He who looks for it will arrive first at the "THESE," who "equal syllables alone require." But he has now escaped from the bad poet's into almost worse company. The said "THESE" are clearly a SECOND smaller division of the condemned EAR-CRITICS. The greater division, the "MOST", _have_ ears, forsooth, and can distinguish "smooth" and "rough." But "THESE" WOULD HAVE ears. They have none; they have only FINGERS. They can tell that the syllables keep the RULE of the measure, and that is all. They stand on the lowest round of the ladder, or on the ground at the foot of the ladder.
| | | | | Tho' oft the ear the open vowels tire,
is to them "excellent music," an unimpeachable verse, for it COUNTS RIGHT. They are the arithmeticians of the Muse--no musicians.
We agree with Warburton, who says that it is "impossible to give a full and exact idea of poetical criticism without considering at the same time the _art of poetry_, so far as poetry is an ART." But we must contend, that a poet who addresses or discourses of two such distinct species as the writer who criticizes, and the writer who is criticized--two human beings, at least, placed in such very different predicaments--is bound continually to know and to keep his reader aware, which he exhorts and which he smites--the sacrificer or the victim.
You have in your memory, and a thousand times recollected, the following fine passage; but are you sure that you have fully and clearly understood, as well as felt it?
"A _little learning_ is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring; There shallow drafts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again. Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts, In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts, While from the bounded level of our mind Short views we take, nor see the length behind; But more advanced, behold with strange surprise, Far distant views of endless science rise! So pleased at first the towering Alps we try, Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky, Th' eternal snows appear already past, And the first clouds and mountains seem the last. But those attain'd, we tremble to survey The growing labours of the lengthen'd way, Th' increasing prospect tires our wondering eyes, Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise."