No more the mounting larks, while Daphne sings,
Shall list'ning in mid air suspend their wings;
No more the birds shall imitate her lays,

Or hushed with wonder, hearken from the sprays:
No more the streams their murmur shall forbear,
A sweeter music than their own to hear,
But tell the reeds, and tell the vocal shore,
Fair Daphne's dead, and music is no more!

Her fate is whispered by the gentle breeze,
And told in sighs to all the trembling_trees;
The trembling trees, in ev'ry plain and wood,
Her fate remurmur to the silver flood;
The silver flood, so lately calm, appears

Swelled with new passion, and o'erflows with tears;
The winds and trees and floods her death deplore,
Daphne, our grief! our glory now no more!

But see!where Daphne wond'ring mounts on high' Above the clouds, above the starry sky! Eternal beauties grace the shining scene, Fields ever fresh, and groves for ever green! There while you rest in amaranthine bow'rs, Or from those meads select unfading flow'rs, Behold us kindly, who your name implore, Daphne, our goddess, and our grief no more!

LYCIDAS.

How all things listen, while thy muse complains! Such silence waits on Philomela's strains, In some still ev'ning, when the whisp'ring breeze Pants on the leaves, and dies upon the trees. To thee, bright goddess, oft a lamb shall bleed,2 If teeming ewes increase my fleecy breed.

While plants their shade, or flow'rs their odours give, Thy name, thy honour, and thy praise shall live!

THYRSIS.

But see, Orion sheds unwholesome dews:
Arise; the pines a noxious shade diffuse;3

1 Virg. Ecl. V.:

"miratur limen Olympi,

Sub pedibusquc videt nubes et sidera Daphnis."-Pope.

2 Virg. Ecl. I. :

"illius aram

Sæpe tener nostris ab ovilibus imbuet agnus."-Pope.

3 Virg. Ecl. X. :

"solet esse gravis cantantibus umbra; Juniperi gravis umbra."-Pope,

Sharp Boreas blows, and nature feels decay,
Time conquers all, and we must time obey.
Adieu, ye vales, ye mountains streams and groves,
Adieu, ye shepherds, rural lays and loves;
Adieu, my flocks, farewell ye sylvan crew,
Daphne, farewell, and all the world adieu!1

AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1709. PUBLISHED 1711.

CONTENTS.

PART I.

Yodoction-that it is as great a fault to judge as to write ill, and an dangerous one to the public, v. 1. That a true taste is as rare to be found as a true genius, v. 9 to 18. That most men are born with some taste, but spoilt by false education, v. 19 to 25. The multitude of critics and causes of them, v. 26 to 45. That we are to study our own taste, and know the limits of it, v. 46 to 67. Nature the best guide of judgment, v 68 to 87. Improved by art and rules, which are but methodised nature, v. 88. Rules derived from the practice of the an cient poets, v. 38 to 110. That therefore the ancients are necessary to be studied by cities, particularly Homer and Virgil, v. 120 to 138. Of Licenses and the use of them by the ancients, v. 140 to 180. Rever ence due to the cents and praise of them, v. 181, &c.

PART II.

Causes hindering a true judgment. (1). Pride, v. 208. (2). Imperfect learning, v. 215. 3). Judging by parts and not by the whole, v. 233 to 288. Critice in vit, language, versification only, v. 288, 305, 339, &c. (4). Being too hard to please or too apt to admire, v. 384. (5). Partiality-too much. love to a sect-to the ancients or moderns, v. 324. (6). Prejudice or prevention, v. 408. (7). Singularity, v. 424. (8). Inconstancy, v. 430. (9). Party, v. 452, &c. (10). Envy, v. 466. Against envy and in praise of good nature, v. 508, &c. When severity is chiefly to be used by critics, v. 76.

PART III.

Rules for the conduct of muners in a critic. (1), Candour, v. 563. Modesty, v. 566. Good breeing, v. 572. Sincerity and freedom of advice. v. 578. (2). When one's counsel is to be restrained, v. 584. Character of an incorrigible poet, y. 699. And of an impertinent critic, v. 610, &c. Character of a good er tic, v. 629. The history of criticism and characters of the best critic, Aristotle, v. 645. Horace, v. 653. Dionysius. v, 665. Petronius, v. 66. Quintilion, v, 670. Longinus, v. 675. Of the decay of Criticism and ts revival; Erasmus, v. 693. Vida, v. 705. Boileau, v. 714. Lord Roscommon, &c. v. 725. Conclusion.

1 These four last lines allude to the several subjects of the four pas torals, and to the several scenes of them, particularised before in each."-Pope,

'Tis hard to say, if greater want of skill
Appear in writing or in judging ill;

But, of the two, less dang'rous is the offence
To tire our patience, than mislead our sense.
Some few in that, but numbers err is 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 glimm'ring 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:1
Some are bewildered in the maze of schools,
And some made coxcombs nature meant but fools.
In search of wit these lose their common sense,
And then turn critics in their own defence:
Each burns alike, who can, or cannot write,
Or with a rival's, or an eunuch's spite,
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.
Those half-learned witlings, num'rous in our isle,
As half-formed insects on the banks of Nile:

Plus sine doctrina prudentia, quam sine prudentia valet doctrina Quin,-Pope,

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 pow'r of understanding fails;
Where beams of warm imagination play,
The memory's soft figures melt away.
One science only will one genius fit;
So vast is art, so narrow human wit:
Not only bounded to peculiar arts,
But oft in those confined to single parts.
Like kings we lose the conquests gained before,
By vain ambition still to make them more;
Each might his sev'ral province well command,
Would all but stoop to what they understand.

First follow nature and your judgment frame
By her just standard, which is still the same:
Unerring 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 th' informing soul
With spirits feeds, with vigour fills the whole,
Each motion guides, and ev'ry nerve sustains;
Itself unseen, but in th' effects, remains.
Some, to whom Heav'n in 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, 'Tis more to guide, than spur the muse's steed; Restrain his fury, than provoke his speed;

The winged courser, 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.
Hear how learned Greece her useful rules indites,
When 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, th' immortal prize,
And urged the rest by equal steps to rise.
Just precepts thus from great examples giv'n‚1
She drew from them what they derived from Heav'n.
The gen'rous critic fanned the poet's fire,
And taught the world with reason to admire.
Then criticism the muse's handmaid proved,
To dress her charms and make her more beloved:
But 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 'Pothecaries, taught the art

By doctor's bills to play the doctor's part,
Bold in the practice of mistaken rules,
Prescribe, apply, and call their masters fools.
Some on the leaves of ancient authors prey,
Nor time nor moths e'er spoiled so much as they.
Some drily plain without invention's aid,
Write 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 ev'ry page;

Religion, country, genius of his age;

Without all these at once before your eyes,
Cavil you may, but never criticise."

1 Nec enim artibus editis factum est ut argumenta inveniremus, sed dicta sunt omnia antequam præciperentur; mox ea scriptores obser vata et collecta ediderunt. Quin.-Pope.

? Prescriptions.

3 The author after this verse originally inserted the following, which he has, however, omitted in all the editions: