feffedly was in the harmony of his ftyle, and in all; the finer graces of beautiful compofition. NOTE VI. VERSE 257. 'Tis faid by one, who, with this candid claim, Has gain'd no fading wreath of critic fame.] These, and the fix subsequent lines, allude to the following paffage in Dr. Warton's Eflay on Pope. "I conclude these reflections with a remarkable fact. In no polished nation, after Criticism has been much studied, and the rules of writing established, has any very extraordinary work ever appeared. This has visibly been the cafe in Greece, in Rome, and in France, after Aristotle, Horace, and Boileau had written their Arts of Poetry. In our own country, the rules of the Drama, for instance, were never more completely understood: than at prefent; yet what uninteresting, though faultlefs, Tragedies have we lately feen? fo much better is our judgment than our execution. How to account for the fact here mentioned, adequately and justly, would be attended with all thofe difficulties that await difcuffions relative to the productions of the human mind, and to the delicate and fecret caufes that influence them; whether or no the natural powers be not confined and debilitated by that timidity and caution which is occafioned by a rigid regard to the dictates of art; or whether that philosophical, that geometrical, and systematical spirit so much in vogue, which has spread itself from the fciences even into polite literature, by confulting only reafon, has not diminished and destroyed fentiment, and made our poets write from and to the head, rather than the heart; or whether, laftly, when juft models, from which the rules have neceffarily been drawn, have once appeared, fucceeding writers, by vainly and ambitiously ftriving to furpafs thofe juft models, and to fhine and furprise, do not become stiff and forced, and affected in their thoughts and diction." Warton's Effay, page 209, 3d edition.I admire this ingenious and modest reasoning; but, for the honour of that severer art, which this pleafing writer has the happy talent to enliven and embellish, I will venture to start fome doubts concerning the fact itself for which he endeavours to account. Perhaps our acquaintance with those writings of Greece and Rome, which were fubfequent to Ariftotle and Horace, is not fufficiently perfect to decide the point either way in refpect to those countries. But with regard to France, may we not affert, that her poetical productions, which arose after the publication of Boileau's Didactic Effay, are at leaft equal, if not fuperior, to those which preceded that period? If the Henriade of Voltaire is not a fine Epic poem, it is allowed to be the best which the French have to boast; not to mention the dramatic works of that extraordinary and univerfal author. If this remarkable fact may indeed be found true, I should rather suppose it to arife from the irritable nature of the poetic fpirit, fo peculiarly averse to restraint and controul. The Bard who could gallop his Pegasus over a free and open plain, might be eager to engage in fo pleafing an exercise; but he who obferved the direction-pofts fo thickly and fo perversely planted, that, instead of affifting his career, they must probably occafion his fall, would easily be tempted to defcend from his steed, and to decline the courfe. Let me illuftrate this conjecture by a striking fact, in the very words of the Poet juft mentioned, who was by no means deficient in poetical confidence, and who has left us the following anecdote of himself, in that pleafing little anonymous work entitled, Commentaire Hiftorique fur les Oeuvres de l'Auteur de la Henriade. lut un jour plufieurs chants de ce poeme chez le jeune Préfident de Maisons, fon intime ami. On l'impatienta par des objections; il jetta fon manufcrit dans le feu. Le Préfident Hénaut l'en retira avec peine. "Souvenez vous (lui dit Mr. Hénaut) dans une de fes lettres, que c'est moi qui ai fauvé la Henriade, et qu'il m'en a couté une belle paire de manchettes." To return to the Effay on Pope.-I rejoice that the amiable Critic has at length obliged the public with the conclufion of his most engaging and ingenious work: he has the fingular talent to inftruct and to please even those readers who are most ready to revolt from the opinion which he endeavours to establish; and he has in fome degree atoned for that excess of severity which his first volume discovered, and which funk the reputation of Pope in the eyes of many, who judge not for themselves, even far below that mortifying level to which he meant to reduce it. Had Pope been alive, to add this fpirited effay to the bundle of writings against himself which he is faid to have collected, he must have felt, that, like the dagger of Brutus, it gave the most painful blow, from the character of the affailant: "All "All the confpirators, fave only he, Did that they did in envy of great Cæfar; He, only, in a general honeft thought, And common good to all, made one of them." Yet Pope afcended not the throne of Poetry by ufurpation, but was feated there by a legal title; of which I fhall fpeak farther in a subsequent note. NOTE VII. VERSE 359. His hallow'd fubject, by that Law forbid, Might ftill have laid in filent darknefs hid.] Boileau's Art of Poetry made its first appearance in 1673, fix years after the publication of Paradife Loft. The verses of the French Poet to which I have particularly alluded are these : C'est donc bien vainement que nos auteurs décus, Que le Diable toujours hurlant contre les cieux, Qui de votre héros veut rabaiffer la gloire, Et fouvent avec Dieu balance la victoire. Poetique de DESPREAUX, chant iii. ver. 193, &c. The preceding lines, which are faid to have been levelled at the Clovis of Defmaretz, appear fo pointed against the fubject of Milton, that we might almost believe them intended as a fatire on our divine Bard. There There is nothing in Boileau's admirable Didactic Effay fo liable to objection as the whole paffage concerning Epic poetry. His patronage of the old Pagan divinities, and his oblique recommendation of Claffical heroes, are alike exceptionable. Even a higher name than Boileau has failed in framing precepts for the Epic Mufe. The maxims delivered by Taffo himself, in his Difcourfe on Epic poetry, are fo far from perfect, that an agreeable and judicious French critic has very justly said of him, "S'il eût mis fa theorie en pratique, fon poeme n'auroit pas tant de charmes *." I am not fo vain as to think of fucceeding in the point where these immortal authors have failed; and I muft beg my reader to remember, that the prefent work is by no means intended as a code of laws for the Epic poet; it is not my design To write receipts how poems may be made. For I think the writer who would condefcend to frame this higher fpecies of compofition according to the exact letter of any directions whatever, may be moft properly referred to that admirable receipt for an Epic poem with which Martinus Scriblerus will happily supply him. My ferious defire is to examine and refute the prejudices which have produced, as I apprehend, the neglect of the Heroic Mufe: I wish to kindle in our Poets a warmer fenfe of national honour, with ambition to excel in the noblest province of poefy. If my effay should excite that generous enthusiasm in the breast of any young poetic genius, fo far from wishing to confine him by any arbitrary dictates of my own imagination, I should rather fay to him, in the words of Dante's Virgil, Non afpettar mio dir più, nè mio cenno E fallo fora non fare a fuo fenno. Who fcorn'd all limits to his work assign'd, Save by th' infpiring God who rul'd his mind.] "On foot, with a lance in his hand, the Emperor himself led the folemn proceffion, and directed Marmontel Poetique Françoise. the the line, which was traced as the boundary of the destined capital; till the growing circumference was observed with astonishment by the affiftants, who at length ventured to obferve, that he had already exceeded the most ample measure of a great city. "I fhall ftill advance," replied Conftantine, "till he, the invifible guide who marches before me, thinks proper to stop." GIBBON, Vol. II. page 11. END OF THE NOTES TO THE FIRST EPISTLE NOTES |