A magnificent burst of thoughtful enthusiasm! an urgent and monitory exhortation, in which Pope calls upon rising critics and poets to pursue, in the great writings of classical antiquity, the study of that art which proceeds from the true study of Nature. It depictures his own studies; and expresses the admiration of a glowing disciple, who, having found his own strength and light in the conversation of his high instructors, will utter his own gratitude, will advance their honour, and will satisfy his zeal for the good of his brethren, by engaging others to use the means that have prospered with himself.
The art delivered by Greece was self-regulated nature. Criticism was the well-expounded Reason of inspiration, calling and instructing emulation. The critic that will be, must transport himself into the mind of antiquity; and, in particular, into the mind of his author for the time being. Homer is your one great, all-sufficient lesson. Read him, after Virgil's manner of reading him, who sought Nature by submitting himself to rules drawn from her, and emblazoned in the Iliad and Odyssey.
Nevertheless, the rules do not yet comprehend every thing; and emergencies occur when they whom the rules have trained to mastery, inspired by their spirit, and following out their design, transcend them: so creating a new excellence, which, in its turn, becomes a rule--but, O ye moderns! beware, and dare tremblingly!
There are critics of a confined and self-confident wit, who impeach these liberties, even of the masters, most unthinkingly and rashly; for sometimes the skillful tactician is on his way to winning the victory, when you think him flying.
The fame of those ancients is now safe and universal. Withhold not your solitary voice. Hail, ye victorious inheritors of ever-gathering renown! And, oh! enable the last and least of poets to teach the pretenders of criticism modesty and reverence!
_Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work._
[3] Cicero, in a well-known passage of his _Ethics_, speaks of trade as irredeemably base, if petty; but as not so absolutely felonious if wholesale. He gives a _real_ merchant (one who is such in the English sense) leave to think himself a shade above small-beer.