FullReads

Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see.
Thinks what ne’er was, nor is, nor e’er 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 is 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 La Mancha’s knight, they say, [267]
A certain bard encountering on the way,
Discoursed in terms as just, with looks as sage,
As e’er could Dennis, of the Grecian stage; [270]
Concluding all were desperate sots and fools,
Who durst depart from Aristotle’s rules
Our author, happy in a judge so nice,
Produced his play, and begged the knight’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 knight.
“Yes, or we must renounce the Stagirite.”
“Not so, by heaven!” (he answers in a rage)
“Knights, squires, and steeds must enter on the stage.”
“So vast a throng the stage can ne’er contain.”
“Then build a new, 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) by a love to parts.

Some to conceit alone their taste confine,
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;
What oft was thought, but ne’er 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,
So 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 [308]
Words are like leaves, and where they most abound
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.
False eloquence, like the prismatic glass. [311]
Its gaudy colors spreads on every place,
The face of nature we no more survey.
All glares alike without distinction gay:
But true expression, like the unchanging sun,
Clears and improves whate’er it shines upon;
It gilds 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 pretense,
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, [328]
These sparks with awkward vanity display
What the fine gentleman wore yesterday;
And but so mimic ancient wits at best,
As apes our grandsires in their doublets dressed.
In words as fashions the same rule will hold,
Alike 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