Alexander Pope

“ Survey the whole nor seek slight faults to find
Where nature moves and rapture warms the mind,
Nor lose for that malignant dull delight
The generous pleasure to be charmed with wit
But in such lays as neither ebb nor flow,
Correctly cold and regularly low
That, shunning faults, one quiet tenor keep;
We cannot blame indeed—but we may sleep.
In wit, as nature, what affects our hearts
Is not the exactness of peculiar parts,
'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call,
But the joint force and full result of all. ”

“ 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 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 [17]
But are not critics to their judgment too? ”

“ Nature to all things fixed the limits fit
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 power 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 several province well command, ”

“ What wonder modes in wit should take their turn?
Oft, leaving what is natural and fit,
The current folly proves the ready wit;
And authors think their reputation safe,
Which lives as long as fools are pleased to laugh.
Some valuing those of their own side or mind,
Still make themselves the measure of mankind:
Fondly we think we honor merit then,
When we but praise ourselves in other men.
Parties in wit attend on those of state,
And public faction doubles private hate.
Pride, malice, folly against Dryden rose,
In various shapes of parsons, critics, beaux ”

“ What wants in blood and spirits, swelled with wind:
Pride where wit fails steps in to our defense,
And fills up all the mighty void of sense.
If once right reason drives that cloud away,
Truth breaks upon us with resistless day
Trust not yourself, but your defects to know,
Make use of every friend—and every foe.
A little learning is a dangerous thing
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring [216]
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again. ”

“ Those best can bear reproof who merit praise.
'Twere well might critics still this freedom take,
But Appius reddens at each word you speak, [585]
And stares, tremendous with a threatening eye,
Like some fierce tyrant in old tapestry
Fear most to tax an honorable fool
Whose right it is uncensured to be dull
Such, without wit are poets when they please,
As without learning they can take degrees
Leave dangerous truths to unsuccessful satires,
And flattery to fulsome dedicators
Whom, when they praise, the world believes no more,
Than when they promise to give scribbling o'er. ”

“ 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
But most by numbers judge a poet's song
And smooth or rough, with them is right or wrong. ”

“ 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. ”

“ So by false learning is good sense defaced
Some are bewildered in the maze of schools [26]
And some made coxcombs nature meant but fools
In search of wit these lose their common sense
And then turn critics in their own defense
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 Maevius scribble in Apollo's spite [34]
There are who judge still worse than he can write. ”

“ Moderns beware! or if you must offend
Against the precept, ne'er transgress its end,
Let it be seldom, and compelled by need,
And have, at least, their precedent to plead.
The critic else proceeds without remorse,
Seizes your fame, and puts his laws in force. ”

“ And bless their critic with a poet's fire.
An ardent judge, who, zealous in his trust,
With warmth gives sentence, yet is always just:
Whose own example strengthens all his laws;
And is himself that great sublime he draws.
Thus long succeeding critics justly reigned,
License repressed, and useful laws ordained.
Learning and Rome alike in empire grew ”

“ And are but damned for having too much wit.
Some praise at morning what they blame at night,
But always think the last opinion right.
A muse by these is like a mistress used,
This hour she's idolized, the next abused;
While their weak heads, like towns unfortified,
'Twixt sense and nonsense daily change their side.
Ask them the cause, they're wiser still they say;
And still to-morrow's wiser than to-day.
We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow ”

“ True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offense,
The sound must seem an echo to the sense. ”

“ When first young Maro in his boundless mind, [130]
A work to outlast immortal Rome designed,
Perhaps he seemed above the critic's law
And but from nature's fountain scorned to draw
But when to examine every part he came
Nature and Homer were he found the same
Convinced, amazed, he checks the bold design
And rules as strict his labored work confine
As if the Stagirite o'erlooked each line [138]
Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem,
To copy nature is to copy them. ”

“ What woful stuff this madrigal would be,
In some starved hackney sonnetteer, or me!
But let a lord once own the happy lines,
How the wit brightens! how the style refines! ”

“ The bookful blockhead ignorantly read,
With loads of learned lumber in his head,
With his own tongue still edifies his ears,
And always listening to himself appears
All books he reads and all he reads assails
From Dryden's Fables down to Durfey's Tales [617]
With him most authors steal their works or buy; ”

“ Yet when no disturbing jealousy vanity, or rivalry intervened was generous and affectionate, and he had a manly, independent spirit. As a poet he was deficient in originality and creative power, and thus was inferior to his prototype, Dryden, but as a literary artist, and brilliant declaimer satirist and moralizer in verse he is still unrivaled. He is the English Horace, and will as surely descend with honors to the latest posterity. ”

“ From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part,
And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art,
Which without passing through the judgment gains
The heart and all its end at once attains. ”

“ Some positive persisting fops we know,
Who, if once wrong will needs be always so;
But you, with pleasure, own your errors past,
And make each day a critique on the last. ”

“ Averse alike to flatter, or offend,
Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend. ”

“ Man's erring judgment and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.
Whatever nature has in worth denied,
She gives in large recruits of needful pride ”

“ We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow;
Our wiser sons, no doubt, will think us so. ”

“ If faith itself has different dresses worn,
What wonder modes in wit should take their turn? ”

“ Dullness is ever apt to magnify. [393]
Some foreign writers, some our own despise,
The ancients only, or the moderns prize.
Thus wit, like faith, by each man is applied
To one small sect, and all are damned beside. ”

“ In this famous villa Pope was visited by the most celebrated wits, statesmen and beauties of the day, himself being the most popular and successful poet of his age. His early years were spent at Binfield, within the range of the Royal Forest. He received some education at little Catholic schools, but was his own instructor after his twelfth year. He never was a profound or accurate scholar, but he read Latin poets with ease and delight, and acquired some Greek, French, and Italian. ”

“ Nor is Paul's Church more safe than Paul's Churchyard: [623]
Nay, fly to altars; there they'll talk you dead,
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread
Distrustful sense with modest caution speaks,
It still looks home, and short excursions makes; ”

“ For wit and judgment often are at strife,
Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife. ”

“ For fools admire, but men of sense approve:
As things seem large which we through mist descry,
Dullness is ever apt to magnify. ”

“ To what base ends, and by what abject ways,
Are mortals urged, through sacred lust of praise! ”

“ Avoid extremes, and shun the fault of such,
Who still are pleased too little or too much. ”

“ Words are like leaves, and where they most abound
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found. ”

“ Fear not the anger of the wise to raise,
Those best can bear reproof who merit praise. ”

“ Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see.
Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be. ”

“ All seems infected that the infected spy,
As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye. ”