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Something, whofe truth convinc'd at fight we find,
That gives us back the image of our mind. 300
As fhades more sweetly recommend the light,
So modeft plainness sets off sprightly wit.

NOTES.

ned Wit to confift in the affemblage of ideas, and putting thofe together, with quickness and variety, wherein can be found any refemblance or congruity, whereby to make up pleafant pictures and agreeable vifions in the fancy. But that great Philofopher, in feparating Wit from Judgment, as he does in this place, has given us (and he could therefore give us no other) only an account of Wit in general: In which, falfe Wit, tho' not every fpecies of it, is included. Á friking image therefore of Nature, is as Mr. Locke obferves, certainly Wit: But this image may frike on feveral accounts, as well as for its truth and amiableness; and the Philofopher has explained the manner how.

But it never becomes that Wit which is the ornament of true Poefy, whofe end is to reprefent Nature, but when it dreffes that Nature to advantage, and prefents her to us in the clearest and moft taking light. And to know when Wit has done its office, the poet fubjoins one admirable direction: viz. When we perceive that it gives us back the image of our mind. When it does that, we may be fure it plays no tricks with us: For this image is the creature of the Judgment: and whenever Wit correfponds with Judgment, we may safely pronounce it to be true.

Naturam intueamur, bans fequamur: id facillimè accipiunt animi quod agnofcunt. Quintil. lib. viii. c. 3.

For works may have more wit than does 'em good, As bodies perifh thro' excess of blood.

Others for Language all their care exprefs, 305 And value books, as women men, for Drefs:

COMMENTARY.

VER. 305. Others for Language, &c.] He proceeds fecondly to those narrow Critics whofe whole concern turns upon Language, and fhews [from 304 to 337] that this quality, where it holds the principal place, deferves no commendation; because it excludes qualities more effential. And when the abounding Verbiage has ex cluded the fenfe, the writer has nothing to do but to to hide the defect, by giving his words all the falle colour and gilding he is able.

2. He fhews that the Critic who bufies himself with this quality alone, is altogether unable to make a right Judgment of it; because true Expreffion is only the dress of Thought; and fo, must be perpetually varied according to the fubject and manner of thinking. But those who never concern themselves with the Senfe, can form no judgment of the correspondence between that and the Language:

Expreffion is the dress of thought, and still
Appears more decent as more fuitable, &c.

Now as thefe Critics are ftrangers to all this skill, their whole judgment in Language is reduced to the choice of fingle words; the higheft excellence of which is commonly thought to confift in their being antique and obfolete. On which our author has therefore bestow'd

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Their praise is ftill, the Style is excellent:

The Senfe, they humbly take upon content.

Words are like leaves; and where they most abound,
Much fruit of fense beneath is rarely found. 310
Falfe Eloquence, like the Prismatic glass,
Its gaudy colours spreads on ev'ry place ;
The face of nature we no more furvey,
All glares alike, without distinction gay:

COMMENTARY.

a little raillery concluding with a fhort and proper direction concerning the use of words, as far as regards their novelty and antiquity.

NOTES.

311. Falfe eloquence, like the prifmatic glafs, c.] This fimile is beautiful. For the falfe colouring, given to objects by the prifmatic glass, is owing to its untwisting, by its obliquities, thofe threads of light, which nature had put together in order to spread over its works an ingenuous and fimple candor, that should not hide, but only heighten

the native complexion of the objects. And falfe Eloquence is nothing elfe but the ftraining and divaricating the parts of true expreffion; and then daubing them over with what the Rhetoricians very properly term, colours; in lieu of that candid light, now loft, which was reflected from them in their natural ftate while fincere and entire.

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320

But true Expreffion, like th' unchanging Sun, 315
Clears, and improves whate'er it shines upon,
It gilds all objects, but it alters nonę.
Expreffion is the dress of thought, and still
Appears more decent, as more suitable;
A vile conceit in pompous words exprefs'd,
Is like a clown in regal purple drefs'd:
For diff'rent ftyles with diff'rent fubjects fort,
As feveral garbs with country, town, and court.
Some by old words to fame have made pretence,
Ancients in phrafe, meer moderns in their fenfe :
Such labour'd nothings, in fo ftrange a ftyle, 326
Amaze th' unlearn'd, and make the learned fmile.

NOTES,

324. Some by old words, &c.] Abolita & abrogata retinere, infolentia cujufdam eft, frivole in parvis jactantia. Quintil. lib. i. c. 6.

Opus eft ut verba à vetuftate repetita neque crebra fint, neque manifefta, quia

nil eft odiofius affectatione, nec utique ab ultimis repetita temporibus. Oratio cujus fumma virtus eft perfpicuitas, quam fit vitiofa, fi egeat interprete? Ergo ut no vorum optima erunt maximè vetera, ita veterum maximè nova. Idem.

Unlucky, as Fungofo in the Play,

Thefe fparks with aukward vanity display
What the fine gentleman wore yesterday; 330
And but fo mimic ancient wits at best,

As

apes our grandfires, in their doublets drest. In words, as fashions, the fame rule will hold; Alike fantaftic, if too new, or old;

GLIOTH

Be not the first by whom the new are try'd, 335
Nor yet the last to lay the old afide.

But moft by Numbers judge a Poet's fong,

And smooth or rough, with them, is right or wrong;

COMMENTARY.

VER. 337. But most by Numbers judge, &c.] The laft fort are thofe [from 336 to 384.] whofe ears are attached only to the Harmony of a poem. Of which they judge as ignorantly and as perverfely as the other fort did of Eloquence; and for the very fame Reafon. He firft defcribes that falle Harmony with which they are fo much captivated; and fhews that it is wretchedly flat and unvaried: For

Smooth or rough with them is right or wrong.

He then describes the true. 1. As it is in itself, conftant; with a happy mixture of strength and sweetness, in contradiction to the roughness and flatness of falle Har

328.

Fungofo, &

NOTES.

unlucky as Johnson's Every Man in bis
See Ben.

Humour.

D

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