In its metrical qualities the Essay on Criticism is the worst of Pope's poems. One blemish is a want of variety in his final words. "There are," says Hazlitt, "no less than half a score couplets rhyming to sense. This appears almost incredible without giving the instances, and no less so when they are given." But of the two, less dang'rous is th' offence To tire our patience, than mislead our sense.-lines 3, 4. In search of wit, these lose their common sense, And then turn critics in their own defence.-1. 28, 29. Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence, And fills up all the mighty void of sense.-1. 209, 10. Some by old words to fame have made pretence, Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense.-1. 324, 5. 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence, The sound must seem an echo to the sense.-1. 364, 5. At ev'ry trifle scorn to take offence, That always shows great pride, or little sense.-1. 386, 7. Be silent always when you doubt your sense; And speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence.--1. 566, 7. Be niggards of advice on no pretence: For the worst avarice is that of sense.-1. 578, 9. Strain out the last dull droppings of their sense, Horace still charms with graceful negligence, And without method talks us into sense.-1. 653, 4. The corresponding word which forms the rhyme is not always varied. "Offence is used three times, and "defence" and pretence" are each employed twice. Hazlitt might have remarked, that wit was even more favoured than sense, and was used with greater laxity. A wit, in the reign of Queen Anne was not only a jester, but any author of distinction; and wit, besides its special signification, was still sometimes employed as synonymous with mind. The ordinary generic and specific meanings, already confusing and fruitful in ambiguities, were not sufficient for Pope. A wit with him was now a jester, now an author, now a poet, and now, again, was contradistinguished from poets. Wit was the intellect, the judgment, the antithesis to judgment, a joke, and poetry. The word does duty, with a perplexing want of precision, throughout the essay, and furnishes a dozen rhymes alone: Nature to all things fixed the limits fit, And wisely curbed proud man's pretending wit.-lines 52, 3. One science only will one genius fit; So vast is art, so narrow human wit.-1. 60, L A perfect judge will read each work of wit Nor lose for that malignant dull delight, The gen'rous pleasure to be charmed with wit.-1. 237, 8. As men of breeding, sometimes men of wit, Pleased with a work where nothing's just or fit; As shades more sweetly recommend the light, So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit.-1. 301, 2. So schismatics the plain believers quit, And are but damned for having too much wit.-1. 428, 9. Oft, leaving what is natural and fit, The current folly proves the ready wit.-1. 448, 9. Jilts ruled the state, and statesmen farces writ : Nay, wits had pensions, and young lords had wit.-1. 538, 9. Received his laws; and stood convinced 'twas fit, Who conquered nature, should preside o'er wit.--1. 651, 2. He, who supreme in judgment, as in wit, Might boldly censure, as he boldly writ.-1. 657, 8. In these twelve instances "wit" rhymes five times to "fit," and three times to "writ." The monotony extends much farther. "Art," in the singular or plural, terminates eight lines, and in every case rhymes to "part," "parts," or "imparts." Imperfect rhymes abound. The examples which follow occur in the order in which they are set down. "None, own-showed, trod — proved, beloved-steer, character-esteem, them-full, rule-take, track-rise, precipice-thoughts, faults-joined, mankind-delight, wit-appear, regular-caprice, nice-light, wit-good, blood—glass, place-sun, upon-still, suitable-ear, repair-join, line-line, join— Jove, love-own, town-fault, thought-worn, turn-safe, laughlost, boast-boast, lost (bis)—join, divine-prove, love-ease, increase care, war-join, shine-disapproved, beloved-take, speak-fool, dull satires, dedicators - read, head — speaks, makes extreme, phlegm-find, joined―joined, mind-revive, live-chased, passed— good, blood-desert, heart-receive, give." In numerous instances, "the weight of the rhyme," as Johnson expresses it, when speaking of Denham," is laid upon a word too feeble to sustain it." Some positive, persisting fops we know, We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow, Several lines are not metrical unless pronounced with a wrong emphasis, as False eloquence like the prismatic glass, which only ceases to be prose when "the," and the last syllable of "eloquence," are accentuated, and it is then no longer English. Examples like Atones not for that envy which it brings; are not much better. Many of the verses, and this last is a specimen, offend the ear by the succession of "low" and "creeping words." Pope belonged to the class of kings he mentions in his poem, who freely dispensed with the laws they had made. Johnson, commenting on Pope's attempt to adapt the sound to the sense, thinks it a contradiction, that he employed an Alexandrine to describe the swiftness of Camilla, and thirty years afterwards used the same measure to denote "the march of slow-paced majesty." There was no need to look for an instance at the interval of thirty years. It would have been found at an interval of half thirty lines in the Essay on Criticism, where an Alexandrine is introduced to portray the dragging progress of the wounded snake. The juxtaposition was doubtless deliberate for the purpose of illustrating the opposite movements of sluggishness and celerity. Johnson misunderstood the theory. The Alexandrine was not supposed to represent speed, but space. Thus when Pope describes the wound of Menelaus, in his translation of the Iliad, he says in a note, "Homer is very particular here in giving the picture of the blood running in a long trace, lower and lower. The author's design being only to image the streaming of the blood, it seemed equivalent to make it trickle through the length of an Alexandrine line." As down thy snowy thigh distilled the streaming flood. A long line being presumed to suggest the motion of a long distance, the retarded or accelerated motion was intended to be expressed by the slow or rapid syllables of which the line was composed. The end was not answered, because, as Johnson remarks, the break in the middle of the Alexandrine is antagonistic to haste, and he has equally shown that Pope was not happy in the application of his mistaken rule. The slow march outstrips the swift Camilla, who is even left behind by the wounded snake in the first half of the line. Had the examples been a complete illustration of the theory, the gain would have been nothing. Representative metre, in the strict sense of the term, though sanctioned by eminent names, would degrade poetry. There cannot be a paltrier poetic effect than to mimic the roll of stones, the trickling of blood, and the dragging motion of wounded snakes. 1 author."3 Hazlitt took the "Mr. Walsh used to tell me," says Pope, "that there was one way left of excelling; for though we had several great poets, we never had any one great poet that was correct, and he desired me to make that my study and aim." Warton calls this "very important advice," and both he and Pope seem to assume that it had been effectual. The notion has been generally accepted. "To distinguish this triumvirate from each other," says Young, "Swift is a singular wit, Pope a correct poet, Addison a great "He is the most perfect of our poets," said Byron ; whose faultlessness has been made his reproach.”+ opposite side. "Those critics who are bigoted idolisers of our author, chiefly on the score of his correctness, seem to be of opinion that there is but one perfect writer, even Pope. This is, however, a mistake; his excellence is by no means faultlessness. If he had no great faults, he is full of little errors. His grammatical construction is often lame and imperfect. His rhymes are constantly defective, being rhymes to the eye instead of the ear; and this to a greater degree, not only than in later, but than in preceding, writers. The praise of his versification must be confined to its uniform smoothness and harmony. In the translation of the Iliad, which has been considered as his masterpiece in style and execution, he continually changes the tenses in the same sentence for the purposes of the rhyme, which shows either a want of technical resources, or great inattention to punctilious exactness. "5 De Quincey confirms Hazlitt ; but, with his profounder knowledge of the characteristics of Pope's poetry, he saw that the incorrectness was spread wider, and went deeper. "Let us ask," he says, "what is meant by correctness? Correctness in developing the thought? In connecting it, or effecting the transitions? In the use of words? In the grammar? In the metre?" In all these points he maintains that Pope, "hy comparison with other great poets, was conspicuously deficient." For an example of incorrectness in developing the thought De Quincey refers to the character of Addison : 66 Who would not laugh, if such a man there be? Why must we laugh? 1 Spence, p. 212. 996 Because we find a grotesque assembly of 2 Essay on the Genius of Pope, vol. i. p. 195. * Works of Edward Young, ed. Doran, vol. ii. p. 578. 5 Hazlitt's Lectures on the English Poets, p. 145. noble and ignoble qualities. Very well; but why, then, must we weep? Because this assemblage is found actually existing in an eminent man of genius. Well, that is a good reason for weeping; we weep for the degradation of human nature. But then revolves the question, Why must we laugh? Because, if the belonging to a man of genius were a sufficient reason for weeping, so much we know from the very first. The very first line says, Peace to all such but were there one whose fires Thus falls to the ground the whole antithesis of this famous cha- give 992 Know God and Nature only are the same; Thus, to The first line one would naturally construe into this: that God and Nature were in harmony, whilst all other objects were scattered into incoherency by difference and disunion. Not at all; it means nothing 1 De Quincey's Works, vol. xv. p. 142. 2 De Quincey's Works, vol. viii. p. 14. |