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Where beams of warm imagination play,
The memory's foft figures melt away.

One science only will one genius fit;

60

So vaft is art, fo narrow human wit:

Not only bounded to peculiar arts,
But oft' in thofe confin'd to fingle parts.
Like Kings we lose the conquests gain'd before,
By vain ambition still to make them more; 65
Each might his fev'ral province well command,
Would all but ftoop to what they understand.

NOTES.

er; the understanding being rather paffive while the memory is cultivating. As to the other appearance, the decay of memory by the vigorous exercife of Fancy, the poet himself seems to haye intimated the caufe in the epithet he has given to the Imagination. For, if according to the Atomic Philofophy, the memory of things be preferved in a concatenation of ideas, produced by the animal fpirits moving in continued trains; the force and rapidity of the Imagination

breaking and diffipating thofe trains, by constantly making new affociations, muft neceffarily weaken and diforder the recollective faculty.

67. Would all but stoop to what they underftand] The expreffion is de licate, and implies what is very true, that most men think it a degradation of their genius to employ it in what lies under their com prehenfion, but had rather exercise their ambition in fubduing what is placed above it.

First follow Nature, and your judgment frame By her juft ftandard, which is ftill the fame:

COMMENTARY.

VER. 68. First follow Nature, &c.] The Critic obferving the directions here given, and finding himself qua lified for his office, is fhewn next bow to exercife it. And as he was to attend to Nature for a Call, fo he is first and principally to follow her when called. And here again in this, as in the foregoing precept, the poet [from 67 to 84] fhews both the reasonableness, and the neceffity of it. The reafon is, 1. Because Nature is the fource of poetic Art; as that art is only a representation of Nature. ; fhe being its great exemplar and original. z. Because she is. the end of Art; the defign of poetry being to convey the knowledge of Nature in the moft agreable manner. 3. Because the is the test of Art, as she is unerring, conftant, and ftill the fame. Hence he obferves that, as she is the fource, the conveys life to Art: As the end, the conveys force to it, for the force of any thing arifes from its being directed to its end; and, as the teft, the convey's beauty to it, for every thing acquires beauty by its being reduced to its true ftandard. Such is the important fenfe of thosę two lines,

Life, force, and beauty must to all impart,

At once the fource, and end, and test of Art.

We now come to the neceffity of the Precept. The two great conftituent qualities of a compofition as fuch, are Art and Wit: But neither of these attains its perfection, 'all the first be bid, and the other judiciously restrained; which is only then when Nature is exactly followed, for

Unerring NATURE, ftill divinely bright,
One clear, unchang'd, and univerfal light,
Life, force, and beauty, muft to all impart,
At once the fource, and end, and test of Art.

COMMENTARY.

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then Art can never make a parade or Wit commit an extravagance. Art, while it adheres to Nature, and has fo large a fund in the refources which the fupplies, difpofes every thing with fo much eafe and fimplicity, that we fee nothing but thofe natural images it works with, while itfelf ftands behind and unobserved: But when Art. leaves Nature, deluded either by the bold extravagance of Fancy or the quaint grotefques of Fafhion, the is then obliged at every step to come forward in a painful or pompous oftentation, to cover, or foften, or regulate the fhocking difproportion of unnatural images. In the first cafe, the poet compares Art to the Soul within, informing a beauteous Body: But we generally find it, in the last cafe, only like the Habit without, bolftering up by the skill of the Taylor, the defects of a mishapen one.Again, as to Wit, it might perhaps be imagined that this needed only Judgment to govern it: But as he well obferves

-Wit and Judgment often are at ftrife,

Tho' meant each others aid, like Man and Wife,

They want therefore fome friendly Mediator or Reconciler, which is Nature: And in attending to her, the Judgment will learn where to comply with the charms of Wit, and the Wit how to obey the directions of Judge

ment.

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Art from that fund each just supply provides,
Works without show, and without pomp prefides:<
In fome fair body thus th' informing foul

With fpirits feeds, with vigour fills the whole,
Each motion guides, and ev'ry nerve sustains;
Itself unfeen, but in th' effects, remains.

76.

Some, to whom Heav'n in wit has been profufe, 80
Want as much more, to turn it to its ufe ;
For wit and judgment often are at ftrife,
Tho' meant each other's aid, like man and wife.
"Tis more to guide, than fpur the Mufe's steed;
Reftrain his fury, than provoke his speed;
The winged courfer, like a gen'rous horse,
Shows most true mettle when you check his course.
Thofe RULES of old difcover'd, not devis'd,
Are Nature ftill, but Nature methodiz'd;

COMMENTARY.

85

VER. 88. Thofe Rules of old, &c.] Having thus, in his first precept, to follow Nature, settled Criticism on its true bottom; he proceeds to fhew what affiftance may be had from Art. But left this fhould be thought to draw the Critic from the foundation where he had before fixed him, he previoufly obferves [from 87 to 92] that thofe Rules of Art, which he is now about to recommend to his ftudy, were not invented in the Imagination, but difcovered in the book of Nature: And that, therefore, tho they may feem to reftrain Nature by Laws

90

Nature, like Liberty, is but reftrain'd
By the fame Laws which firft herself ordain'd.
Hear how learn'd Greece her useful rules indites,
When to reprefs, and when indulge our fights:

COMMENTARY.

yet, as they are laws of her own making, the Critic is till properly in the very liberty of Nature. Thole Rules the ancient Critics borrowed from the Poets, who received them immediately from Nature,

Just Precepts thus from great Examples given,
Thefe drew from them what they deriv'd from Heav'n;

and are both therefore to be well studied.

VER. 92. Hear how learn'd Greece, &c.] He speaks of the Critics firft, and with great judgment, as the previous knowledge of them is neceffary for reading the Poets, with that fruit which the intent here propofed re quires. But having, in the previous obfervation, fufficiently explained the Nature of ancient Criticifm, he enters on the fubject [treated of from 91 to 118] with a fublime defcription of its End; which was to ilJultrate the beauties of the best Writers, in order to excite others to an emulation of their excellence. From the tranfports which thefe Ideas raife in him, the poet is naturally brought back to reflect on the degeneracy of modern Criticism and as the restoring the Art to its ancient Integrity and fplendor is the great purpose of his poem, he first takes notice of thofe, who feem not to understand that Nature is exhaustless, and that new models of good writing may be produced in every age, and confequently

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