An Essay on Criticism Part 5

Never ending, still beginning, Fighting still, and still destroying; If the World is worth thy Winning, Think, Oh think, it worth enjoying._

But as the finest Meats are most apt to surfeit, so too many agreeable Thoughts together may flatten upon the Palate: And I shall only add an Instance in Prose, taken out of Mr. _Waller_'s Letter to the Lady _Lucy Sydney_, on the Marriage of her Sister the Lady _Dorothy_, who was his _Sacharissa_.

_May my Lady_ Dorothy, _if we may yet call her so, suffer as much, and have the like Pa.s.sion for this young Lord, whom she has preferred to the Rest of Mankind, as others have had for her; and may this Love before the Year goes about, make her taste of the first Curse impos'd upon Woman-kind, the Pains of becoming a Mother. May the First-born be none of her own s.e.x; and may she that always affected Silence and Retiredness, have the House fill'd with the Noise and Number of her Children. May she, at last, arrive at that great Curse much declin'd by fair Ladies, Old Age_, &c.

Under the Character of Father _Bouhours_'s fine Thoughts may be put these Verses of Mr. _Waller_'s, alluding to his gallant Poems upon _Sacharissa_, and the Story of _Phbus_ and _Daphne_.

_Yet what he sang in his immortal Strain, Tho' unsuccessful, was not sung in Vain: All but the Nymph that should redress his Wrong Attend his Pa.s.sion, and approve his Song; Like_ Phbus, _thus acquiring unsought Praise, He caught at Love, and fill'd his Arms with Bays._

Much of the same Kind is this of the Lord _Landsdown_'s on the same Subject:

_Thy Beauty,_ Sidney, _like_ Achilles _Sword, Resistless stands upon as sure Record; The foremost Herce, and the brightest Dame Both sung alike shall have their Fate the same._

This Part of Mr. _Prior_'s Prologue spoken before the late Queen, is in the fine Way of Thinking:

_Let the young_ Austrian _then her Terrours bear, Great as he is, her Delegate in War.

Let him in Thunder speak to both his_ Spains, _That in these dreadful Isles a Woman reigns: Whilst the bright Queen does on her Subjects show'r, The gentle Blessings of her softer Pow'r, Gives sacred Morals to a vicious Age, To Temples Zeal, and Manners to the Stage; Bids the chaste Muse without a Blush appear, And Wit be that, which Heaven and she may hear._

Of what Kind shall we take this Image in _Spencer_ to be:

_His haughty Helmet, horrid all with Gold, Both glorious Brightness and great Terrour bred; For all the Crest a Dragon did enfold With greedy Paws, and over all did spread His golden Wings; his dreadful hideous Head, Close couched on the Bever, seem'd to throw, From flaming Mouth, bright Sparkles fiery red_, &c.

This of _Cowley_ is finely thought:

_Now all the wide extended Sky, And all th' harmonious Worlds on high, And_ Virgil_'s sacred Work shall dye._

And this of _Waller_ to Queen _Henrietta Maria_:

_A brave Romance who would exactly frame, First brings his Knight from some immortal Dame, And then a Weapon and a flaming s.h.i.+eld, Bright as his Mother's Eyes, he makes him wield.

None might the Mother of_ Achilles _be, But the fair Pearl and Glory of the Sea.

The Man to whom Great_ Maro _gives such Fame, From the high Bed of heavenly_ Venus _came.

And our next_ Charles, _whom all the Stars design Like Wonders to accomplish, springs from thine._

And this to _Zelinda_:

_Fairest Piece of well form'd Earth, Urge not thus your haughty Birth; The Pow'r, which you have o'er us, lies, Not in your Race, but in your Eyes._

And these Verses of Mr. _Addison_ to the Lord _Hallifax_:

_Oh Liberty, thou G.o.ddess heav'nly bright!

Profuse of Bliss, and Pregnant with Delight; Eternal Pleasures in thy Presence reign, And smiling plenty leads thy wanton Train.

Eas'd of her Load, Subjection grows more light, And Poverty looks chearful in thy Sight: Thou mak'st the gloomy Face of Nature gay, Giv'st Beauty to the Sun, and Pleasure to the Day._

These four Verses, Part of the late Duke of _Buckingham_'s Poem upon _Hobbes_, contain, as I conceive, a fine Thought:

_But such the Frailty is of humane Kind, Men toil for Fame, which no Man lives to find; Long rip'ning under Ground this_ China _lies; Fame bears no Fruit, till the vain Planter dies._

But the next Verses contain a false Thought, if I have a Right Conception of it:

_And Nature tir'd with his unusual Length Of Life, which put her to her utmost Strength; So vast a Soul, unable to supply, To save herself, was forc'd to let him die._

Whatever it is we understand by Nature, we can have no such Idea of it, as to imagine Mr. _Hobbes_ cou'd have been too hard for it.

These Verses of Mr. _Waller_, on _Westminster-Abbey_ escaping a Fire, are finely imagined:

_So Snow on_ aetna _does unmelted lie, Whence rolling Flames, and scatter'd Cinders flie: The distant Country in the Ruin shares, What falls from Heaven the burning Mountain spares._

Tho' some of these _fine_ Thoughts are very nearly allied to the n.o.ble, yet one may easily perceive, that there is not so much Dignity, tho'

there may be as much Beauty in the One as in the Other. Thus also, as to delicate and agreeable Thoughts, they are as nearly related; but a Thing may be agreeable which is not delicate, tho' it cannot be delicate, but it must be agreeable: An agreeable Thought expresses it self entirely; a delicate One leaves something to the Readers Imagination which is very flattering.

As in this beauteous old Verse of _Chaucer_'s, preserv'd in _Dryden_'s, _Palamon_ and _Arcite_:

_Uprose the Sun, and uprose_ Emily.

Had _Chaucer_ said, _Up rose the Sun_, and then _up rose Emily_ brighter than the Sun, _Emily_ and the Reader would have been entertain'd with only a common Complement; but now the Reader fills up the Thought himself, and imagines that the Sun rose to prepare the Way for something brighter than himself: _Up rose_ Emily.

Mr. _Dryden_, in another place,

_Now Day appears, and with the Day the King,_

imitates _Chaucer_, but the Delicacy is lost, for there is nothing more to be understood by it, as there is in this Couplet of his to the Dutchess of _Ormond_ upon her going to _Ireland_ before the late Duke,

_As_ Ormond_'s Harbinger, to you they run, For_ Venus _is the Promise of the Sun._

There the Reader fills up the Comparison himself, and consequently cannot but be pleas'd, as we are apt to be, with every thing which we do our selves.

The Delicacy of Thought is recommended to us by the _Spectator_, in this beautiful Pa.s.sage out of _Milton_, where after the most dismal Prospect of Death, which the Heart of Man was ever terrify'd with, _Adam_ is presented with one of the gayest Scenes with which it ever was delighted.

------------_When from the Tents, behold A Beavy of fair Women richly gay, In Jems and wanton Dress. To the Harp they sang Soft amorous Ditties, and in Dance came on.

The Men, tho' Grave, ey'd them, and let their Eyes Rove without Rein, 'till in the amorous Net First caught they lik'd, and each his liking chose.

And now of Love they treat, till the Evening Star Love's Harbinger appear'd; then all in Heat They light the Nuptial Torch, and bid invoke_ Hymen: _Then first to Marriage Rights invok'd.

With Feast and Musick, all the Tents resound; Such happy Interview, and fair Event Of Love and Youth not lost: Songs, Garlands, Flowers, And charming Symphonies attach the Heart Of_ Adam.--------

The Reader takes in the Infection all along in Reading as _Adam_ does in seeing, and imagines at the End of the Description the Pleasure of _Adam_'s Imagination.

Is there not Delicacy in these Verses of Mr. _Wallers_ upon a Lady's _Girdle_, which leave the Reader much more to be imagin'd than is exprest.

_No Monarch but would give his Crown, His Arms might do what this has done.

My Joy, my Grief, my Hope, my Love, Did all within this Circle move; A narrow Compa.s.s, and yet there Dwells all that's good, and all that's fair.

Give me but what this Ribbon bound, Take all the Rest the Sun goes round._

Father _Bouhours_, in his _Maniere de bien penser_, besides these several Kinds of Thoughts, has the _true_, the _beautiful_, the _soft_, the _natural_, the _simple_, the _gay_, and many more, which has spun the Subject so very fine, that it will not endure handling but by very tender Fingers.

True Thoughts and false Thoughts are often confounded, especially, if there's any Point, Glittering or Glaring in the Latter. Something like distinguis.h.i.+ng the one from the other is attempted in the _Guardian_, N 110. But I cannot help thinking that it does not deserve the Recommendation with which it is introduced in that Paper. We are told, the Remarks are very curious and just, and must of Consequence conclude, the Applause which the Author sinks, because 'twas in favour of himself, was so too. A very pretty Way of returning a Compliment which he could not accept of without Offence to his Modesty; but, I humbly conceive, the Remarks are not very curious, if they are just; the same having been made a Hundred times before the publis.h.i.+ng of them in the critical Letter; and whoever would be at the Trouble of taking _Dryden_ and _Lee_'s Tragedies to pieces, would find enough of the like Curiosities.

The first is, _Lee_ makes one of his Persons a _Cartesian_ Philosopher, 2 or 3000 Years before _Descartes_ was born: Why did not the Critick remember this too in the same Tragedy _Oedipus_?

--------_As oft I have at_ Athens _seen, The Stage arise, and the big Clouds descend._