 An Essay on Criticism by Alexander Pope It is hard to say if greater want of skill appear in writing or in judging ill. But of the two less dangerous is the offense to tire our patience than mislead our sense. Some few in that, but numbers err in this, Ten censure wrong for one who writes a miss. 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 geniuses but rare, True taste as seldom is the critics 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? But 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 justly 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 coxcombe's nature meant buffools. In search of wit, these lose their common sense, And then turn critics in their own defense. Each burns alike, who can or cannot write, Or with arrivals or in eunuch's spite. All fools have still an itching to deride, And feign would be upon the laughing side. If mavious 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. Those half-learned witlings, numerous in our isle, As half-formed insects on the banks of Nile, Unfinished things, one knows not what to call their generations so equivocal, To tell them what a hundred tongues require, Or one vain wits that might a hundred tire. But you who seek to give and merit fame, And justly bear a critic's noble name, Be sure yourself and your own reach to know, How far your genius tastes and learning go. Launch not beyond your depth, But be discreet, And mark that point where sense and dullness meet. Remember to all things fixed the limits fit, And wisely curbed proud man's pretending wit. As on the land while here the ocean gains, In other parts it leaves wide sandy plains. Thus in the soul, while memory prevails, The solid power of understanding fails, Where beam of warm imagination play, The memories soft figures melt away. In science only will one genius fit, So vast is art, so narrow human wit. Not only bounded to peculiar arts, But often those confined to single parts. Like kings we lose the conquests gained before, By vain ambitions still to make them more. Each might his several province well command, Would all but stoop to what they understand. Just follow nature, And your judgment frame by her just standard, Which is still the same. Unairing nature, still divinely bright, One clear, unchanged and universal light, Life force and beauty must to all impart, At once the source and end and test of art. Art from that fund each just supply provides, Works without show, and without pomp presides. In some fair body thus the informing soul, With spirits feeds, with vigor fills the whole. Each motion guides and every nerve sustains, It's self unseen, but in the effects remains. Some to whom heaven and wit has been profuse, Want as much more to turn it to its use, For wit and judgment often are at strife, Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife. It is more to guide than spur the muses steed, Restrain his fury than provoke his speed. The winged coarser, like a generous horse, Shows most true metal when you check his course. Those rules of old discovered, not devised, Are nature still, but nature methodized. Nature, like liberty, Is but restrained by the same laws which first herself ordained. Here how learned Greece her useful rules indicts, Went to repress and when indulge our flights. High on Parnassus' top her sons she showed, And pointed out those arduous paths they trod. Held from afar aloft the immortal prize, And urged the rest by equal steps to rise. Just precepts thus from great examples given, She drew from them what they derived from heaven. The generous critic fanned the poet's fire, And taught the world with reason to admire. Then criticism the muses handmade proved, To dress her charms and make her more beloved. The following wits from that intention strayed, Who could not win the mistress wooed the maid. Against the poets their own arms they turned, Sure to hate most the men from whom they learned. So modern Pothicaries taught the art, By doctors' bill to play the doctor's part. Bold in the practice of mistaken rules, Prescribe, apply, and call their master's fools. Some on the leaves of ancient authors pray, Nor time nor moths air have spoiled so much as they. Some dryly plain without inventions aid, Right dull receipts how poems may be made. These leave the sense their learning to display, And those explain the meaning quite away. You then, whose judgment the right course would steer, Know well each ancient's proper character, His fable, subject, scope in every page, Religion, country, genius of his age. Without all these at once before your eyes, Caval you may, but never criticize. The homers works your study and delight, Read them by day, and meditate by night. Thence form your judgment, Thence your maxims bring, And trace the muses upward to their spring. So with itself compared, His text peruse, And let your comment be the Mantuan muse. When first young Mero, in his boundless mind, A work to outlast immortal Rome designed, Thus he seemed above the critic's law, And but from nature's fountains scorned to draw. But when to examine every party came, Nature and Homer were, he found, the same. Convinced amazed, he checks the bold design, And rules as strict his labored work confined As if the staggerite oar looked each line. Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem, To copy nature is to copy them. Some beauties yet no precepts can declare, For there's a happiness as well as care. Music resembles poetry, In each are nameless graces, Which no methods teach, And which a master hand alone can reach. If where the rules not far enough extend, Since rules were made but to promote their end, Some lucky license answers to the full, The intent proposed, that license is a rule. This pegasus, a nearer way to take, May boldly deviate from the common track. From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part, And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art, Which without passing through the judgment Gains the heart, and all its end at once attains. In prospects thus, some objects please our eyes, Which out of nature's common order rise, The shapeless rock or hanging precipice. They wit sometimes may gloriously offend, And rise to false true critics dare not mend. But though the ancients thus their rules invade, As kings dispense with laws themselves have made, Moderns beware, Or if you must offend against the precept, Nair transgress its end, Let it be seldom, and compelled by need, And have at least their precedent to plead. A critic else proceeds without remorse, Seizes your fame, and puts his laws in force. I know there are, To whose presumptuous thoughts those freer beauties even in them seem false. Some figures monstrous and misshaped appear, Considered singly, or beheld too near, Which but proportion to their light or place, To distance reconciles to form and grace. A prudent chief not always must display His powers in equal ranks and fair array, But with the occasion and the place comply, Conceal his force, may seem sometimes to fly. Those oft are stratagems, which errors seem, Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream. Still green with bays each ancient altar stands, Above the reach of sacrilegious hands, Secure from flames, from Envy's fiercer rage, Destructive war, and all involving age. See, from each climb, The learned their incense bring, Here in all tongues consenting pans ring, In praise so just let every voice be joined, And fill the general chorus of mankind. Hail Bard's triumphant, born in happier days, Immortal heirs of universal praise, Whose honors with increase of ages grow, As streams roll down and larging as they flow, Nations unborn your mighty names shall sound, And worlds applaud that must not yet be found. O may some spark of your celestial fire, The last, the meanest of your sons inspire, That on weak wings from far pursues your flights, Glows while he reads, but trembles as he writes, To teach vain wits a science little known, To admire superior sense, and doubt their own. Part two. Of all the causes which conspire to blind man's airing judgment, And misguide the mind, What the weak head with strongest bias rules Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools. Whatever nature has and worth denied, She gives in large recruits of needful pride, For as in bodies, thus in souls we find What wants in bloods and spirits swelled with wind. Pride, where wit fails, Steps into our defence, and fills up all the mighty void of sense. If once right reason drives that cloud away, Truth breaks upon us with resistless day. Trust not yourself, but your own defects to know Make use of every friend and every foe. A little learning is a dangerous thing. Drink deep, or taste not, the Pyrean spring. Their shallow drafts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again. Fired at first sight with what the musin parts, In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts, While from the bounded level of our mind Short views we take nor see the lengths behind, But more advanced, behold with strange surprise, New distant scenes of endless science rise. So pleased at first, the towering Alps we try, Mount o'er the veils and seem to tread the sky, The eternal snows appear already past, And the first clouds and mountains seem the last. But, those attained, we tremble to survey, The growing labours of the lengthened way, The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes, Hills peep or hills, and Alps on Alps arise. A perfect judge will read each work of wit With the same spirit that its author writ, Survey the whole, nor seek slight faults to find, Where nature moves and rapture warms the mind, Nor lose, for that malignant dull delight, The generous pleasure to be charmed with wit. But in such lays as neither eb nor flow, Correctly cold and regularly low, That, shunning faults, one quiet tenor keep, We cannot blame indeed, but we may sleep. In wit, as nature, what affects our hearts Is not the exactness of peculiar parts, It is not a lip or eye we beauty call, But the joint force and full result of all. Thus, when we view some well-proportioned dome, The world's just wonder, and even thine own room, No single parts unequally surprise, All comes united to the admiring eyes. No monstrous height, or breadth, or length appear, The whole at once is bold and regular. Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks that nair was, nor is, nor ere shall be. In every work regard the writer's end, Since none can compass more than they intend, And if the means be just, The conduct true, applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due. As men of breeding, sometimes men of wit, To avoid great errors must the less commit, Neglect the rules each verbal critic lays, For not to know some trifles as a praise. Most critics, fond of some subservient art, Still make the whole depend upon a part. They talk of principles, but notions prize, And all to one loved folly sacrifice. Once on a time, lamantious night, they say, A certain bard encountering on the way, Discourced in terms as just, with looks as sage, As Erica Dennis of the Grecian stage, Concluding all were desperate thoughts and fools, Who durst depart from Aristotle's rules. Our author, happy and a judge so nice, Produced his play, And begged the night's advice, Made him observe the subject and the plot, The manners, passions, unities, what not? All which exact to rule were brought about, Were but a combat in the lists left out. What, leave the combat out, exclaims the night? Yes, or we must renounce the Stegorite. Not so by heaven, he answers in a rage, Night's squires and steeds must enter on the stage, So vast a throng the stage can never contain, Then build anew, or act it in a plain. Thus, critics of less judgment than caprice, Curious, not knowing, not exact, but nice, Form short ideas, and offend in arts, As most in manners, buy a love to parts. Some to concede alone their taste confined, And glittering thoughts struck out at every line, Pleased with a work where nothing's just or fit, One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit. Poets, like painters, Thus unskilled to trace the naked nature and the living grace, With gold and jewels cover every part, And hide with ornaments their want of art. True wit is nature to advantage dressed, Which oft was thought but dare so well expressed, Something whose truth convinced at sight we find, That gives us back the image of our mind. As shades more sweetly recommend the light, Some modest plainness sets off sprightly wit, For works may have more wit than does them good, As bodies perish through excess of blood. Others for language all their care express, And value books as women men for dress. Their praise is still. The style is excellent, The sense they humbly take upon content. Words are like leaves, And where they most abound, Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found. False eloquence, like the prismatic glass, Its gaudy colors spread on every place, The face of nature we know more survey, All glares alike without distinction gay. But true expression, like the unchanging sun, Clears and improves what air it shines upon, It guilds all objects, but it alters none. Expression is the dress of thought, And still appears more decent as more suitable. A vile conceit in pompous words expressed Is like a clown in regal purple dressed, For different styles with different subjects sort, As several garbs with country, town, and court. Some by old words to fame have made pretence, Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense. Such labored nothings, In so strange a style, Amaze the unlearned, And make the learned smile. Unlucky as Fungoso in the play, These sparks with awkward vanity display What the fine gentleman wore yesterday, And but so mimic ancient wits at best, As apes are grandsires in their doublets dressed. In words as fashions, The same rule will hold, A like fantastic if too new or old, Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside. 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 pardassus 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 ere you find the cooling western breeze, In the next line it whispers through the trees. If crystal streams with pleasing murmurs creep, The readers threaten not in vain with sleep. Then at the last and only couplet fraught, With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, A needless Alexandrine ends the song, That like a wounded snake drags its slow length along. Leave such a tune to their own dull rhymes, And know what's roundly smooth or languishingly slow, And praise the easy vigor of a line, Where denim strength and waller's sweetness join. True ease in writing comes from art, Not chance, As those move easiest who have learned to dance. To start enough no harshness gives offense, The sound must seem an echo to the sense. Soft is the strain when zephyr's zet gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows, But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse, rough a verse should like the torrent roar. When Ajax strives some rock's fast 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. Here how Timothyus varied lay's surprise, And bid alternate passions fall and rise. While at each change the son of Libyan Jove Now burns with glory, And then melts with love, Now his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow, Now sighs steal out, And tears begin to flow. Persians and Greeks like turns of nature found, And the world's victor stood subdued by sound. The power of music all our hearts allow, And what Timothyus was is dried in now. Avoid extremes, and shun the fault of such who still are pleased too little or too much. At every trifle scorn to take offense, That always shows great pride or little sense. Those heads, as stomachs, are not sure the best, Which nauseate all, and nothing can digest. Yet let not each gay turn thy rapture move, For fools admire, but men of sense approve. As things seem large, which we through mists describe, Dolness is ever apt to magnify. Some foreign writers, some our own, despise. The ancients only, or the moderns prize. Thus wit, like faith, by each man is applied to one small sect, and all are damned beside. Meanly they seek the blessing to confine, And force that sun but on a part to shine, Which not alone the southern wits of limes, But ripens spirits in cold northern climes, Which from the first has shone on ages past, Enlights the present, and shall warm the last. Though each may feel increases and decays, And see now clearer and now darker days. Regard not, then, if wit be old or new, But blame the false, and value still the true. Some nare advance a judgment of their own, But catch the spreading notion of the town. They reason, and conclude by precedent, And own stale nonsense which they nare invent. Some judge of authors' names, not works, And then, nor praise, nor blame the writings, But the men. Of all this servile heard, the worst is he, That in proud Dolness joins with quality, A constant critic at the great man's board, To fetch and carry nonsense for my Lord. What woeful stuff this magical would be In some starved hackney's sonateer or me. But let a Lord once own the happy lines, How the whip brightens, how the style refines, Before his sacred name flies every fault, And each exalted stanza teams with thought. The vulgar, thus through imitation air, As oft the learned by being singular, So much they scorn the crowd, That if the throng by chance go right, They purposely go wrong. So schismatics the plain believers quit, And are but damned for having too much wit. Some praise at mourning what they blame at night, But always think the last opinion right. Amused by these is like a mistress used, This hour she's idolized, the next abused. While their weak heads, like towns unfortified, Twixed sense and nonsense daily changed their side, Asked them the cause, their wiser still, they say, And still tomorrow's wiser than today. We think our fathers fools so wise we grow, Our wiser sons no doubt will think us so. Once school divides this zealous aisle or spread, Who knew most sentences was deepest red, Faith, gospel, all seemed to be disputed, And none had sense enough to be confuted. Scotists and Thomists now in peace remain, Amidst their kindred cobwebs in duck lane. If faith itself has different dresses worn, What wonder modes in wit should take their turn. Oft leaving what is natural and fit, The current folly proves the ready wit, And authors think their reputation safe, Which lives as long as fools are pleased to laugh. Some, valuing those of their own side or mind, Still make themselves the measure of mankind. Fawnly we think we honour merit then, When we put but praise ourselves in other men. Parties in wit attend on those of state, And public faction doubles private hate. Pride, malice, folly against dried-in-rows, In various shapes of parson's, critics, bows, But sense survived when merry jests were passed, For rising merit will boy up at last. Might he return and bless once more our eyes, New Blackmore's and New Millbourne's must arise. Nay, should great Homer lift his awful head, Zoyless again would start up from the dead. Envy will merit, as its shade, Pursue, but like a shadow proves the substance true. For envy'd wit, like soul eclipsed, Makes known the opposing body's grossness, Not its own. When first that sun-too-powerful beams displays, It draws up vapours which obscure its rays. But even those clouds that last adorn its way, Reflect new glories, and augment the day. Be thou the first true merit to befriend. His praise is lost who stays till all commend. Short is the day to last of modern rhymes, And his but just to let them live but times. No longer now that golden age appears, When patriarch wits survived a thousand years. Now, length of fame, our second life, Is lost, and bare threescore is all even that Can boast. Our son's their father's failing language see, And such as Chaucer is, shall dried and be. So when the faithful pencil has designed Some bright idea of the master's mind, Where a new world leaps out at his command, And ready nature waits upon his hand, When the ripe colours soften and unite, And sweetly melt into just shade and light, When mellowing years their full perfection give, And each bold figure just begins to live, The treacherous colours the fair art betray, And all the bright creation fades away. Unhappy wit, like most mistaken things, Atones not for that envy which it brings. In youth alone its empty praise we boast, But soon the short-lived vanity is lost, Like some fair flower the early spring supplies, That gaily blooms, but even in blooming dies. What is this wit which must our cares employ? The owner's wife, that other men enjoy, Then must our troubles still when most admired, And still the more we give, the more required. Whose fame with pains we guard, But lose with ease, sure some to vex, But never all to please. It is what the vicious fear the virtuous shun, By fools tis hated, and by knaves undone. If wit so much from ignorance undergo, Ah, let not learning too commence its foe. Of old those met rewards who could excel, And such were praised, who but endeavored well. Though triumphs were to generals only do, Crowns were reserved to grace the soldiers too. Now they who reach Parnassus lofty crown Employ their pains to spurn some others down, And while self-love each jealous writer rules, Contending wits become the sport of fools. But still the worst, with most regret commend, For each ill author is as bad a friend. To what base ends, and by what abject ways, Are mortals urged through sacred lust of praise, On air so dire a thirst of glory boast, Nor in the critic let the man be lost? Good nature and good sense must ever join, To err is human, to forgive divine. But if in noble minds some dregs remain, Nor yet purged off of spleen and sour disdain, Discharge that rage on more-provoking crimes, Nor fear a dearth in these flogitious times, No pardon vile obscenity should find, Though wit and art conspire to move your mind, But dullness with obscenity must prove As shameful sure as impotence in love. In the fat age of pleasure, wealth and ease, Sprung the rank weed, and thrived with large increase. When love was all in easy monarch's care, Seldom at council, never in a war, Jilts ruled the stage, and statesmen farce's writ. Nay, wits had pensions, and young lords had wit. The fair sat panting at a courtier's play, And not a mask went unimproved away. The modest fan was lifted up no more, And virgins smiled at what they blushed before. The following license of a foreign reign Did all the dregs of bold sosinus regrain. Then unbelieving priests reformed the nation, And taught more pleasant methods of salvation, Where heaven's free subjects might their rights Dispute lest God himself should seem to absolute. Pulpit's their sacred satire learned to spare, And vice admired to find a flatterer there. Encouraged thus, wits titans braved the skies, And the press groaned with licensed blasphemies. These monsters, critics, with your darts engage, Here point your thunder and exhaust your rage. Yet shun their fault, Whose scandalously nice will need's mistaken author into vice. All seems infected that the infected spy, As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye. Learn, then, what morals critics ought to show, For tis but half a judge tasks to know. Tis not enough, taste judgment learning join, In all you speak, let truth and candor shine, That not alone what to your senses do, All may allow, but seek your friendship too. Be silent always when you doubt your sense, And speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence. Some positive persisting thoughts we know, Who, if once wrong, will need's be always so. But you, with pleasure, own your errors past, And make each day a critic on the last. Tis not enough, your counsel still be true, Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do. Men must be taught as if you taught them not, And things unknown proposed as things forgot. Without good breeding, truth is disapproved, That only makes a superior sense beloved. Be niggers of advice on no pretence, For the worst avarice is that of sense. With mean complacence, nair betray your trust, Nor be so civil as to prove unjust. Fear not the anger of the wise to raise, Those best can bear reproof who merit praise. Twer well might critics still this freedom take, But apious reddens at each word you speak, And stares tremendous, With a threatening eye like some fierce tyrant in an old tapestry. Fear most to tax an honourable fool, Whose right it is uncentured to be dull. Such without wit are poets as they please, As without learning they can take degrees. Leave dangerous truths to unsuccessful sadders, And flattery to falsome dedicators, Whom when they praise the world believes no more, Than when they promise to give scribbling ore. Tis best sometimes your censure to restrain, And charitably let the dull be vain. Your silence there is better than your spite, For who can rail so long as they can write? Still humming on their drowsy course they keep, And lashed so long like tops are lashed to sleep. Fall steps but help them to renew the race, As, after stumbling, jades will mend their pace. But crowds of these, impenitently bold, In sounds and jingling syllables grown old, Still run on poets in a raging vein, Even to the dregs and squeezings of the brain, Strain out the last old droppings of their scents, And rhyme with all the rage of impotence. Such shameless bards we have, And yet, his true, There are as mad abandoned critics too. The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head, With his own tongue still edifies his ears, And always listening to himself appears. All books he reads, and all he reads assails, From dryden's fables down to Durfee's tails. With him most authors steal their works or buy. Garth did not write his own dispensary. Name a new play, and he's the poet's friend. Nay showed his faults, but when would poets mend? No place so sacred from such fobs is barred, Nor is Paul's church more safe than Paul's churchyard. Nay, fly to Alters. There they'll talk you dead. For fools rush in, where angels fear to tread. Distrustful sense with modest caution speaks, It still looks home, and short excursions makes, But rattling nonsense in full volleys breaks, And never shocked and never turned aside, Bursts out, resistless, with a thundering tide. But where's the man, who council can bestow, Still pleased to teach, and yet not proud to know? Unbiased, or by favour or by spite, Not dolly preprosessed, nor blindly right, Though learned, well-bred, and though well-bred, sincere, modestly bold, and humanly severe, Who, to a friend his faults can freely show, And gladly praise the merit of a foe. Blessed with a taste exact, yet unconfined, A knowledge both of books and humankind, Generous converse, a soul exempt from pride, And love to praise with reason on his side. Such once were critics, such the happy few Athens and Rome in better ages knew, The mighty Staggerite first left the shore, Spread all his sails, and durst the deeps explore, He steered securely and discovered far, Led by the light of the Mayonian star. Poets, a race long unconfined, and free, Still fond and proud of savage liberty, Received his laws, and stood convinced Twas fit, Who conquered nature, should preside or wit. Horus still charms with graceful negligence, And without method talks us into sense. Will, like a friend, familiarly convey The truest notions in the easiest way. He, who supreme in judgment as in wit, Might boldly censure as he boldly writ, Yet judged with coolness, though he sung with fire. His precepts teach but what his works inspire. Our critics take a contrary extreme, They judge with fury, but they write with fleam. Nor suffers Horus more in wrong translations By wits than critics in as wrong quotations. See Dionysius Homer's thoughts refine, And call new beauties forth from every line. Fancy and art in gay Petronius pleas, The scholar's learning and the courtier's ease. In Grave Quintilian's copious work we find The justest rules and clearest method joined. Thus useful arms and magazines we place, All ranged in order and disposed with grace. But less to please the eye than arm the hand, Still fit for use and ready at command. The bold longinus, all the nine inspire, And bless their critic with a poet's fire. An ardent judge, whose zealous in his trust With a warmth gives sentence, yet is always just, Whose own example strengthens all his laws, And is himself that great sublime he draws. Thus long succeeding critics justly reigned, Licensed repressed and useful laws ordained, Learning and Rome alike in empire grew, And arts still followed where her eagles flew. From the same foes at last both felt their doom, And the same age saw learning fall and Rome. With tyranny then superstition joined, As that the body this enslaved the mind. The much was believed, the little understood, And to be dull was construed to be good. A second deluge learning, thus or run, And the monks finished what the goths begun. At length, Erasmus, that great, injured name, The glory of the priesthood and the shame, Stemmed the wild torrent of a barbarous age, And drove those holy vandals off the stage. But see, each muse, in Leo's golden days, Starts from her trance and trims her withered bays, Rome's ancient genius, or its rune spread, Shakes off the dust and rears his reverent head. Then sculpture and her sister-arts revive, Stones leaped to form and rocks began to live. With sweeter notes each rising temple rung, A Raphael painted and a Vida sung, Immortal Vida, on whose honored brow The poet's bays and critics ivy grow. Cremona now shall ever boast thy name, As next in place to Mantua, next in fame. But soon by impious arms from Latium chased, Their ancient bounds the banished muses passed. Thence arts o'er all the northern world advanced, But critic learning flourished most in France. The rules a nation born to serve, Obeys, And Bualo still in right of Horus sways. But we, brave Britons, Foreign laws despised, And kept unconquered and uncivilized. Fierce for the liberties of wit and bold, We still defied the Romans as of old. Yet some there were, Among the sounder few, Of those who less presumed and bettered knew, Who durst assert the juster ancient cause, And here restored wit's fundamental laws. Such was the muse, Whose rules and practice tell, Nature's chief master peace is writing well. Such was Ross Common, not more learned than good, With manners generous as his noble blood. To him the wit of Greece and Rome was known, And every author's merit but his own. Such late was Walsh, the muse's judge and friend, Who justly knew to blame or to commend, To failings mild but zealous for desert, The clearest head and the sincerest heart. This humble praise, lamented shade, Receive this praise at least a grateful muse may give. The muse whose early voice you taught to sing, Prescribed her heights and pruned her tender wing, Her guide now lost, no more attempts to rise, But in low numbers short excursions tries. Content, if hence the unlearned, Their once main view, the learned reflect on what before they knew. Careless of censure, nor too fond of fame, Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame. A verse alike to flatter or offend, Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend.