No More Learning

The ancients, who had
a language more capable of variety than ours, had two kinds of verse,
the Iambick, consisting of short and long syllables alternately, from
which our heroick measure is derived, and Trochaick, consisting in a
like alternation of long and short. These were considered as opposites,
and conveyed the contrary images of speed and slowness; to confound
them, therefore, as in these lines, is to deviate from the established
practice. But where the senses are to judge, authority is not necessary,
the ear is sufficient to detect dissonance, nor should I have sought
auxiliaries on such an occasion against any name but that of Milton.




No. 87. TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1751.


_Invidus, iracundus, iners, vinosus, amator,_
_Nemo adeo ferus est, ut non mitescere possit,_
_Si modo culturæ patientem commodet aurem. _
HOR. Lib. i. Ep. i. 38.

The slave to envy, anger, wine, or love,
The wretch of sloth, its excellence shall prove;
Fierceness itself shall hear its rage away.
When list'ning calmly to th' instructive lay.
FRANCIS.


That few things are so liberally bestowed, or squandered with so little
effect, as good advice, has been generally observed; and many sage
positions have been advanced concerning the reasons of this complaint,
and the means of removing it. It is indeed an important and noble
inquiry, for little would be wanting to the happiness of life, if every
man could conform to the right as soon as he was shewn it.

This perverse neglect of the most salutary precepts, and stubborn
resistance of the most pathetick persuasion, is usually imputed to him
by whom the counsel is received, and we often hear it mentioned as a sign
of hopeless depravity, that though good advice was given, it has wrought
no reformation.

Others, who imagine themselves to have quicker sagacity and deeper
penetration, have found out that the inefficacy of advice is usually the
fault of the counsellor, and rules have been laid down, by which this
important duty may be successfully performed. We are directed by what
tokens to discover the favourable moment at which the heart is disposed
for the operation of truth and reason, with what address to administer,
and with what vehicles to disguise _the catharticks of the soul_.

But, notwithstanding this specious expedient, we find the world yet in the
same state: advice is still given, but still received with disgust; nor
has it appeared that the bitterness of the medicine has been yet abated,
or its powers increased, by any methods of preparing it.

If we consider the manner in which those who assume the office of
directing the conduct of others execute their undertaking, it will not
be very wonderful that their labours, however zealous or affectionate, are
frequently useless. For what is the advice that is commonly given? A few
general maxims, enforced with vehemence, and inculcated with importunity,
but failing for want of particular reference and immediate application.

It is not often that any man can have so much knowledge of another, as
is necessary to make instruction useful. We are sometimes not ourselves
conscious of the original motives of our actions, and when we know them,
our first care is to hide them from the sight of others, and often from
those most diligently, whose superiority either of power or understanding
may entitle them to inspect our lives; it is therefore very probable that
he who endeavours the cure of our intellectual maladies, mistakes their
cause; and that his prescriptions avail nothing, because he knows not
which of the passions or desires is vitiated.

Advice, as it always gives a temporary appearance of superiority, can
never be very grateful, even when it is most necessary or most judicious.
But for the same reason every one is eager to instruct his neighbours.
To be wise or to be virtuous, is to buy dignity and importance at a high
price; but when nothing is necessary to elevation but detection of the
follies or the faults of others, no man is so insensible to the voice of
fame as to linger on the ground.

_--Tentanda via est, qua me quoque possim_
_Tollere humo, victorque virûm volitare per ora. _
VIRG. Geor. iii. 8.

New ways I must attempt, my groveling name
To raise aloft, and wing my flight to fame.
DRYDEN.

Vanity is so frequently the apparent motive of advice, that we, for the
most part, summon our powers to oppose it without any very accurate
inquiry whether it is right. It is sufficient that another is growing
great in his own eyes at our expense, and assumes authority over
us without our permission; for many would contentedly suffer the
consequences of their own mistakes, rather than the insolence of him who
triumphs as their deliverer.

It is, indeed, seldom found that any advantages are enjoyed with that
moderation which the uncertainty of all human good so powerfully
enforces; and therefore the adviser may justly suspect, that he
has inflamed the opposition which he laments by arrogance and
superciliousness. He may suspect, but needs not hastily to condemn
himself, for he can rarely be certain that the softest language or most
humble diffidence would have escaped resentment; since scarcely any
degree of circumspection can prevent or obviate the rage with which the
slothful, the impotent, and the unsuccessful, vent their discontent upon
those that excel them. Modesty itself, if it is praised, will be envied;
and there are minds so impatient of inferiority, that their gratitude is
a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is
a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain.

The number of those whom the love of themselves has thus far corrupted,
is perhaps not great; but there are few so free from vanity, as not to
dictate to those who will hear their instructions with a visible sense
of their own beneficence; and few to whom it is not unpleasing to receive
documents, however tenderly and cautiously delivered, or who are not
willing to raise themselves from pupillage, by disputing the propositions
of their teacher.

It was the maxim, I think, of Alphonsus of Arragon, that _dead counsellors
are safest_. The grave puts an end to flattery and artifice, and the
information that we receive from books is pure from interest, fear,
or ambition. Dead counsellors are likewise most instructive; because
they are heard with patience and with reverence. We are not unwilling
to believe that man wiser than ourselves, from whose abilities we may
receive advantage, without any danger of rivalry or opposition, and
who affords us the light of his experience, without hurting our eyes
by flashes of insolence.

By the consultation of books, whether of dead or living authors, many
temptations to petulance and opposition, which occur in oral conferences,
are avoided. An author cannot obtrude his service unasked, nor can be
often suspected of any malignant intention to insult his readers with his
knowledge or his wit. Yet so prevalent is the habit of comparing ourselves
with others, while they remain within the reach of our passions, that
books are seldom read with complete impartiality, but by those from
whom the writer is placed at such a distance that his life or death
is indifferent.

We see that volumes may be perused, and perused with attention, to little
effect; and that maxims of prudence, or principles of virtue, may be
treasured in the memory without influencing the conduct. Of the numbers
that pass their lives among books, very few read to be made wiser or
better, apply any general reproof of vice to themselves, or try their own
manners by axioms of justice. They purpose either to consume those hours
for which they can find no other amusement, to gain or preserve that
respect which learning has always obtained; or to gratify their curiosity
with knowledge, which, like treasures buried and forgotten, is of no use
to others or themselves.

"The preacher (says a French author) may spend an hour in explaining and
enforcing a precept of religion, without feeling any impression from his
own performance, because he may have no further design than to fill up
his hour. " A student may easily exhaust his life in comparing divines and
moralists, without any practical regard to morality or religion; he may
be learning not to live, but to reason; he may regard only the elegance
of style, justness of argument, and accuracy of method; and may enable
himself to criticise with judgment, and dispute with subtilty, while the
chief use of his volumes is unthought of, his mind is unaffected, and his
life is unreformed.

But though truth and virtue are thus frequently defeated by pride,
obstinacy, or folly, we are not allowed to desert them; for whoever can
furnish arms which they hitherto have not employed, may enable them to
gain some hearts which would have resisted any other method of attack.
Every man of genius has some arts of fixing the attention peculiar to
himself, by which, honestly exerted, he may benefit mankind; for the
arguments for purity of life fail of their due influence, not because
they have been considered and confuted, but because they have been
passed over without consideration. To the position of Tully, that if
Virtue could be seen, she must be loved, may be added, that if Truth
could be heard, she must be obeyed.




No. 88. SATURDAY, JANUARY 19, 1751.


_Cum tabulis animum censoris sumet honesti:_
_Audebit, quæcunque parum splendoris habebunt,_
_Et sine pondere erunt, et honore indigna ferentur,_
_Verba movere loco, quamvis invita recedant,_
_Et versentur adhuc intra penetralia Vestæ. _
HOR. Lib. ii. Ep. ii. 110.

But he that hath a curious piece designed,
When he begins must take a censor's mind.
Severe and honest; and what words appear
Too light and trivial, or too weak to bear
The weighty sense, nor worth the reader's care,
Shake off; though stubborn, they are loth to move,
And though we fancy, dearly though we love.
CREECH.


"There is no reputation for genius," says Quintilian, "to be gained by
writing on things, which, however necessary, have little splendour or
shew. The height of a building attracts the eye, but the foundations lie
without regard. Yet since there is not any way to the top of science,
but from the lowest parts, I shall think nothing unconnected with the
art of oratory, which he that wants cannot be an orator. "

Confirmed and animated by this illustrious precedent, I shall continue my
inquiries into Milton's art of versification. Since, however minute the
employment may appear, of analysing lines into syllables, and whatever
ridicule may be incurred by a solemn deliberation upon accents and pauses,
it is certain that without this petty knowledge no man can be a poet;
and that from the proper disposition of single sounds results that
harmony that adds force to reason, and gives grace to sublimity; that
shackles attention, and governs passions.

That verse may be melodious and pleasing, it is necessary, not only that
the words be so ranged as that the accent may fall on its proper place,
but that the syllables themselves be so chosen as to flow smoothly into
one another. This is to be effected by a proportionate mixture of vowels
and consonants, and, by tempering the mute consonants with liquids and
semivowels. The Hebrew grammarians have observed, that it is impossible
to pronounce two consonants without the intervention of a vowel, or
without some emission of the breath between one and the other; this is
longer and more perceptible, as the sounds of the consonants are less
harmonically conjoined, and, by consequence, the flow of the verse is
longer interrupted.

It is pronounced by Dryden, that a line of monosyllables is almost always
harsh. This, with regard to our language, is evidently true, not because
monosyllables cannot compose harmony, but because our monosyllables,
being of Teutonick original, or formed by contraction, commonly begin and
end with consonants, as,

--------Every lower faculty
_Of sense, whereby they hear, see, smell, touch, taste. _

The difference of harmony arising principally from the collocation of
vowels and consonants, will be sufficiently conceived by attending to the
following passages:

Immortal _Amarant_----there grows
And flow'rs aloft, shading the fount of life,
And where the river of bliss through midst of heav'n
_Rolls o'er Elysian flow'rs her amber stream;_
With these that never fade, the spirits elect
_Bind their resplendent locks inwreath'd with beams. _

The same comparison that I propose to be made between the fourth and
sixth verses of this passage, may be repeated between the last lines of
the following quotations:

--------Under foot the violet,
Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich in-lay
_Broider'd the ground, more colour'd than with stone_
Of costliest emblem.

--------Here in close recess,
With flowers, garlands, and sweet-smelling herbs,
Espoused Eve first deck'd her nuptial bed;
_And heav'nly choirs the hymenean sung. _

Milton, whose ear had been accustomed, not only to the musick of the
ancient tongues, which, however vitiated by our pronunciation, excel
all that are now in use, but to the softness of the Italian, the most
mellifluous of all modern poetry, seems fully convinced of the unfitness
of our language for smooth versification, and is therefore pleased with
an opportunity of calling in a softer word to his assistance; for this
reason, and I believe for this only, he sometimes indulges himself in a
long series of proper names, and introduces them where they add little
but musick to his poem.

--------The richer seat
Of _Atabalipa_, and yet unspoil'd
_Guiana_, whose great city _Gerion's_ sons
Call _El Dorado_. ----

The moon----The _Tuscan_ artist views
At evening, from the top of _Fesole_
Or in _Valdarno_, to descry new lands. --

He has indeed been more attentive to his syllables than to his accents,
and does not often offend by collisions of consonants, or openings of
vowels upon each other, at least not more often than other writers who
have had less important or complicated subjects to take off their care
from the cadence of their lines.

The great peculiarity of Milton's versification compared with that
of later poets, is the elision of one vowel before another, or the
suppression of the last syllable of a word ending with a vowel, when
a vowel begins the following word. As

--------Knowledge
Oppresses else with surfeit, and soon turns
Wisdom to folly, as nourishment to wind.

This licence, though now disused in English poetry, was practised by
our old writers, and is allowed in many other languages ancient and
modern, and therefore the criticks on "Paradise Lost" have, without much
deliberation, commended Milton for continuing it[54]. But one language
cannot communicate its rules to another. We have already tried and
rejected the hexameter of the ancients, the double close of the Italians,
and the alexandrine of the French; and the elision of vowels, however
graceful it may seem to other nations, may be very unsuitable to the
genius of the English tongue.

There is reason to believe that we have negligently lost part of our
vowels, and that the silent _e_ which our ancestors added to most of our
monosyllables, was once vocal. By this detruncation of our syllables, our
language is overstocked with consonants, and it is more necessary to add
vowels to the beginning of words, than to cut them off from the end.

Milton therefore seems to have somewhat mistaken the nature of our
language, of which the chief defect is ruggedness and asperity, and has
left our harsh cadences yet harsher. But his elisions are not all equally
to be censured; in some syllables they may be allowed, and perhaps in
a few may be safely imitated. The abscission of a vowel is undoubtedly
vicious when it is strongly sounded, and makes, with its associate
consonant, a full and audible syllable.

--------What he gives,
Spiritual, may to purest spirits be found,
_No_ ingrateful food, and food alike these pure
Intelligential substances require.

Fruits,----Hesperian fables true,
If true, here _only_, and of delicious taste.

----Evening now approach'd,
For we have _also_ our evening and our morn.

Of guests he makes them slaves,
Inhospita_bly_, and kills their infant males.

And vital Vir_tue_ infus'd, and vital warmth
Throughout the fluid mass. ----

God made _thee_ of choice his own, and of his own
To serve him.

I believe every reader will agree, that in all those passages, though not
equally in all, the musick is injured, and in some the meaning obscured.
There are other lines in which the vowel is cut off, but it is so faintly
pronounced in common speech, that the loss of it in poetry is scarcely
perceived; and therefore such compliance with the measure may be allowed.

--------Nature breeds
Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,
Abomina_ble_, inuttera_ble_; and worse
Than fables yet have feigned. ----

--------From the shore
They view'd the vast immensura_ble_ abyss.
Impenetra_ble_, impal'd with circling fire.
To none communica_ble_ in earth or heav'n.

Yet even these contractions increase the roughness of a language too rough
already; and though in long poems they may be sometimes suffered, it
never can be faulty to forbear them.

Milton frequently uses in his poems the hypermetrical or redundant line of
eleven syllables.

--------Thus it shall befall
Him who to worth in woman over-trust_ing_
Lets her will rule. ----
I also err'd in over much admir_ing_.

Verses of this kind occur almost in every page; but though they are not
unpleasing or dissonant, they ought not to be admitted into heroick
poetry, since the narrow limits of our language allow us no other
distinction of epick and tragick measures, than is afforded by the
liberty of changing at will the terminations of the dramatick lines, and
bringing them by that relaxation of metrical rigour nearer to prose.

[Footnote 54: _Variation_. "This licence, though an innovation in English
poetry, is yet allowed in many other languages ancient and modern; and
therefore the criticks on Paradise Lost have, without much deliberation,
commended Milton for introducing it. " _First folio edition. _]




No. 89. TUESDAY, JANUARY 22, 1751.


_Dulce est desipere in loco. _
HOR. Lib. iv. Od. xii. 28.

Wisdom at proper times is well forgot.


Locke, whom there is no reason to suspect of being a favourer of idleness
or libertinism, has advanced, that whoever hopes to employ any part of his
time with efficacy and vigour, must allow some of it to pass in trifles.
It is beyond the powers of humanity to spend a whole life in profound
study and intense meditation, and the most rigorous exacters of industry
and seriousness have appointed hours for relaxation and amusement.

It is certain, that, with or without our consent, many of the few moments
allotted us will slide imperceptibly away, and that the mind will break,
from confinement to its stated task, into sudden excursions. Severe and
connected attention is preserved but for a short time; and when a man
shuts himself up in his closet, and bends his thoughts to the discussion
of any abstruse question, he will find his faculties continually
stealing away to more pleasing entertainments. He often perceives himself
transported, he knows not how, to distant tracts of thought, and returns
to his first object as from a dream, without knowing when he forsook it,
or how long he has been abstracted from it.

It has been observed that the most studious are not always the most
learned. There is, indeed, no great difficulty in discovering that this
difference of proficiency may arise from the difference of intellectual
powers, of the choice of books, or the convenience of information. But I
believe it likewise frequently happens that the most recluse are not the
most vigorous prosecutors of study. Many impose upon the world, and many
upon themselves, by an appearance of severe and exemplary diligence, when
they, in reality, give themselves up to the luxury of fancy, please their
minds with regulating the past, or planning the future; place themselves
at will in varied situations of happiness, and slumber away their days
in voluntary visions. In the journey of life some are left behind,
because they are naturally feeble and slow; some because they miss the
way, and many because they leave it by choice, and instead of pressing
onward with a steady pace, delight themselves with momentary deviations,
turn aside to pluck every flower, and repose in every shade.

There is nothing more fatal to a man whose business is to think, than to
have learned the art of regaling his mind with those airy gratifications.
Other vices or follies are restrained by fear, reformed by admonition,
or rejected by the conviction which the comparison of our conduct with
that of others may in time produce. But this invisible riot of the mind,
this secret prodigality of being, is secure from detection, and fearless
of reproach. The dreamer retires to his apartments, shuts out the cares
and interruptions of mankind, and abandons himself to his own fancy; new
worlds rise up before him, one image is followed by another, and a long
succession of delights dances round him. He is at last called back to
life by nature, or by custom, and enters peevish into society, because he
cannot model it to his own will. He returns from his idle excursions with
the asperity, though not with the knowledge of a student, and hastens
again to the same felicity with the eagerness of a man bent upon the
advancement of some favourite science. The infatuation strengthens by
degrees, and like the poison of opiates, weakens his powers, without any
external symptoms of malignity.

It happens, indeed, that these hypocrites of learning are in time
detected, and convinced by disgrace and disappointment of the difference
between the labour of thought, and the sport of musing. But this
discovery is often not made till it is too late to recover the time that
has been fooled away. A thousand accidents may, indeed, awaken drones
to a more early sense of their danger and their shame. But they who are
convinced of the necessity of breaking from this habitual drowsiness, too
often relapse in spite of their resolution; for these ideal seducers are
always near, and neither any particularity of time nor place is necessary
to their influence; they invade the soul without warning, and have often
charmed down resistance before their approach is perceived or suspected.

This captivity, however, it is necessary for every man to break, who
has any desire to be wise or useful, to pass his life with the esteem
of others, or to look back with satisfaction from his old age upon his
earlier years. In order to regain liberty, he must find the means of
flying from himself; he must, in opposition to the Stoick precept, teach
his desires to fix upon external things; he must adopt the joys and the
pains of others, and excite in his mind the want of social pleasures and
amicable communication.

It is, perhaps, not impossible to promote the cure of this mental malady,
by close application to some new study, which may pour in fresh ideas,
and keep curiosity in perpetual motion. But study requires solitude, and
solitude is a state dangerous to those who are too much accustomed to
sink into themselves. Active employment or public pleasure is generally
a necessary part of this intellectual regimen, without which, though some
remission may be obtained, a complete cure will scarcely be effected.

This is a formidable and obstinate disease of the intellect, of which,
when it has once become radicated by time, the remedy is one of the
hardest tasks of reason and of virtue. Its slightest attacks, therefore,
should be watchfully opposed; and he that finds the frigid and narcotick
infection beginning to seize him, should turn his whole attention against
it, and check it at the first discovery by proper counteraction.

The great resolution to be formed, when happiness and virtue are thus
formidably invaded, is, that no part of life be spent in a state of
neutrality or indifference; but that some pleasure be found for every
moment that is not devoted to labour; and that, whenever the necessary
business of life grows irksome or disgusting, an immediate transition be
made to diversion and gaiety.

After the exercises which the health of the body requires, and which
have themselves a natural tendency to actuate and invigorate the mind, the
most eligible amusement of a rational being seems to be that interchange
of thoughts which is practised in free and easy conversation; where
suspicion is banished by experience, and emulation by benevolence; where
every man speaks with no other restraint than unwillingness to offend,
and hears with no other disposition than desire to be pleased.

There must be a time in which every man trifles; and the only choice that
nature offers us, is, to trifle in company or alone. To join profit with
pleasure, has been an old precept among men who have had very different
conceptions of profit. All have agreed that our amusements should not
terminate wholly in the present moment, but contribute more or less to
future advantage. He that amuses himself among well-chosen companions,
can scarcely fail to receive, from the most careless and obstreperous
merriment which virtue can allow, some useful hints; nor can converse
on the most familiar topicks without some casual information. The loose
sparkles of thoughtless wit may give new light to the mind, and the gay
contention for paradoxical positions rectify the opinions.

This is the time in which those friendships that give happiness or
consolation, relief or security, are generally formed. A wise and good
man is never so amiable as in his unbended and familiar intervals.
Heroick generosity, or philosophical discoveries, may compel veneration
and respect, but love always implies some kind of natural or voluntary
equality, and is only to be excited by that levity and cheerfulness
which disencumber all minds from awe and solicitude, invite the modest
to freedom, and exalt the timorous to confidence. This easy gaiety is
certain to please, whatever be the character of him that exerts it; if
our superiors descend from their elevation, we love them for lessening
the distance at which we are placed below them; and inferiors, from whom
we can receive no lasting advantage, will always keep our affections
while their sprightliness and mirth contribute to our pleasure.

Every man finds himself differently affected by the sight of fortresses
of war, and palaces of pleasure; we look on the height and strength of
the bulwarks with a kind of gloomy satisfaction, for we cannot think
of defence without admitting images of danger; but we range delighted
and jocund through the gay apartments of the palace, because nothing
is impressed by them on the mind but joy and festivity. Such is the
difference between great and amiable characters; with protectors we are
safe, with companions we are happy.




No. 90. SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 1751.


_In tenui labor. _
VIRG. Geor. iv. 6.

What toil in slender things!


It is very difficult to write on the minuter parts of literature without
failing either to please or instruct. Too much nicety of detail disgusts
the greatest part of readers, and to throw a multitude of particulars
under general heads, and lay down rules of extensive comprehension, is
to common understandings of little use. They who undertake these subjects
are therefore always in danger, as one or other inconvenience arises to
their imagination, of frighting us with rugged science, or amusing us
with empty sound.

In criticising the work of Milton, there is, indeed, opportunity to
intersperse passages that can hardly fail to relieve the languors of
attention; and since, in examining the variety and choice of the pauses
with which he has diversified his numbers, it will be necessary to
exhibit the lines in which they are to be found, perhaps the remarks may
be well compensated by the examples, and the irksomeness of grammatical
disquisitions somewhat alleviated.

Milton formed his scheme of versification by the poets of Greece and Rome,
whom he proposed to himself for his models, so far as the difference of
his language from theirs would permit the imitation. There are indeed
many inconveniencies inseparable from our heroick measure compared
with that of Homer and Virgil; inconveniencies, which it is no reproach
to Milton not to have overcome, because they are in their own nature
insuperable; but against which he has struggled with so much art and
diligence, that he may at least be said to have deserved success.

The hexameter of the ancients may be considered as consisting of fifteen
syllables, so melodiously disposed, that, as every one knows who has
examined the poetical authors, very pleasing and sonorous lyrick measures
are formed from the fragments of the heroick. It is, indeed, scarce
possible to break them in such a manner but that _invenias etiam disjecti
membra poetæ_, some harmony will still remain, and the due proportions
of sound will always be discovered. This measure therefore allowed great
variety of pauses, and great liberties of connecting one verse with
another, because wherever the line was interrupted, either part singly
was musical. But the ancients seem to have confined this privilege to
hexameters; for in their other measures, though longer than the English
heroick, those who wrote after the refinements of versification, venture
so seldom to change their pauses, that every variation may be supposed
rather a compliance with necessity than the choice of judgment.

Milton was constrained within the narrow limits of a measure not very
harmonious in the utmost perfection; the single parts, therefore, into
which it was to be sometimes broken by pauses, were in danger of losing
the very form of verse. This has, perhaps, notwithstanding all his care,
sometimes happened.

As harmony is the end of poetical measures, no part of a verse ought to
be so separated from the rest as not to remain still more harmonious than
prose, or to show, by the disposition of the tones, that it is part of
a verse. This rule in the old hexameter might be easily observed, but in
English will very frequently be in danger of violation; for the order
and regularity of accents cannot well be perceived in a succession of
fewer than three syllables, which will confine the English poet to only
five pauses; it being supposed, that when he connects one line with
another, he should never make a full pause at less distance than that
of three syllables from the beginning or end of a verse.

That this rule should be universally and indispensably established,
perhaps cannot be granted; something may be allowed to variety, and
something to the adaptation of the numbers to the subject; but it will
be found generally necessary, and the ear will seldom fail to suffer by
its neglect.

Thus when a single syllable is cut off from the rest, it must either be
united to the line with which the sense connects it, or be sounded alone.
If it be united to the other line, it corrupts its harmony; if disjoined,
it must stand alone, and with regard to musick be superfluous; for there
is no harmony in a single sound, because it has no proportion to another.

----Hypocrites austerely talk,
Defaming as impure what God declares
_Pure_; and commands to some, leaves free to all.

When two syllables likewise are abscinded from the rest, they evidently
want some associate sounds to make them harmonious.

----Eyes----
----more wakeful than to drouze,
Charm'd with Arcadian pipe, the pastoral reed
Of Hermes, or his opiate rod. _Meanwhile_
To re-salute the world with sacred light
Leucothea wak'd.
He ended, and the sun gave signal high
To the bright minister that watch'd: _he blew_
His trumpet.

First in the east his glorious lamp was seen,
Regent of day; and all th' horizon round
Invested with bright rays, jocund to run
His longitude through heav'n's high road; _the gray_
Dawn, and the Pleiades, before him danc'd,
Shedding sweet influence.

The same defect is perceived in the following line, where the pause is at
the second syllable from the beginning.

--------The race
Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard
In Rhodope, where woods and rocks had ears
To rapture, 'till the savage clamour drown'd
Both harp and voice; nor could the muse defend
_Her son_. So fail not thou, who thee implores.

When the pause falls upon the third syllable or the seventh, the harmony
is the better preserved; but as the third and seventh are weak syllables,
the period leaves the ear unsatisfied, and in expectation of the
remaining part of the verse.

----He, with his horrid crew,
Lay vanquish'd, rolling in the fiery gulph,
Confounded though immor_tal_. But his doom
Reserv'd him to more wrath; for now the thought
Both of lost happiness and lasting pain
Torments _him_.

God,--with frequent intercourse,
Thither will send his winged messengers
On errands of supernal grace. So sung
The glorious train ascend_ing_.

It may be, I think, established as a rule, that a pause which concludes
a period should be made for the most part upon a strong syllable, as
the fourth and sixth; but those pauses which only suspend the sense may
be placed upon the weaker. Thus the rest in the third line of the first
passage satisfies the ear better than in the fourth, and the close of the
second quotation better than of the third.

--------The evil soon
Drawn back, redounded (as a flood) on those
From whom it _sprung_; impossible to mix
With _blessedness_.

--------What we by day
Lop overgrown, or prune, or prop, or bind,
One night or two with wanton growth derides,
Tending to _wild_.

The paths and bow'rs doubt not but our joint hands
Will keep from wilderness with ease as wide
As we need walk, till younger hands ere long
Assist _us_.

The rest in the fifth place has the same inconvenience as in the seventh
and third, that the syllable is weak.

Beast now with beast 'gan war, and fowl with fowl,
And fish with fish, to graze the herb all leaving,
Devour'd each _other_: Nor stood much in awe
Of man, but fled _him_, or with countenance grim,
Glar'd on him pass_ing_.

The noblest and most majestick pauses which our versification admits, are
upon the fourth and sixth syllables, which are both strongly sounded in
a pure and regular verse, and at either of which the line is so divided,
that both members participate of harmony.

But now at last the sacred influence
Of light _appears_, and from the walls of heav'n
Shoots far into the bosom of dim night
A glimmering _dawn_: here nature first begins
Her farthest verge, and chaos to retire.

But far above all others, if I can give any credit to my own ear, is the
rest upon the sixth syllable, which, taking in a complete compass of
sound, such as is sufficient to constitute one of our lyrick measures,
makes a full and solemn close. Some passages which conclude at this stop,
I could never read without some strong emotions of delight or admiration.

Before the hills appear'd, or fountain flow'd,
Thou with the eternal wisdom didst converse,
Wisdom thy sister, and with her didst play
In presence of the almighty Father, pleas'd
With thy celestial _song_.

Or other worlds they seem'd, or happy isles,
Like those Hesperian gardens fam'd of old,
Fortunate fields, and groves, and flowery vales,
Thrice happy isles! But who dwelt happy there,
He stayed not to in_quire_.

--------He blew
His trumpet, heard in Oreb since, perhaps
When God descended; and, perhaps, once more
To sound at general _doom_.

If the poetry of Milton be examined, with regard to the pauses and flow of
his verses into each other, it will appear, that he has performed all that
our language would admit; and the comparison of his numbers with those who
have cultivated the same manner of writing, will show that he excelled as
much in the lower as the higher parts of his art, and that his skill in
harmony was not less than his invention or his learning.




No. 91. TUESDAY, JANUARY 29, 1751.


_Dulcis inexpertis cultura potentis amici;_
_Expertus metuit. _
HOR. Lib. i. Ep. xviii. 86.

To court the great ones, and to sooth their pride,
Seems a sweet task to those that never tried;
But those that have, know well that danger's near.
CREECH.


The Sciences having long seen their votaries labouring for the benefit
of mankind without reward, put up their petition to Jupiter for a more
equitable distribution of riches and honours. Jupiter was moved at their
complaints, and touched with the approaching miseries of men, whom the
Sciences, wearied with perpetual ingratitude, were now threatening to
forsake, and who would have been reduced by their departure to feed in
dens upon the mast of trees, to hunt their prey in deserts, and to perish
under the paws of animals stronger and fiercer than themselves.

A synod of the celestials was therefore convened, in which it was
resolved, that Patronage should descend to the assistance of the
Sciences. Patronage was the daughter of Astrea, by a mortal father, and
had been educated in the school of Truth, by the Goddesses, whom she
was now appointed to protect. She had from her mother that dignity of
aspect, which struck terrour into false merit, and from her mistress
that reserve, which made her only accessible to those whom the Sciences
brought into her presence.

She came down, with the general acclamation of all the powers that favour
learning. Hope danced before her, and Liberality stood at her side, ready
to scatter by her direction the gifts which Fortune, who followed her,
was commanded to supply. As she advanced towards Parnassus, the cloud
which had long hung over it, was immediately dispelled. The shades,
before withered with drought, spread their original verdure, and the
flowers that had languished with chillness brightened their colours,
and invigorated their scents; the Muses tuned their harps, and exerted
their voices; and all the concert of nature welcomed her arrival.

On Parnassus she fixed her residence, in a palace raised by the Sciences,
and adorned with whatever could delight the eye, elevate the imagination,
or enlarge the understanding. Here she dispersed the gifts of Fortune with
the impartiality of Justice, and the discernment of Truth. Her gate stood
always open, and Hope sat at the portal, inviting to entrance all whom
the Sciences numbered in their train. The court was therefore thronged
with innumerable multitudes, of whom, though many returned disappointed,
seldom any had confidence to complain; for Patronage was known to neglect
few, but for want of the due claims to her regard. Those, therefore, who
had solicited her favour without success, generally withdrew from publick
notice, and either diverted their attention to meaner employments, or
endeavoured to supply their deficiencies by closer application.

In time, however, the number of those who had miscarried in their
pretensions grew so great, that they became less ashamed of their
repulses; and instead of hiding their disgrace in retirement, began to
besiege the gates of the palace, and obstruct the entrance of such as
they thought likely to be more caressed. The decisions of Patronage,
who was but half a Goddess, had been sometimes erroneous; and though
she always made haste to rectify her mistakes, a few instances of her
fallibility encouraged every one to appeal from her judgment to his own
and that of his companions, who are always ready to clamour in the common
cause, and elate each other with reciprocal applause.

Hope was a steady friend of the disappointed, and Impudence incited
them to accept a second invitation, and lay their claim again before
Patronage. They were again, for the most part, sent back with ignominy,
but found Hope not alienated, and Impudence more resolutely zealous; they
therefore contrived new expedients, and hoped at last to prevail by their
multitudes, which were always increasing, and their perseverance, which
Hope and Impudence forbad them to relax.

Patronage having been long a stranger to the heavenly assemblies, began to
degenerate towards terrestrial nature, and forget the precepts of Justice
and Truth. Instead of confining her friendship to the Sciences, she
suffered herself, by little and little, to contract an acquaintance with
Pride, the son of Falsehood, by whose embraces she had two daughters,
Flattery and Caprice. Flattery was nursed by Liberality, and Caprice by
Fortune, without any assistance from the lessons of the Sciences.

Patronage began openly to adopt the sentiments and imitate the manners of
her husband, by whose opinions she now directed her decisions with very
little heed to the precepts of Truth; and as her daughters continually
gained upon her affections, the Sciences lost their influence, till none
found much reason to boast of their reception, but those whom Caprice or
Flattery conducted to her throne.

The throngs who had so long waited, and so often been dismissed for want
of recommendation from the Sciences, were delighted to see the power of
those rigourous Goddesses tending to its extinction. Their patronesses
now renewed their encouragements. Hope smiled at the approach of Caprice,
and Impudence was always at hand to introduce her clients to Flattery.

Patronage had now learned to procure herself reverence by ceremonies and
formalities, and, instead of admitting her petitioners to an immediate
audience, ordered the ante-chamber to be erected, called among mortals,
the _Hall of Expectation_. Into this hall the entrance was easy to those
whom Impudence had consigned to Flattery, and it was therefore crowded
with a promiscuous throng, assembled from every corner of the earth,
pressing forward with the utmost eagerness of desire, and agitated with
all the anxieties of competition.

They entered this general receptacle with ardour and alacrity, and made
no doubt of speedy access, under the conduct of Flattery, to the presence
of Patronage. But it generally happened that they were here left to their
destiny, for the inner doors were committed to Caprice, who opened and
shut them, as it seemed, by chance, and rejected or admitted without any
settled rule of distinction. In the mean time, the miserable attendants
were left to wear out their lives in alternate exultation and dejection,
delivered up to the sport of Suspicion, who was always whispering into
their ear designs against them which were never formed, and of Envy,
who diligently pointed out the good fortune of one or other of their
competitors. Infamy flew round the hall, and scattered mildews from her
wings, with which every one was stained; Reputation followed her with
slower flight, and endeavoured to hide the blemishes with paint, which
was immediately brushed away, or separated of itself, and left the stains
more visible; nor were the spots of Infamy ever effaced, but with limpid
water effused by the hand of Time from a well which sprung up beneath the
throne of Truth.

It frequently happened that Science, unwilling to lose the ancient
prerogative of recommending to Patronage, would lead her followers into
the Hall of Expectation; but they were soon discouraged from attending,
for not only Envy and Suspicion incessantly tormented them, but Impudence
considered them as intruders, and incited Infamy to blacken them. They
therefore quickly retired, but seldom without some spots which they could
scarcely wash away, and which shewed that they had once waited in the
Hall of Expectation.

The rest continued to expect the happy moment, at which Caprice should
beckon them to approach; and endeavoured to propitiate her, not with
Homerical harmony, the representation of great actions, or the recital
of noble sentiments, but with soft and voluptuous melody, intermingled
with the praises of Patronage and Pride, by whom they were heard at once
with pleasure and contempt.

Some were indeed admitted by Caprice, when they least expected it, and
heaped by Patronage with the gifts of Fortune, but they were from that
time chained to her foot-stool, and condemned to regulate their lives by
her glances and her nods: they seemed proud of their manacles, and seldom
complained of any drudgery, however servile, or any affront, however
contemptuous; yet they were often, notwithstanding their obedience,
seized on a sudden by Caprice, divested of their ornaments, and thrust
back into the Hall of Expectation.

Here they mingled again with the tumult, and all, except a few whom
experience had taught to seek happiness in the regions of liberty,
continued to spend hours, and days, and years, courting the smile of
Caprice by the arts of Flattery; till at length new crowds pressed in
upon them, and drove them forth at different outlets into the habitations
of Disease, and Shame, and Poverty, and Despair, where they passed the
rest of their lives in narratives of promises and breaches of faith, of
joys and sorrows, of hopes and disappointments.

The Sciences, after a thousand indignities, retired from the palace
of Patronage, and having long wandered over the world in grief and
distress, were led at last to the cottage of Independence, the daughter
of Fortitude; where they were taught by Prudence and Parsimony to support
themselves in dignity and quiet.




No. 92. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1751.


_Jam nunc minaci murmure cornuum_
_Perstringis aures: jam litui strepunt. _
HOR. Lib. ii. Ode i. 17.

Lo! now the clarion's voice I hear,
Its threat'ning murmurs pierce mine ear,
And in thy lines with brazen breath
The trumpet sounds the charge of death.
FRANCIS.


It has been long observed, that the idea of beauty is vague and undefined,
different in different minds, and diversified by time or place. It has
been a term hitherto used to signify that which pleases us we know not
why, and in our approbation of which we can justify ourselves only by
the concurrence of numbers, without much power of enforcing our opinion
upon others by any argument but example and authority. It is, indeed, so
little subject to the examinations of reason, that Paschal supposes it to
end where demonstration begins, and maintains, that without incongruity
and absurdity we cannot speak of _geometrical beauty_.

To trace all the sources of that various pleasure which we ascribe to the
agency of beauty, or to disentangle all the perceptions involved in its
idea, would, perhaps, require a very great part of the life of Aristotle
or Plato. It is, however, in many cases apparent, that this quality
is merely relative and comparative; that we pronounce things beautiful
because they have something which we agree, for whatever reason, to call
beauty, in a greater degree than we have been accustomed to find it in
other things of the same kind; and that we transfer the epithet as our
knowledge increases, and appropriate it to higher excellence, when higher
excellence comes within our view.

Much of the beauty of writing is of this kind; and therefore Boileau
justly remarks, that the books which have stood the test of time, and
been admired through all the changes which the mind of man has suffered
from the various revolutions of knowledge, and the prevalence of contrary
customs, have a better claim to our regard than any modern can boast,
because the long continuance of their reputation proves that they are
adequate to our faculties, and agreeable to nature.

It is, however, the task of criticism to establish principles; to improve
opinion into knowledge; and to distinguish those means of pleasing which
depend upon known causes and rational deduction, from the nameless and
inexplicable elegancies which appeal wholly to the fancy, from which we
feel delight, but know not how they produce it, and which may well be
termed the enchantresses of the soul. Criticism reduces those regions
of literature under the dominion of science, which have hitherto known
only the anarchy of ignorance, the caprices of fancy, and the tyranny
of prescription.

There is nothing in the art of versifying so much exposed to the power
of imagination as the accommodation of the sound to the sense, or the
representation of particular images, by the flow of the verse in which
they are expressed. Every student has innumerable passages, in which
he, and perhaps he alone, discovers such resemblances; and since the
attention of the present race of poetical readers seems particularly
turned upon this species of elegance, I shall endeavour to examine how
much these conformities have been observed by the poets, or directed by
the criticks, how far they can be established upon nature and reason, and
on what occasions they have been practised by Milton.

Homer, the father of all poetical beauty, has been particularly celebrated
by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, as "he that, of all the poets, exhibited
the greatest variety of sound; for there are," says he, "innumerable
passages, in which length of time, bulk of body, extremity of passion,
and stillness of repose; or, in which, on the contrary, brevity, speed,
and eagerness, are evidently marked out by the sound of the syllables.
Thus the anguish and slow pace with which the blind _Polypheme_ groped
out with his hands the entrance of his cave, are perceived in the cadence
of the verses which describe it. "

Κυκλωψ δε στεναχων τε και ωδινων οδυνησι,
Χερσι ψηλοφοων. ----

Meantime the Cyclop raging with his wound,
Spreads his wide arms, and searches round and round.
POPE.

The critick then proceeds to shew, that the efforts of Achilles struggling
in his armour against the current of a river, sometimes resisting and
sometimes yielding, may be perceived in the elisions of the syllables,
the slow succession of the feet, and the strength of the consonants.

Δεινον δ' αμφ' Ἁχιληα κυκωμενον ἱστατο κυμα
Ωθει δ' εν σακει πιπτων ῥοος· ουδε ποδεσσιν
Εσκε στηριξασθαι. ----

So oft the surge, in wat'ry mountains spread,
Beats on his back, or bursts upon his head,
Yet, dauntless still, the adverse flood he braves,
And still indignant bounds above the waves.
Tir'd by the tides, his knees relax with toil;
Wash'd from beneath him, slides the slimy soil.
POPE.

When Homer describes the crush of men dashed against a rock, he collects
the most unpleasing and harsh sounds.

Συν δε δυω μαρψας, ὡστε σκυλακας ποτι γαιη
Κοπτ'· εκ δ' εγκεφαλος χαμαδις ῥεε, δευε δε γαιαν.

------His bloody hand
Snatch'd two, unhappy! of my martial band,
And dash'd like dogs against the stony floor:
The pavement swims with brains and mingled gore.
POPE.

And when he would place before the eyes something dreadful and
astonishing, he makes choice of the strongest vowels, and the letters
of most difficult utterance.

Τη δ' επι μεν Γοργω βλοσυρωπις εστεφανωτο
Δεινον δερκομενη· περι δε Δειμος τε Φοβος τε.

Tremendous Gorgon frown'd upon its field,
And circling terrors fill'd th' expressive shield.
POPE.

Many other examples Dionysius produces; but these will sufficiently shew,
that either he was fanciful, or we have lost the genuine pronunciation;
for I know not whether, in any one of these instances, such similitude
can be discovered. It seems, indeed, probable, that the veneration with
which Homer was read, produced many suppositious beauties: for though it
is certain, that the sound of many of his verses very justly corresponds
with the things expressed, yet, when the force of his imagination, which
gave him full possession of every object, is considered, together with
the flexibility of his language, of which the syllables might be often
contracted or dilated at pleasure, it will seem unlikely that such
conformity should happen less frequently even without design.

It is not however to be doubted, that Virgil, who wrote amidst the light
of criticism, and who owed so much of his success to art and labour,
endeavoured, among other excellencies, to exhibit this similitude; nor
has he been less happy in this than in the other graces of versification.
This felicity of his numbers was, at the revival of learning, displayed
with great elegance by Vida, in his Art of Poetry.

Haud satis est illis utcunque claudere versum. ----
Omnia sed numeris vocum concordibus aptant,
Atque sono quæcunque canunt imitantur, et apta
Verborum facie, et quæsito carminis ore.
Nam diversa opus est veluti dare versibus ora,----
Hic melior motuque pedum, et pernicibus alis,
Molle Viam tacito lapsu per levia radit:
Ille autem membris, ac mole ignavius ingens
Incedit tardo molimine subsiden le.
Ecce aliquis subit egregio pulcherrimus ore,
Cui lætum membris Venus omnibus afflat honorem.
Contra alius rudis, informes ostendit et artus,
Hirsutumque supercilium, ac caudam sinuosam,
Ingratus visu, sonitu illætabilis ipso. ----
Ergo ubi jam nautæ spumas salis ære ruentes
Incubere mari, videas spumare reductis
Convulsum remis, rostrisque stridentibus æquor.
Tunc longe sale saxa sonant, tunc et freta ventis
Incipiunt agitata tumescere: littore fluctus
Illidunt rauco, atque refracta remurmurat unda
Ad scopulos, cumulo insequitur præruptus aquæ mons. ----
Cum vero ex alto speculatus cærula Nereus
Leniit in morem stagni, placidæque paludis,
Labitur uncta vadis abies, natat uncta carina. ----
Verba etiam res exiguas angusta sequuntur,
Ingentesque juvant ingentia: cuncta gigantem
Vasta decent, vultus immanes, pectora lata,
Et magni membrorum artus, magna ossa, lacertique.
Atque adeo, siquid geritur molimine magno,
Adde moram, et pariter tecum quoque verba laborent
Segnia: seu quando vi multa gleba coactis
Æternum frangenda bidentibus, æquore seu cum
Cornua velatarum obvertimus antennarum.
At mora si fuerit damno, properare jubebo.
Si se forte cava extulerit mala vipera terra,
Tolle moras, cape saxa manu, cape robora, pastor:
Ferte citi flammas, date tela, repellite pestem.
Ipse etiam versus ruat, in præcepsque feratur,
Immenso cum præcipitans ruit Oceano nox,
Aut cum perculsus graviter procumbit humi bos.
Cumque etiam requies rebus datur, ipsa quoque ultro
Carmina paulisper cursu cessare videbis
In medio interrupta: quiêrunt cum freta ponti,
Postquam auræ posuere, quiescere protinus ipsum
Cernere erit, mediisque incœptis sistere versum.
Quid dicam, senior cum telum imbelle sine ictu
Invalidus jacit, et defectis viribus æger?
Num quoque tum versus segni pariter pede languet:
Sanguis hebet, frigent effœtæ in corpore vires.
Fortem autem juvenem deceat prorumpere in arces,
Evertisse domos, præfractaque quadrupedantum
Pectora pectoribus perrumpere, sternere turres
Ingentes, totoque, ferum dare funera campo.
LIB. iii. 365.


'Tis not enough his verses to complete,
In measure, number, or determin'd feet.
To all, proportion'd terms he must dispense,
And make the sound a picture of the sense;
The correspondent words exactly frame,
The look, the features, and the mien the same.
With rapid feet and wings, without delay,
This swiftly flies, and smoothly skims away:
This blooms with youth and beauty in his face,
And Venus breathes on ev'ry limb a grace;
That, of rude form, his uncouth members shows,
Looks horrible, and frowns with his rough brows;
His monstrous tail, in many a fold and wind,
Voluminous and vast, curls up behind;
At once the image and the lines appear,
Rude to the eye, and frightful to the ear.
Lo! when the sailors steer the pond'rous ships,
And plough, with brazen beaks, the foamy deeps,
Incumbent on the main that roars around,
Beneath the lab'ring oars the waves resound;
The prows wide echoing through the dark profound.
To the loud call each distant rock replies;
Tost by the storm the tow'ring surges rise;
While the hoarse ocean beats the sounding shore,
Dash'd from the strand, the flying waters roar,
Flash at the shock, and gathering in a heap,
The liquid mountains rise, and over-hang the deep.
But when blue Neptune from his car surveys,
And calms at one regard the raging seas,
Stretch'd like a peaceful lake the deep subsides,
And the pitch'd vessel o'er the surface glides.
When things are small, the terms should still be so;
For low words please us when the theme is low.
But when some giant, horrible and grim,
Enormous in his gait, and vast in every limb,
Stalks tow'ring on; the swelling words must rise
In just proportion to the monster's size.
If some large weight his huge arms strive to shove,
The verse too labours; the throng'd words scarce move.
When each stiff clod beneath the pond'rous plough
Crumbles and breaks, th' encumber'd lines must flow.
Nor less, when pilots catch the friendly gales,
Unfurl their shrouds, and hoist the wide-stretch'd sails.
But if the poem suffers from delay,
Let the lines fly precipitate away,
And when the viper issues from the brake,
Be quick; with stones, and brands, and fire, attack
His rising crest, and drive the serpent back.
When night descends, or stunn'd by num'rous strokes,
And groaning, to the earth drops the vast ox;
The line too sinks with correspondent sound
Flat with the steer, and headlong to the ground.
When the wild waves subside, and tempests cease,
And hush the roarings of the sea to peace;
So oft we see the interrupted strain
Stopp'd in the midst--and with the silent main
Pause for a space--at last it glides again.
When Priam strains his aged arms, to throw
His unavailing jav'line at the foe;
(His blood congeal'd, and ev'ry nerve unstrung)
Then with the theme complies the artful song;
Like him, the solitary numbers flow,
Weak, trembling, melancholy, stiff, and slow.
Not so young Pyrrhus, who with rapid force
Beats down embattled armies in his course.
The raging youth on trembling Ilion falls,
Burns her strong gates, and shakes her lofty walls;
Provokes his flying courser to the speed,
In full career to charge the warlike steed:
He piles the field with mountains of the slain;
He pours, he storms, he thunders thro' the plain. --PITT.

From the Italian gardens Pope seems to have transplanted this flower, the
growth of happier climates, into a soil less adapted to its nature, and
less favourable to its increase.

Soft is the strain, when Zephyr gentle blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud billows 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;
Nor so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.

From these lines, laboured with attention, and celebrated by a rival wit,
may be judged what can be expected from the most diligent endeavours
after this imagery of sound. The verse intended to represent the whisper
of the vernal breeze, must be confessed not much to excel in softness
or volubility: and the smooth stream runs with a perpetual clash of
jarring consonants. The noise and turbulence of the torrent, is, indeed,
distinctly imaged, for it requires very little skill to make our language
rough: but in these lines, which mention the effort of Ajax, there is no
particular heaviness, obstruction, or delay. The swiftness of Camilla is
rather contrasted than exemplified; why the verse should be lengthened
to express speed, will not easily be discovered. In the dactyls used
for that purpose by the ancients, two short syllables were pronounced
with such rapidity, as to be equal only to one long; they, therefore,
naturally exhibit the act of passing through a long space in a short
time. But the Alexandrine, by its pause in the midst, is a tardy and
stately measure; and the word _unbending_, one of the most sluggish and
slow which our language affords, cannot much accelerate its motion.

These rules and these examples have taught our present criticks to inquire
very studiously and minutely into sounds and cadences. It is, therefore,
useful to examine with what skill they have proceeded; what discoveries
they have made; and whether any rules can be established which may guide
us hereafter in such researches.




No. 93. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1751.


_----Experiar, quid concedatur in illos,_
_Quorum flaminia tegitur cinis atque Latina. _
JUV. Sat. i. 170.

More safely truth to urge her claim presumes,
On names now found alone on books and tombs.


There are few books on which more time is spent by young students, than
on treatises which deliver the characters of authors; nor any which
oftener deceive the expectation of the reader, or fill his mind with
more opinions which the progress of his studies and the increase of his
knowledge oblige him to resign.

Baillet has introduced his collection of the decisions of the learned, by
an enumeration of the prejudices which mislead the critick, and raise the
passions in rebellion against the judgment. His catalogue, though large,
is imperfect; and who can hope to complete it? The beauties of writing
have been observed to be often such as cannot in the present state of
human knowledge be evinced by evidence, or drawn out into demonstrations;
they are therefore wholly subject to the imagination, and do not force
their effects upon a mind pre-occupied by unfavourable sentiments, nor
overcome the counteraction of a false principle or of stubborn partiality.

To convince any man against his will is hard, but to please him against
his will is justly pronounced by Dryden to be above the reach of human
abilities. Interest and passion will hold out long against the closest
siege of diagrams and syllogisms, but they are absolutely impregnable
to imagery and sentiment; and will for ever bid defiance to the most
powerful strains of Virgil or Homer, though they may give way in time to
the batteries of Euclid or Archimedes.

In trusting therefore to the sentence of a critick, we are in danger not
only from that vanity which exalts writers too often to the dignity of
teaching what they are yet to learn, from that negligence which sometimes
steals upon the most vigilant caution, and that fallibility to which the
condition of nature has subjected every human understanding; but from
a thousand extrinsick and accidental causes, from every thing which can
excite kindness or malevolence, veneration or contempt.

Many of those who have determined with great boldness upon the various
degrees of literary merit, may be justly suspected of having passed
sentence, as Seneca remarks of Claudius,

_Una tantum parte audita,_
_Sæpe et nulla,_

without much knowledge of the cause before them: for it will not easily
be imagined of Langbaine, Borrichius, or Rapin, that they had very
accurately perused all the books which they praise or censure: or that,
even if nature and learning had qualified them for judges, they could
read for ever with the attention necessary to just criticism. Such
performances, however, are not wholly without their use; for they are
commonly just echoes to the voice of fame, and transmit the general
suffrage of mankind when they have no particular motives to suppress it.

Criticks, like the rest of mankind, are very frequently misled by
interest. The bigotry with which editors regard the authors whom they
illustrate or correct, has been generally remarked. Dryden was known to
have written most of his critical dissertations only to recommend the
work upon which he then happened to be employed: and Addison is suspected
to have denied the expediency of poetical justice, because his own Cato
was condemned to perish in a good cause.

There are prejudices which authors, not otherwise weak or corrupt, have
indulged without scruple; and perhaps some of them are so complicated
with our natural affections, that they cannot easily be disentangled from
the heart. Scarce any can hear with impartiality a comparison between the
writers of his own and another country; and though it cannot, I think, be
charged equally on all nations, that they are blinded with this literary
patriotism, yet there are none that do not look upon their authors with
the fondness of affinity, and esteem them as well for the place of their
birth, as for their knowledge or their wit. There is, therefore, seldom
much respect due to comparative criticism, when the competitors are of
different countries, unless the judge is of a nation equally indifferent
to both. The Italians could not for a long time believe, that there
was any learning beyond the mountains; and the French seem generally
persuaded, that there are no wits or reasoners equal to their own. I can
scarcely conceive that if Scaliger had not considered himself as allied
to Virgil, by being born in the same country, he would have found his
works so much superior to those of Homer, or have thought the controversy
worthy of so much zeal, vehemence, and acrimony.

There is, indeed, one prejudice, and only one, by which it may be doubted
whether it is any dishonour to be sometimes misguided. Criticism has so
often given occasion to the envious and ill-natured of gratifying their
malignity, that some have thought it necessary to recommend the virtue
of candour without restriction, and to preclude all future liberty of
censure. Writers possessed with this opinion are continually enforcing
civility and decency, recommending to criticks the proper diffidence of
themselves, and inculcating the veneration due to celebrated names.

I am not of opinion that these professed enemies of arrogance and severity
have much more benevolence or modesty than the rest of mankind; or that
they feel in their own hearts, any other intention than to distinguish
themselves by their softness and delicacy. Some are modest because
they are timorous, and some are lavish of praise because they hope to
be repaid.