit souvent qu'il se réduit, avoir eu des yeux et de la mémoire; il se garderoit bien de donner le nom respectable de science à une erudition sans lumière. Il y a une grande difference entre s'enrichir des mots ou des choses, entre alleguer des autorités ou des raisons. Si un homme pouvoit se surprendre à n'avoir que cette sorte de mérite, il en rougiroit plûtôt que d'en être vain." Warburton. If once right reason drives that cloud away, A little learning is a dang'rous thing; COMMENTARY. 215 Ver. 215. A little learning, &c.] We must here remark the Poet's skill in his disposition of the causes obstructing true Judgment. Each general cause which is laid down first, has its own particular cause in that which follows. Thus, the second cause of wrong Judgment, SUPERFICIAL LEARNING, is what occasions that critical Pride, which he places first. Ver. 216. Drink deep, &c.] Nature and Learning are the polestars of all true Criticism: but Pride obstructs the view of Nature; and a smattering of letters makes us insensible of our igno rance. To avoid this ridiculous situation, the Poet [from ver. 214 NOTES. to Ver. 213. defects to know,] Akenside injured his poem by too much correction. Ariosto, as easy and familiar as he seems to be, made many and great alterations in his enchanting poem. Some of Rochefoucault's Maxims were corrected and new written, more than thirty times. The Provincial Letters of Pascal, the model of good style in the French language, were submitted to the judgment of twelve members of the Port Royal, who made many corrections in them. All that can be said about correction, is contained in these few incomparable words of Quintilian: "Hujus operis est, adjicere, detrahere, mutare. Sed facilius in his simpliciusque judicium, quæ replenda vel dejicienda sunt; premere verò tumentia, humilia extollere, luxuriantia astringere, inordinata dirigere, soluta componere, exultantia coercere, duplicis operæ."—Quint. lib. x. c. 3. Warton. Ver. 213. your defects to know,] Gray has "Exact my own defects to scan," and the exact knowledge of our defects, in conduct as well as in writing, is perhaps equally difficult to attain. Pope's rule, in either case, is a very good one. He followed it himself, with regard to his antagonist, Dennis. Some faults in this Essay, which Dennis detected, Pope had the good sense to correct. Bowles. There, shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, Fir'd at first sight with what the Muse imparts, Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind; So, pleas'd at first the tow'ring Alps we try, 225 Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky, COMMENTARY. to 233.] advises, either to drink deep, or not to drink at all; for the least sip at this fountain is enough to make a bad Critic, while even a moderate draught can never make a good one. And yet the labours and difficulties of drinking deep are so great, that a young author, "Fir'd with ideas of fair Italy," and ambitious to snatch a palm from Rome, here engages in an undertaking like that of Hannibal: Finely illustrated by the similitude of an inexperienced traveller penetrating through the Alps. NOTES. Ver. 225. So pleas'd, &c.] Dr. Warton does not agree with Johnson, who says "that this simile is the most apt, the most proper, and most sublime of any in the English language." It is undoubtedly appropriate, illustrative, and eminently beautiful, but evidently copied from Drummond, as Warton observes: All as a pilgrim who the Alpes doth passe, Or Atlas' temples crown'd with winter's glasse, Ver. 225. VARIATIONS. So pleas'd at first the tow'ring Alps to try, Bowles. The Th' eternal snows appear already past, And the first clouds and mountains seem the last: But, those attain'd, we tremble to survey 230 The growing labours of the lengthen'd way, COMMENTARY. Ver. 233. A perfect Judge, &c.] The third cause of wrong Judgment is a NARROW CAPACITY; the natural cause of the foregoing defect, acquiescence in superficial learning. This bounded capacity our Author shews [from 232 to 384.] betrays itself two ways; in its judgment both of the matter, and the manner of the work criticised: Of the matter, in judging by parts, or in having one favourite part to a neglect of all the rest. Of the manner, in confining NOTES. Ver. 233. A perfect Judge, &c.] "Diligenter legendum est ac pæne ad scribendi sollicitudinem: Nec per partes modo scrutanda sunt omnia, sed perlectus liber utique ex integro resumendus." Quint. P. It is observable that our Author makes it almost the necessary consequence of judging by parts, to find fault: And this not without much discernment: For the several parts of a complete Whole, when seen only singly, and known only independently, must always have the appearance of irregularity;' often of deformity: because the Poet's design being to create a resultive beauty from the artful assemblage of several various parts into one natural whole; those parts must be fashioned with regard to their mutual relations in the stations they occupy in that whole, from whence the beauty required is to arise: but that regard will occasion so unreducible a form in each part, when considered singly, as to present a very mis-shapen form. Warburton. VARIATIONS. The Traveller beholds with cheerful eyes The less'ning vales, and seems to tread the skies. Survey the WHOLE, nor seek slight faults to find 235 Where nature moves, and rapture warms the mind; COMMENTARY. confining men's regard only to conceit, or language, or numbers. This is our Poet's order: and we shall follow him as it leads us; only just observing one general beauty which runs through this part of the poem; it is, that under each of these heads of wrong Judgment, he has intermixed excellent precepts for the right. We shall take notice of them as they occur. He exposes the folly of judging by parts very artfully, not by a direct description of that sort of Critic, but of his opposite, a per fect judge, &c. It is observable that our Author makes it almost the necessary consequence of judging by parts, TO FIND FAULT: and this not without much discernment: for the several parts of a complete Whole, when seen only singly, and known only independently, must always have the appearance of irregularity; often of deformity because the Poet's design being to create a resultive beauty from the artful assemblage of several various parts into one natural whole; those parts must be fashioned with regard to their mutual relations in the stations they occupy in that whole, from whence, the beauty required is to arise: but that regard will occasion so unreducible a form in each part, when considered singly, as to present a very mis-shapen form. NOTES. Ver. 235. Survey the WHOLE, nor seek slight faults to find Where nature moves, and rapture warms the mind;] The second line, in apologizing for those faults which the first says should be overlooked, gives the reason of the precept. For when a great writer's attention is fixed on a general view of Nature, and his imagination becomes warmed with the contemplation of great ideas, it can hardly be, but that there must be small irregularities in the disposition both of matter and style, because the avoiding these requires a coolness of recollection, which a writer so qualified and so busied is not master of. Warburton. According to a most just and judicious observation in the first book of Strabo, “ Καθαπερ γε εν τοις κολοσσικοις έργοις, ε το καθ' ὅλε ἑκατον ακριβες ζητεμεν, αλλα τοις καθ ̓ ὅλε προσεχομεν μάλλον ει ει και λως το όλον ετως κ' αν τελοις ποιεισθαι δει την κρισιν.” As in great colossal |