While they ring round the fame unvary'd chimes, With fure returns of ftill expected rhymes;

Where-e'er you find "the cooling western breeze,"
In the next line, it "whispers thro' the trees:"
If crystal streams "with pleafing murmurs creep,'
The reader's threaten'd (not in vain) with "fleep:"
Then, at the last and only couplet fraught
With fome unmeaning thing they call a thought,
A needlefs Alexandrine ends the fong, 356
That, like a wounded fnake, drags its flow length
along.

Leave fuch to tune their own dull rhymes, and know
What's roundly smooth, or languishingly flow;
And praise the eafy vigour of a line,

360 Where Denham's strength, and Waller's sweetness join.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As thofe move eafieft who have learn'd to dance.
"Tis not enough no harshness gives offence,
The found must seem an Echo to the fense: 365

NOTES.

VER. 364. 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence;

The found muft feem an Echo to the fenfe: ] The judi cious introduction of this precept is remarkable. The Poets, and even fome of the best of them, have been fo fond of the beauty arifing from this trivial precept, that in their prac

Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud furges lash the founding shoar,
The hoarfe,rough verfe fhould like the torrent roar.
When Ajax strives fome rock's vaft weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move flow:
Not fo, when swift Camilla fcours the plain, 372
Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the

tice, they have violated the very End of it, which is the en crease of harmony; and fo they could but raise an Echo, did not care whose ears they offended by its diffonance. To remedy this abuse therefore, the poet, by the introductory line, would infinuate, that Harmony is always prefuppofed as obferved; tho' it may and ought to be perpetually varied, fo as to produce the effect here recommended.

VER. 365. The found must seem an Echo to the fenfe,] Lord Rofcommon fays,

The found is ftill a comment to the fenfe.

They are both well expreffed: only this supposes the sense to be affifted by the found; that, the found affifted by the fense,

IMITATIONS,

VER. 366. Soft is the ftrain, etc.]

Tum fi læta canunt, etc. Vida Poet. I. iii. 403.

VER. 368. But when loud furges, etc.]

Tum longe fale faxa fonant, etc. Vida ib. 388.

VER. 370. When Ajax ftrives, etc.]

Atque ideo fi quid geritur molimine magno,etc. Vida ib.4 17.

VER. 372. Not fo, when fwift Camilla, etc.]

At mora fi fuerit damno, properare jubebo,etc. Vida ib. 420.

375

Hear how Timotheus' vary'd lays furprize,
And bid alternate paffions fall and rife!
While, at each change, the son of Libyan Jove
Now burns with glory, and then melts with love;
Now his fierce eyes with fparkling fury glow,
Now fighs steal out, and tears begin to flow:
Perfians and Greeks like turns of nature found,
And the world's victor stood subdu'd by Sound!
The pow'r of Mufic all our hearts allow,
And what Timotheus was, is DRYDEN now.

Avoid Extremes; and fhun the fault of fuch, Who ftill are pleas'd too little or too much, 385

COMMENTARY.

VER. 384. Avoid Extremes, etc.] Our Author is now come to the last caufe of wrong Judgment, PARTIALITY; the parent of the immediately preceding caufe, a bounded capacity: Nothing fo much narrowing and contracting the mind as prejudices entertained for or against things or perfons. This, therefore, as the main root of all the foregoing, he profecutes at large from 383 to 473.

Firft, to 394. he previously expofes that capricious turn of mind, which, by running men into Extremes, either of praise or difpraife, lays the foundation of an habitual partiality. He cautions therefore both against one and the other; and with reafon, for excefs of Praife is the mark of a bad tafle; and excefs of Cenfure, of a bad digeftion.

NOTES.

VER. 374. Hear how Timotheus, etc.] See Alexander's Feaft, or the Power of Mufic; an Ode by Mr. Dryden. P.

At ev'ry trifle scorn to take offence,

That always fhews great pride, or little sense;
Thofe heads, as ftomachs, are not fure the best,
Which nauseate all, and nothing can digest.
Yet let not each gay Turn thy rapture move; 390
For fools admire, but men of fenfe approve :
As things feem large which we thro' mifts defcry,
Dulness is ever apt to magnify.

Some foreign writers, fome our own despise; The Ancients only, or the Moderns prize.

COMMENTARY.

395

VER. 394. Some foreign writers, etc.] Having explained the difpofition of mind which produces an habitual partiality, he proceeds to expose this partiality in all the fhapes in which it appears both amongst the unlearned and the learned.

I. In the unlearned, it is seen, first, In an unreasonable fondnefs for, or averfion to our own or foreign, to ancient or modern writers. And as it is the mob of unlearned readers he is here speaking of, he exposes their folly in a very appofite fimilitude: Thus Wit, like Faith, by each Man is apply'd

To one small fect, and all are damn'd befide. But he fhews [from 397 to 408] that thefe Critics have as wrong a notion of Reajon as thofe Bigots have of God: For that Genius is not confined to times or climates; but, as the common gift of Nature, is extended throughout all ages and countries: That indeed this intellectual light, like the material light of the fun itself, may not fhine at all times, and in every place, with equal fplendor; but be fometimes clouded with popular ignorance; and fometimes again eclipfed by the difcountenance of Princes; yet it fhall ftill recover itself; and, by breaking thro' the strongest of these impediments, manifeft the eternity of its nature.

Thus Wit, like Faith, by each man is apply'd
To one fmall fect, and all are damnn'd befide.
Meanly they feck the bleffing to confine,
And force that fun but on a part to fhine,
Which not alone the fouthern wit fublimes, 400
But ripens fpirits in cold northern climes;
Which from the firft has fhone on ages past,
Enlights the prefent, and fhall warm the last;
Tho' each may feel encreases and decays,
And fee now clearer and now darker days.
Regard not then if Wit be old or new,
But blame the falfe, and value ftill the true.
Some ne'er advance a Judgment of their
But catch the spreading notion of the Town;

COMMENTARY.

405

own,

VER. 408. Some ne'er advance a Judgment of their own] A fecond inftance of unlearned partiality, he fhews [from 407 to 424.] is mens going always along with the cry, as having no fixed or well grounded principles whereon to raife any judgment of their own. A third is reverence for names; of which fort, as he well obferves, the worst and vileft are the idolizers of names of quality; whom therefore he ftigmatizes as they deferve. Our

NOTES.

VER. 402. Which from the first, etc.] Genius is the fame in all ages; but its fruits are various; and more or less excellent as they are checked or matured by the influence of Government or Religion upon them. Hence in fome parts of Literature the Ancients excell; in others, the Moderns; juft as thofe accidental circumftances influenced them.