erroneous principles, and from thence purfues a flagrantly vicious line of conduct; it is there fhe is told that love is involuntary, and that attachments of the heart are decreed by fate. Impious reafoning! As if a Power infinitely wife and beneficent would ordain atrocity! The first idle prepoffeffion, therefore, fuch a perfon feels, if it happens to be for the hufband of her moft intimate friend, inftead of calling herself to a fevere account for the illegal preference, fhe fets to work to reconcile it to nature-" There is a fatality in it,' argues fhe; "it is the will of Heaven our fouls fhould be united in the filken bonds of reciprocal love, and there is no striving against fate." This once fettled, criminality foon follows; the gentle, the fympathizing, the faithful friend, undauntedly. plants a dagger in the bofom of the mother, and ruthlessly tears from the innocent children the parent ftem on which their support and comfort depends. And yet this very female has cried, oh how she has cried! over relations of ficttitious diftrefs-has railed at hard-hearted fathers, cruel mothers, barbarous uncles, and treacherous friends, till her tongue denied its office, and fhe funk beneath the weight of fympathy, for mifery far fhort of that the herself is creating.

If good fpirits in the other world are fenfible of what is done in this, how will the Spartan and Roman dames of antiquity blefs themselves that they were not doomed to breathe on earth in the eighteenth century; how will the cheeks of many a British matron be fuffused with fhame for her polluted defcendants! You may think me warm, Mr. Editor, and your readers may think me illiberal; but let me beg of the female part of them to caft their eye into the world for a moment-let them count the difgraceful, and number the difhonoured, and if they do not find reafon to blush for expiring virtue, I am content to be reckoned a peevish old maid, or a disap pointed old bachelor, as long as I live. Generofity, liberal judgment, and a refined way of thinking, have done enough for us; for after ages will read in our annals, that when philofophy and humanity were objects of every one's pretenfion, from the night-man to the minister of ftate, the rights of nature were never more violated, nor the rights of religion more trampled on. What is refined sophistication; what is lenity, when they tend to corrupt our nature? Surely reprehenfible! and as fuch let them give way to the more fevere, but infinitely more beneficial, dictates of truth. Why are we endowed with fo noble a power as reafon? Why do we boast of a will to control' our paffions? if we fuffer the one to be degraded by a vicious courfe of life, and the other to abet lafcivious enormity.

175

CRITICISM.

CRITICISM UPON POPE'S ESSAY ON CRITICISM.

WE

E have thought proper to commence this head with an examen of Pope's famous Effay on Criticism, extracted from Dr. Aikin's Letters to his Son.

DEAR SON,

THOUGH it is for the most part a poor employment to endeavour to point out faults in a performance of reputation, and to diminish the admiration with which it has ufually been regarded, yet as far as inculcating the true principles of literature is of any confequence, it is important occafionally to difcufs the merits of thofe works on which the public tafte is chiefly formed. And this is peculiarly juft and proper with respect to fuch pieces as are themfelves critical, and written with the profeffed intention of establishing rules for compofing and judging. Among works of this kind, few are more diftinguifhed than Pope's Effay on Criticifm. If the circumftance of its being written in verfe has, on the one hand, impaired its authority, on the other, it has ferved to make it more read, and to fix its maxims more thoroughly in the memory. In fact, few

pieces are more referred to in the way of quotation; and after the high praises it has received from fuch names as Warburton, Johnfon, and Warton, its influence upon the opinions of writers and readers cannot be fuppofed inconfiderable. Such commendations, in

deed, render it a hazardous task to call in question its merits. But my experience of men and books has not ferved to augment my confidence in great names; and if I can give good reasons for the objections I fhall make, I fear not that you will regard my attempt as prefumptuous.

Dr. Warburton, at the clofe of his Commentary on this Effay, ftrongly calls it to the reader's recollection, that its author had not attained his twentieth year. This view of it as a juvenile performance is a very proper one. It may justly excite our admiration of the early display of poetical powers it exhibits, and fhould fuggeft every indulgence of candour to its defects; but it fhould make us hefitate in attributing to it that comprehenfion of view and accuracy of conception, which were by no means the most striking qualities of the author in the full maturity of his powers. It does not belong to my purpose to point out the imperfections with which it abounds as a mere poetical compofition. What I have to do with, are the falfe thoughts and vicious principles, which render it a very unfafe guide in matters of tafte, notwithstanding the large admixture of maxims founded on good fenfe, and expreffed with the utmoft brilliancy of language.

With respect to the method of the piece, as far as it really poffeffes a method not forcibly held together by the commentator's chain, it may be affirmed, that the arrangement of matter is fimple and natural, but not vey closely adhered to. Many of the rules and remarks are brought in with little connexion with what preceded, and apparently might be tranfpofed without injury. And after all Warburton has done for Pope, and his difciple for Horace, it is certain that the reader of each poet will fcarcely, without a previous clue, become fenfible of more than a fet of detached maxims, connected only by the general fubject.

Pope begins with an affertion which, if true, would render his work of very confined utility, namely, that critics, as well as poets, must be born fuch.

Both must alike from heav'n derive their light,

Thefe born to judge, as well as those to write.

And he further limits the profeffion of criticism, by requiring that both talents fhould be united in the fame person.

Let fuch teach others who themselves excel,
And cenfure freely who have written well.

But furely both these are very falfe notions; for nothing feems to be more a matter of acquirement than the habit of judging accurately on works of art; and this habit appears from innumerable inftances to be perfectly distinct from the faculty of practifing the arts. Indeed they have much oftener existed separate than combined.

Thus in the foul while Memory prevails,
The folid power of Understanding fails;
Where beams of warm imagination play,
The memory's foft figures melt away.

The beauty of imagery in thefe lines, fhould not make us blind to the want of juftnefs in the thought. To reprefent ftrength of memory as incompatible with folidity of understanding, is fo obvioufly contrary to fact, that I prefume the author had in his eye only the cafe of extraordinary memory for names, dates, and things which offer no ideas to the mind; which has, indeed, been often difplayed in great perfection by mere idiots. For, it is difficult to conceive how the faculty of judgment, which confifts in the comparison of different ideas, can at all be exercised without the power of storing up ideas in the mind, and calling them forth when required. From the fecond couplet, apparently meant to be the converfe of the first, one would fuppofe that he confidered the understanding and the imagination as the fame faculty, elfe the counterpart is defective. Further, fo far is it from being true, that the imagination obliterates the figures of memory, that the circumftance which causes a thing to be remembered is principally its being affociated with other ideas by the agency of the imagination. If the poet only meant, that

thofe ideas about which the imagination is occupied, are apt to ex clude ideas of a different kind, the remark is true; but it should have been differently expreffed.

One Science only will one Genius fit.

The maxim is as falfe, as it is difcouraging, and derogatory from the powers of the human mind. It is, perhaps, generally true, that the genius is exclufively fitted for attaining excellence in one of the great claffes of mental acquifitions, as fcience, art, invention, &c. but he who can make himself master of one fcience properly fo called, may commonly with equal application attain any other.

First follow Nature:

This trite rule can be of little ufe without being opened and exemplified. It is perfectly obvious, that in all the arts which are imitative or descriptive of nature, the must be the archetype; but the proper manner of studying nature, and transferring its images to each particular fpecies of the works of art, variously combined, contrafted, and perhaps heightened and altered, is the great defideratum on which their true theory and practice is founded. We fhall foon fee that Fope cuts fhort all difcuffions of this kind, by reducing his general precept to the fingle practical direction, imitate the an

cients.

When first young Maro, &c.

That Virgil, not only in his general plan, but in most of the subordinate parts, was a clofe copyift of Homer, is undeniable, whatever be thought of the fuppofition that he fet out with a design of drawing from the fources of nature, and was diverted from it by the discovery that "Nature and Homer were the fame." The modern idolatry of Shakespeare has elevated him to the fame degree of authority among us; and critics have not been wanting, who have confidently drawn from his characters the proofs and illustrations of their theories on the human mind. But what can be more unworthy of the true critic and philofopher, than fuch an implicit reliance on any man, how exalted foever his genius, efpecially on those who lived in the infancy of their art? If an epic poem be a reprefentation of nature in a courfe of heroic action, it must be fufceptible of as much variety as nature herself; and furely it is more defirable that a poet of original genius fhould give full fcope to his inventive powers, under the restrictions of fuch laws only as are founded on nature, than that he fhould fetter himfelf with rules derived from the practice of a predeceffor. When Pope praises the ancient rules for compofition on the ground that they were "difcovered not devifed," and were only "nature methodized," he gives a just notion of what they ought to be. But when he fuppofes Virgil to have been properly" checked in his bold defign of drawing from Nature's fountains," and in confeqnence to have confined his work within rules as ftri&t

As if the Stagyrite o'erlook'd each line,

how can he avoid the force of his own ridicule, where a little further, in this very piece, he laughs at Dennis for

Concluding all were defperate fots and fools

Who durft depart from Ariftottle's rules?

Such are the inconfiftencies of a writer who fometimes utters notions derived from reading and education, sometimes the suggestions of native good fense !

Some beauties yet no precepts can declare,

For there's a happiness as well as care.

If the meaning of the writer here is only, that rules will not ftand inftead of genius, and that a poet's greatest beauties are rather the refult of a happy flow of fancy, than the careful pursuit of precepts, the truth of the remark is indifputable. But if, applying to the critic, he means to tell him that certain poetical beauties are irreducible to rational principles, and only to be referred to luck, chance, a brave diforder, and fuch other unmeaning notions, we may affert that he was indeed young in the philofophy of criticism. He appears, however, to have been in thè right train, when he fays, that where the lucky licence anfwers its purpose,

-that Licence is a rule;

but he confuses all again by the often-quoted maxim,

Great Wits fometimes may gloriously offend,

And rife to faults true Critics dare not mend.

for he fought rather to have concluded, that fuch fuccessful deviations from common practice are not faults; and that the true critic fhould enlarge his rules to the comprehenfion of these real, though unusual, excellencies. So much, indeed, does he perplex himself between veneration for ancient rules, and regard to the practice of eminent poets, that the whole paffage is full of contradictions, which coft his commentator much fruitless pains to reconcile, and oblige him to take shelter in a comparison between the fublimities of poetry, and the mysteries of religion, "fome of which are above reason, and fome contrary to it.”

Pope goes on to obferve, that though the ancients may make thus free with their own rules, yet that modern writers should copy this indulgence with caution, and not without "their precedent to plead." On the contrary, a liberal mode of reafoning would allow more freedom to the moderns, who poffefs fuch ftores of new ideas, to deviate from ancient rules, than to the ancients who made and acknowledged them.

Thofe oft are stratage ms which errors feem,
Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream.