BE THEFT IN OTHER POETS, IS ONLY VICTORY For, indeed, he never works on the IN HIM. same subject with another, without heightening the piece with more masterly strokes, and a more artful pencil. Those who flattered themselves, that they should diminish the reputation of Boileau, by printing, in the manner of a commentary at the bottom of each page of his works, the many lines he has borrowed from Horace and Juvenal, were grossly deceived. The verses of the ancients, which this poet hath turned into French with so much address, and which he hath happily made so homogeneous, and of a piece with the rest of the work, that every thing seems to have been conceived in a continued train of thought by the very same person, confer as much honor on M. Despreaux as the verses which are purely his own. The original turn which he gives to his translations, the boldness of his expressions, so little forced and unnatural, that they seem to be born, as it were, with his thoughts, display almost as much invention as the first production of a thought entirely new. This *On Dram. Poesy, p. 61. This induced La Bruyere to say, 66 Que Despreaux paroissoit creer les pensees d'autrui." Both he and POPE might have answered their* accusers, in the words with which Virgil is said to have replied to those who accused him of borrowing all that was valuable in his Æneid from Homer," CUR NON ILLI QUOQUE EADEM FURTA TENTARENT? VERUM INTELLECTUROS, FACILIUS ESSE HERCULI CLAVUM, QUAM HOMERO VERSUM, SURRIPERE." SECTION *The Jesuits, that wrote the journals of Trevoux, strongly object plagiarism to Boileau. + Donat. in Vit. Virgil. SECTION III. OF THE ESSAY ON CRITICISM. WE are now arrived at a poem of that species, for which our author's genius was particularly turned, the DIDACTIC and the MORAL; it is, therefore, as might be expected, a master-piece in its kind. I have been sometimes inclined to think, that the praises Addison has bestowed on it, were a little partial and invidious. "The observations (says he) follow one another like those in Horace's Art of Poetry, without that methodical regularity which would have been requisite in a prose writer."* It is, however, certain, that the poem before us is by no means destitute of a just integrity, and a lucid order: each of the precepts and remarks naturally introduce the suc VOL. I. H ceeding * Spectator, No. 253. ; ceeding ones, so as to form an entire whole. The ingenious Dr. Hurd hath also endeavoured to shew, that Horace observed a strict method, and unity of design, in his Epistle to the Pisones and that, although the connexions are delicately fine, and almost imperceptible, like the secret hinges of a well-wrought box, yet they artfully and closely unite each part together, and give coherence, uniformity and beauty to the work. The Spectator adds, "The observations in this essay are some of them uncommon." There is, I fear, a small mixture of ill-nature in these words for this ESSAY, though on a beaten subject, abounds in many new remarks, and original rules, as well as in many happy and beautiful illustrations, and applications, of the old ones. We are, indeed, amazed to find such a knowledge of the world, such a maturity of judgment, and such a penetration into human nature, as are here displayed, in so very young a writer as was POPE when he produced this ESSAY, for he was not twenty years old. Correctness, and a just taste, are usually not attained but by long practice and experience in any art; but a clear head, and strong sense, were the characteristical 1 qualities qualities of our author; and every man soonest displays his radical excellencies. If his predominant talent be warmth and vigor of imagination, it will break out in fanciful and luxuriant descriptions, the colouring of which will, perhaps, be too rich and glowing. If his chief force lies in the understanding rather than in the imagination, it will soon appear by solid and manly observations on life or learning, expressed in a more chaste and subdued style. The former will frequently be hurried into obscurity or turgidity, and a false grandeur of diction; the latter will seldom hazard a figure, whose usage is not already established, or an image beyond common life; will always be perspicuous, if not elevated; will never disgust, if not transport, his readers; will avoid the grosser faults, if not arrive at the greater beauties, of composition. The eloquentiæ genus," for which he will be distinguished, will not be the "plenum et erectum, et audax, et præcelsum," but the " pressum, et mite, et limatum.”* In the earliest letters of POPE to Wycherly, to Walsh, and Cromwell, we H 2 find * Quintil. 1. xi. c. 1, |