Thomas Parnell

“ Go on, my son, in whom I am renewed, and prosper in thy brave undertakings on mankind: assert their wit to be dulness; prove their sense to be folly; know truth only when it is on thy own side; and acknowledge learning at no other time to be useful. Spare not an author of any rank or size; let not thy tongue or pen know pity; make the living feel thy accusations; make the ghosts of the dead groan in their tombs for their violated fame. ”

“ And nature's fervour thro' their limbs recalls,
Bread of the coarsest sort, with eager wine,
(Each hardly granted) serv'd them both to dine,
And when the tempest first appear'd to cease
A ready warning bid them part in peace.
⁠With still remark the pond'ring hermit view'd,
In one so rich, a life so poor and rude;
And why should such (within himself he cry'd)
Lock the lost wealth, a thousand want beside? ”

“ Drops the green target, springing quits the foe,
Glides through the lake, and safely dives below.
But dire Pternophagus divides his way
Through breaking ranks, and leads the dreadful day.
No nibbling prince excell'd in fierceness more,
His parents fed him on the savage boar;
But where his lance the field with blood imbru'd,
Swift as he mov'd, Hydrocharis pursu'd,
Till fallen in death he lies; a shattering stone
Sounds on the neck, and crushes all the bone;
His blood pollutes the verdure of the plain,
And from his nostrils bursts the gushing brain. ”

“ But see how my cave still swarms! how every age produces men, upon whom the preservation of thy memory devolves. My darling, the fates have decreed it! Thou art Zoilus, and Zoilus shall be eternal. Come, my serpents, applaud him with your hisses, that is all which now can be done; in modern times, my sons shall invent louder instruments, and artificial imitations; noises which drowning the voice of merit, shall furnish a concert to delight them." Here she arose to clasp him in her arms, a strange noise was heard, the critic started at it, and his vision forsook him. ”

“ With flagrant prefaces of party-rage,
O'er-wrought with passion, and the subject's weight,
Lolling, he nodded in his elbow seat;
Down fell the candle; grease and zeal conspire,
Heat meets with heat, and pamphlets burn their sire. ”

“ And seek the sacred hill, and light to sing;
(Tis known in Jewry well) I'll make my lays,
Obedient to thy summons, sound with praise."
But still I fear, unwarm'd with holy flame,
I take for truth the flatteries of a dream;
And barely wish the wondrous gift I boast,
And faintly practise what deserves it most.
Indulgent Lord! whose gracious love displays
Joy in the light, and fills the dark with ease!
Be this, to bless my days, no dream of bliss;
Or be, to bless the nights, my dreams like this. ”

“ But what assurance can such as Zoilus have, that the world will ever be convinced against an established reputation, by such people whose faults in writing are so very notorious; who judge against rules, affirm without reasons, and censure without manners: who quote themselves for a support of their opinions, found their pride upon a learning in trifles, and their superiority upon the claims they magisterially make; who write of beauties in a harsh style, judge of excellency with a lowness of spirit, and pursue their desire to decry it with every artifice of envy. ”

“ As we rise in our speculations daily, we are grown so grave, that we have not condescended to laugh at any of the idle things about us this week. I have contracted a severity of aspect from deep meditation on high subjects, equal to the formidable front of black-brow'd Jupiter, and become an awful nod as well, when I assent to some grave and weighty proposition of the Doctor, or enforce a criticism of mine own. In a word, Young himself has not acquired more tragic majesty in his aspect by reading his own verses, than I by Homer's. ”

“ This is indeed a common trick with remarkers, which they either practise by precedent from their master Zoilus, or are beholden for it to the same turn of temper. We acknowledge it a fine piece of satire, when there is folly in a passage, to lay it open in the way by which it naturally requires to be exposed: do this handsomely, and the author is deservedly a jest. If, on the contrary, you dress a passage which was not originally foolish, in the highest humour of ridicule, you only frame something which the author himself might laugh at, without being more nearly concerned than another reader. ”

“ It is indeed amazing, after what has been done by Dryden, Addison, and Pope, to improve and harmonize our native tongue, that their successors should have taken so much pains to involve it in pristine barbarity. These misguided innovators have not been content with restoring antiquated words and phrases, but have indulged themselves in the most licentious transpositions and the harshest constructions, vainly imagining that the more their writings were unlike prose, the more they resemble poetry. They have adopted a language of their own, and call upon mankind for admiration. ”

“ But, as to have reputation was with him a sufficient cause of enmity, so to have that reputation universal, was what wrought his frenzy to its wildest degree; for which reason it was Homer with whom he was most implacably angry. And certainly, if envy choose its object for the power to give torment, it should here, (if ever) have the glory of fully answering its intentions; for the poet was so worshipped by the whole age, that his critic had not the common alleviation of the opinion of one other man, to concur in his condemnation. ”

“ Ah! say why here do art and nature pour
Their charms conjoin'd in many a varied store;
Why bloom, by Flora's hand adorn'd, my bowers,
Why dance my fountains,and why laugh my flowers?
Along each velvet lawn and opening glade
Why spreads the cedar his immortal shade?
The brooks that warble, and the hills that shine,
Charm every heart, and please each eye but mine.
Though gleams the page by jealous time unroll'd,
Where the long shelves expand their rows of gold,
Tho' their rich leaves the pictur'd missals spread⁠
With knightly tale, and gothic legend fed ”

“ Mr. Pope is reading a letter, and in the mean time I make use of the pen, to testify my uneasiness in not hearing from you. I find success, even in the most trivial things, raises the indignation of a scribbler; for I, for my what-d'-ye-call-it, could neither escape the fury of Mr. Burnet or the German Doctor; then where will rage end, when Homer is to be translated? Let Zoilus hasten to your friend's assistance, and envious criticism shall be no more. I am in hopes that we order our affairs so, as to meet this summer at the Bath; for Mr. Pope and myself have thoughts of taking a trip thither. ”

“ I imagine it may be no ungrateful undertaking to write some account of this celebrated person, from whom so many derive their character; and I think the life of a critic is not unseasonably put before the works of his poet, especially when his censures accompany him. If what he advances be just, he stands here as a censor; if otherwise, he appears as an addition to the poet's fame, and is placed before him with the justice of antiquity in its sacrifices, when, because such a beast had offended such a deity, he was brought annually to his altar to be slain upon it. ”

“ Remote from man, with God he pass'd the days,
Prayer all his business, all his pleasure praise.
A life so sacred, such serene repose,
Seem'd heaven itself, till one suggestion rose;
That vice should triumph, virtue vice obey,
This sprung some doubt of Providence's sway:
His hopes no more a certain prospect boast,
And all the tenour of his soul is lost.
So when a smooth expanse receives imprest
Calm nature's image on its watery breast,
Down bend the banks, the trees depending grow. ”

“ They take criticism to be beyond every other part of learning, because it gives judgment upon books written in every other part. They think, in consequence, that every critic must be a greater genius than any author whom he censures; and therefore if they esteem themselves critics, they set enthroned in fancy at the head of literature. Criticism indeed deserves a noble elogy, when it is enlarged by such a comprehensive learning as Aristotle and Cicero were masters of ”

“ The Poet's page had hail'd her growing fame,⁠
And future Drydens dignified a name,
Of beauty more profuse, and more secure from blame.
One moment linger!—lo! from Venus' bowers
Descends the youngest of the roseate Hours:
She comes in all her blushing beauty borne,
From the far fountains of the purple morn.
Aurora's self! what time her brow resumes,
The bright refulgence of its golden plumes. ”

“ Now since I have here practised a license in imitation of his, by shortening the word Borbocætes a whole syllable, it seems a good opportunity to speak for him where I defend myself. Remember then, that any great genius who introduces poetry into a language, has a power to polish it, and of all the manners of speaking then in use, to settle that for poetical which he judges most adapted to the art. Take notice too, that Homer has not only done this for necessity, but for ornament, since he uses various dialects to humour his sense with sounds which are expressive of it. ”

“ Through all the frog the shining javelin flies,
And near the vanquish'd mouse the victor dies.
The dreadful stroke Crambophagus affrights,
Long bred to banquets, less inur'd to fights;
Heedless he runs, and stumbles o'er the steep,
And wildly floundering flashes up the deep:
Lychenor following with a downward blow,
Reach'd in the lake his unrecover'd foe;
Gasping he rolls, a purple stream of blood
Distains the surface of the silver flood;
Through the wide wound the rushing entrails throng,
And slow the breathless carcass floats along. ”

“ He was fond of speaking ill, diligent to sow dissension, and from the constant bent of his thought, had obtained that sort of readiness for slander or reproach, which is esteemed wit by the light opinion of some, who take the remarks of ill-nature, for an understanding of mankind, and the abrupt lashes of rudeness for the spirit of expression. ”