[Essay on Criticism continued.

A needless Alexandrine ends the song,
That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length
Part ii. Line 156.

along.1

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence;
The sound must seem an echo to the sense.
Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers

flows;

But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent

roar.

When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,

The line too labours, and the words move slow;
Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along

the main.

Part ii. Line 162.

For fools admire, but men of sense approve.

Part ii. Line 191.

But let a lord once own the happy lines,

How the wit brightens! how the style refines!

Part ii. Line 220.

Envy will merit as its shade pursue,

But, like a shadow, proves the substance true.

Part ii. Line 266.

1 Solvuntur, tardosque trahit sinus ultimus orbes.

Virgil, Georgies, Lib. iii. 424.

Essay on Criticism continued.]

To err is human, to forgive divine.

Part ii. Line 325.

All seems infected that th' infected spy,
As all looks yellow to the jaundic'd eye.

Part ii. Line 358.

And make each day a critic on the last.

Part iii. Line 12.

Men must be taught as if you taught them not,
And things unknown propos'd as things forgot.
Part iii. Line 15.

The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,
With loads of learned lumber in his head.

1 That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch. Shakespeare, Richard III., Act i. Sc. 3.

2 "Indocti discant et ament meminisse periti."

This Latin hexameter, which is commonly ascribed to Horace, appeared for the first time as an epigraph to President Hénault's Abrégé Chronologique, and in the preface to the third edition of this work, Hénault acknowledges that he had given it as a translation of this couplet.

THE RAPE OF THE LOCK.

What dire offence from amorous causes springs, What mighty contests rise from trivial things.

Canto i. Line 1.

And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.

Canto i. Line 134.

On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore,
Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.
Canto ii. Line 7.

If to her share some female errors fall,
Look on her face, and you 'll forget them all.

Canto ii. Line 17.

Fair tresses man's imperial race insnare,
And beauty draws us with a single hair.1

Here thou, great Anna! whom
Dost sometimes counsel take

tea.

Canto ii. Line 27. three realms obey,

At every word a reputation dies.

and sometimes Canto iii. Line 7.

Canto iii. Line 16.

The hungry judges soon the sentence sign,
And wretches hang, that jurymen may dine.

Canto iii. Line 21.

Coffee, which makes the politician wise,
And see through all things with his half-shut eyes.
Canto iii. Line 117.

The meeting points the sacred hair dissever
From the fair head, for ever, and for ever!
Canto iii. Line 153.
1 Compare Dryden, Persius, Satire i., ante, p. 241.

Rape of the Lock continued.]

Sir Plume, of amber snuff-box justly vain,
And the nice conduct of a clouded cane.
Canto iv. Line 123.

Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.

Canto v. Line 34.

EPISTLE TO DR. ARBUTHNOT.

PROLOGUE TO THE SATIRES.

Shut, shut the door, good John ! fatigu'd, I said; Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead.

Line 1.

Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand, They rave, recite, and madden round the land. Line 5.

E'en Sunday shines no sabbath day to me.

Line 12.

Is there a parson much bemus'd in beer,
A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer,

A clerk foredoom'd his father's soul to cross,
Who pens a stanza when he should engross?
Line 15.

Friend to my life, which did not you prolong, The world had wanted many an idle song.

Line 27.

Oblig'd by hunger and request of friends.

Line 44.

[Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot continued.

Fir'd that the house rejects him, "'Sdeath! I'll

print it,

And shame the fools."

Line 61.

No creature smarts so little as a fool. Line 84.

Destroy his fib, or sophistry—in vain!
The creature's at his dirty work again. Line 91.

As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,

I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.

Pretty in amber to observe the forms

Line 127.

Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms! The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil they got there.

Line 169.

Means not, but blunders round about a meaning;
And he whose fustian 's so sublimely bad,
It is not poetry, but prose run mad. Line 186.

Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne.
Line 197.

1

Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering teach the rest to sneer;1
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike. Line 201.
1 When needs he must, yet faintly then he praises;
Somewhat the deed, much more the means he raises :
So marreth what he makes, and praising most, dis-
praises.

P. Fletcher, The Purple Island. Canto vii.