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How safe is treason, and how sacred ill,
Where none can sin against the people's will!
Where crowds can wink, and no offence be known,
Since in another's guilt they find their own!
Yet fame deserved no enemy can grudge,
The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge.
In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abethdin
With more discerning eyes, or hands more clean,
Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress,
Swift of despatch, and easy of access.

Oh! had he been content to serve the crown
With virtues only proper to the gown,
David for him his tuneful harp had strung,
And heaven had wanted one immortal song;
But wild ambition loves to slide, not stand,
And fortune's ice prefers to virtue's land.
Achitophel, grown weary to possess
A lawful fame and lazy happiness,

Disdained the golden fruit to gather free,

And lent the crowd his arm to shake the tree.

DRYDEN.

38. THE ART OF CRITICISM.

'Tis hard' to say, if greater' want of skill
Appear in writing, or in judging' ill;
But, of the two, less' dangerous is the offence
To tire' our patience', than mislead' our sense':
Some few' in that`, but numbers` err in this';
Ten' censure' wrong, for one' who writes' amiss.
A fool' might once himself' alone expose;
Now one' in verse' makes many more' in prose'.
'Tis with our judgments' as our watches', none
Go just alike', yet each believes his own`.
In Poets, as true Genius' is but rare,
True Taste' as seldom is the Critic's' share:
Both' must alike from Heaven' derive their light;
These born to judge', as well as those' to write'.
Let such teach others' who themselves' excel,
And censure' freely who have written' well.
Authors' are partial to their wit', 'tis true;
But are not Critics' to their judgment' too?

Yet, if we look more closely, we shall find

Most have the seeds' of judgment in their mind:
Nature affords at least a glimmering light;

The lines, though touched but faintly, are drawn` right.
But as the slightest sketch, if jūstly traced,
Is by ill-colouring' but the more disgraced',
So by false learning' is good sense` defaced:
Some are bewildered in the maze of schools',
And some made coxcombs' Nature meant for fools'.
In search of wit' these lose their common sense',
And then turn Critics' in their own defence'.
All fools have still an itching to deride',
And fain would be upon the laughing` side.
If Mævius scribble' in Apollo's spite,

There are who judge` still worse than he can write.
Some have, at first, for Wits`, then Poets', past,
Turned Critics' next, and proved plain Fools' at last.
Some neither can for Wits' nor Critics' pass,
As heavy mules' are neither horse' nor ass`.

POPE.

39.-HARMONY OF EXPRESSION.

BUT most by numbers judge a poet's song;
And smooth or rough, with them is right or wrong:
In the bright Muse though thousand charms conspire,
Her voice is all these tuneful fools admire;

Who haunt Parnassus but to please their ear,
Not mend their minds; as some to church repair,
Not for the doctrine, but the music there:
These equal syllables alone require,
Though oft the ear the open vowels tire;
While expletives their feeble aid do join,
And ten low words oft creep in one dull line;
While they ring round the same unvaried chimes,
With sure returns of still expected rhymes:
Where'er you find "the cooling western breeze,"
In the next line it "whispers through the trees;"
If crystal streams "with pleasing murmurs creep,'
The reader's threatened (not in vain) with "sleep: "
Then, at the last and only couplet, fraught
With some unmeaning thing they call a thought,

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A needless Alexandrine ends the song,

That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
Leave such to tune their own dull rhymes, and know
What's roundly smooth, or languishingly slow:
And praise the easy vigour of a line,

Where Denham's strength and Waller's sweetness join.
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance;
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
"Tis not enough no harshness gives offence,
The sound must seem an echo to the sense:
Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,

The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar.
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow;

Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main.

POPE.

40.-ON MAN.

LET us (since life can little more supply
Than just to look about us, and to die)
Expatiate free o'er all this scene of Man:
A mighty maze! but not without a plan;

A wild, where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot;
Or garden, tempting with forbidden fruit.
Together let us beat this ample field,
Try what the open, what the covert yield!
The latent tracts, the giddy heights explore,
Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar;
Eye Nature's walks, shoot Folly as it flies,
And catch the manners living as they rise;
Laugh where we must, be candid where we can;
But vindicate the ways of God to Man.

Say first, of God above, or Man below,

What can we reason, but from what we know?

Of Man, what see we but his station here,

From which to reason, or to which refer?

Through worlds unnumbered though the God be known, "Tis ours to trace him only in our own.

He, who through vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compose one universe,
Observe how system into system runs,
What other planets circle other suns,
What varied being peoples every star,
May tell why Heaven has made us as we are.
But of this frame, the bearings and the ties,
The strong connexions, nice dependencies,
Gradations just, has thy pervading soul
Looked through? or can a part contain the whole ?
Is the great chain that draws all to agree,
And drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee?
Presumptuous Man! the reason wouldst thou find,
Why formed so weak, so little, and so blind?
First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,
Why formed no weaker, blinder, and no less.
Ask of thy mother Earth, why oaks are made
Taller and stronger than the weeds they shade;
Or ask of yonder argent fields above,
Why Jove's satellites are less than Jove?

Of systems possible, if 'tis confest
That wisdom infinite must form the best,
Where all must fall, or not coherent be,
And all that rises, rise in due degree;
Then, in the scale of reasoning life, 'tis plain,
There must be somewhere such a rank as Man:
And all the question (wrangle e'er so long)
Is only this, if God has placed him wrong?

Respecting Man, whatever wrong we call
May, must be right, as relative to all.

In human works, though laboured on with pain,
A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain:
In God's, one single can its end produce;
Yet serves to second too some other use.
So Man, who here seems principal alone,
Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown,
Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal;
Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.

When the proud steed shall know why Man restrains His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains;

When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod,
Is now a victim, and now Egypt's God:

Then shall Man's pride and dulness comprehend
His actions', passions', being's use and end;
Why doing, suffering, checked, impelled; and why
This hour a slave, the next a deity.

Then say not Man's imperfect, Heaven in fault;
Say rather, Man's as perfect as he ought;
His knowledge measured to his state and place;
His time a moment, and a point his space.

POPE.

41.-UNIVERSAL ORDER.

ALL are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;
That, changed through all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth, as in the ethereal frame;
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees;
Lives through all life, extends through all extent;
Spreads undivided, operates unspent ;
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,

As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns;
To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.

Cease then, nor order imperfection name:
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.
Know thy own point: This kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heaven bestows on thee.
Submit. In this or any other sphere,
Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:
Safe in the hand of one disposing power,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All nature is but art, unknown to thee;

All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good;

And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.

POPE.

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