CRITICISM; (continued 3)

The Itch of Answering is so great, that some Authors have taken it in Dudgeon, not to have been thought worthy of an Answer; and to prevent such Disgrace a second Time, have written on Purpose that they might answer themselves. I have heard, that the learned and ingenious Robinson Crusoe is in the Number of these.

How can it be expected, that Men of Passions, worldly Minds, and Lay-men should escape this Infection, when the Fathers themselves in the first Ages of the Church, could not help writing against one another, with as much Sharpness as any modern Writers. St. Jerom, in Particular, is charg'd with this Weakness, in his Writings against Lactantius, St. Ambrose, St. Hilary, Didymus. 'Tis said, that he spar'd neither Antients nor Moderns; no not the inspir'd Elders that translated the Septuagint: Himself having translated the Bible into Latin, and he seem'd to be as fond of his Works as are other Translators.

Our Neighbours, the French, have not been altogether free from this Humour of Answering, or rather writing against one another; as will appear by the following List of a dozen Authors of a Side; most of them of the French Academy; and I might name as many more of equal Rank:

Balzac, Written against by Pere Goulu, Theophile.

Godeau, Maynard, Vavasseur.

Vaugelas, La Mothe Le Vayer.

Chapelain, Boileau, Ligniere.

Ablancourt,Marole.

Menage, Pere Bouhours.

Costar, Girac.

Malherbe, Costar.

Voiture, Richelet.

Bossu, Perrault.

Corneille, Dacier.

Richelet, Furetiere.

As the most delicate Praise is that which has the Face of Satyr, so the most delicate Satyr is that which has the Face of Praise. Of the latter Kind are the Verses to the honourable Edward Howard on his incomparable and incomprehensible Play. Those Verses were written by the Duke of Buckingham, the Lord Dorset, Mr. Waller, and others. Of the former Kind are several of Voiture's Letters to the Prince of Conde, and Boileau's to the Duke de Vivonne in Imitation of them. Indeed we must allow, that the French do understand the Belle Raillerie better than we do, at least for the Generality, there being some Authors in English, that have succeeded in fine Raillery as well as the French. Thus did Archbishop Tillotson treat Sergeant the Popish Priest: Thus Bishop Sprat handled Sorbiere; and Dr. Burnet of the Charter-house treated one Warren who had attack'd his Theory. If our Answerers could write as they did, they would both divert and instruct us. But we have already explained what they mean by Raillery. They know not how to parry like good Fencers, and therefore knock down like Cudgel Players.

The last Word puts me in Mind of a lower Order of Criticks, which are rarely heard of within the Sound of Bow-Bell; and these are your Etymologists and your Orthographists, who turn to Rider or Holy Oak for the Derivation of Words, and have the learned Garretson and other Helps for Spelling: But I know not whether this Essay may travel far enough into the Country to be of any Use; and besides, I have not converst enough with those Criticks that deal in Words and Letters only, to be Master of the Subject, which is generally learn'd by such as make a Penny of it in Conversation by laying Wagers, the Power and Test of all rural Argument.

I must own the Etymologists are by much the greater Men of the Two than the Orthographists. I do affirm this, not only because it is necessary to know the Roots of Languages, but because it is a greater Mark of Scholarship, and has the Sanction of the most learned Universities. The profoundest of our own Antiquaries have, in Favour of the University of Oxford, found out an Etymology, that may match with the famous One of Diaper Napkin: From whence comes King Pepin. Bishop Stillingfleet informs us, that the Champions for the Antiquity of Oxford say, that the old Name is British, and it is read somewhere Iren which should be read Icen, and that again Ychen, and that Rydychen, and Rydychen in the British Tongue is Vadum Boum in Latin, and that in English, Oxenford, Oxford, and Oxon. Such wonderful Discoveries are made by the venerable Antiquaries. Iren runs the Gauntlet through three Languages Irish, Welsh, and Latin, before it drops into English, but considering there is more Greek in the Welsh Tongue than there is Latin, it may make Work for great Scholars, to shew their Scholarship in settling the Matter as it should be with a Salvo for the Rights of the University of Cambridge.

The Learned in France have an Etymology almost as good as that of Oxford from Iren, which is the Word Cemetiere a Church-yard; They derive it from the Latin Word cum with, and mittere to put, as much as to say the dead Bodies are put together in one burying Place. Thus the Boxes at the Opera are a Cemetiere or Church-yard, because the Ladies and Gentlemen are put with one another there, and thus by Virtue of the same Etymology, the Place where People are born and where they are bury'd are all one, from Cum with, and Mittere to put, as I have heard, that the same Word serves for Life and Death in one of the oriental Languages.

As to Orthography, the only Passage I have read in a polite Author concerning it is that of Boileau, who taxes Perrault with false Spelling, by putting an s in one Word, and leaving out an s in another. By putting an s into the Word Contemples, it lost the Imperative Mood which is Contemple; and by leaving out an s in the Word Casuiste, written Casuite, it became no Word at all. When Moods and Tenses, Numbers and Cases, Substantives and Adjectives, suffer by Orthography, the curious Country-man has reason to cry out, otherwise the Printer may be answerable for the Spelling.

After all that has been said of the Sublime, &c. perhaps the Criticks do make more of Things than is necessary, or in Nature: Tho' Poets pretend to Inspiration, and cry out, The god, the god, they are, in the Main, but meer Men, and have their Tricks and Quirks to keep up the Reputation of that Art: Nay, like other Professions, they would have us believe, that there's Mystery in it too; not, I suppose, as Divines understand it, but in the vulgar Sense, as it is understood when we say, the Trade or Mystery of a Cordwainer. Some of these Poetical Mysteries are as follow.

We are told that this Verse of Homer's Third Iliad was said, by Alexander the Great, to be the best in all the Poem:

Methinks our Gazette Men, and Courant Men, express themselves every whit as well, when in Honour of a defunct General, whose Activity had long furnish'd them with Matter for their News-Books, they tell us, He was great alike in the Camp, and in the Cabinet, which easily runs into as good a Verse as the other.

The next best Verses that ever were, are Boileaus; and they were said to be the best in all his Works, by La Fontaine: The Subject is the French King's setting up Lace-making at Roan.

Why these are better Verses than all other best Verses, is the Mystery we are speaking of, and like that of the Free-Masons, it cannot be unfolded but by a Brother; nay, one may suspect of this Mystery what is justly suspected of that; they do not tell it us, for fear we shou'd laugh at it.

Of this Kind, doubtless, is the famous Couplet, taken out of Sir John Denham's Coopers-Hill, which Dryden says, are the two best Verses in the English Tongue:

He said he would not reveal the Secret why they were the best Verses, but left it as a Riddle to Posterity. I dare say, there are a Thousand as good Verses in Mr. Pope's Homer, if by good Verses he means smooth ones, and one would think Three such Monysyllables as Yet, Not, Dull, all together, was enough to set aside the Claim of that Line.

Having said so much already of my honest Intention In this Essay, I must, at last, refer it to the Judgement of the Reader, and whatever it is, shall receive it with Pleasure, when it is given with Candour.

If he approves of what I have said, I cannot but be pleased with having given some few Hints to another.

If he does not approve of it, 'twill please me still more to receive new Light my self.

Since this Essay was finish'd, I have seen a Book written by a French Gentleman, which has been receiv'd with much Civility; and as that Gentleman is commanded to make Remarks on our Manners in England, he will not do us Justice unless he puts the Reception his Book has met with, among the Instances of our Humanity to Strangers.

I must own I have not learnt a good deal by it, and the Reading of it has not excited any Impatience in me to read any new Heroick Poem. I have long despair'd to see another good Dramatick, and much more an Epick Poem in English, and cannot hope now to see one in French, which never yet was seen: However, I wish so well to all such generous Enterprizes, that I think it barbarous to give them the least Discouragement.

My Objections to this Gentleman's Criticisms are for what he says too ill of Milton's Poem, and too good of Clarendon's History, which he highly commends for the fine Characters, tho' he seems not to understand them, or not to have inform'd himself sufficiently of the Facts on which they are founded. He assures us the Lord Clarendon has unravell'd all the Springs of the Civil Wars. I pass by the Expression to unravel a Spring, for that probably it sounds better in the French Idiom than in the English: But the Sense of it is not true in Fact. He has drawn, at full Length, the pictures of those whose Ambition shook the Foundation of his Country. He has drawn them at full Length indeed, but as Milton drew his shadowy Beings, Death, Sin, Chaos, by the Extent of his Imagination, and with little Regard to Historical Likeness, or copying after Nature; his Pictures on the King's Side being to a Man, all so many Heroes; on that of the Parliament so many Scoundrels; which was impossible to be true: For, besides that it was not in the Course, so it was not in the Nature of the Thing, that so many heroical Persons should take Party for Oppression and Superstition, and so many Blockheads and Poltrons espouse the Cause of Religion and Liberty.

But I do not wonder that this Critick is so extreamly civil to the Author of the History of the Rebellion. He censures Milton for drawing the Pictures of Death and the Devil with so much Deformity. Satan, Sin, and Death, must needs shock the Readers of a delicate Taste. As if it was possible for the Imagination to paint any Thing so ugly as the Devil is in every One's Conception, and that the more shocking such Painting is, it was not the more natural, as being the more conformable to the Idea which every one has conceiv'd of the Original. 'Tis true, the Devil and Death are not Subjects to touch the Delicacy of Readers, but are extreamly proper to move Horrour and Detestation, which are there the Moral of that Divine Poem. If the Scene of Paradise was opening, the Reader might have expected something to have touch'd his Delicacy; but when he came, as in Milton, to the Gates of Hell wide open, he certainly should have left his Delicacy behind him. Hans Holben's Death's Dance is a merry Piece, but was no more proper to admit of Delicacy than the Droll Pieces of Heemskirk; and it would not be more extravagant to put Perfumes among the Ingredients of a Stink-Pot, than to put Delicacy in a Picture of the Devil. One of the most masterly Pieces of the greatest Matter of the Lombard School, a Carcass on a Butcher's Stall with the Gutts and Garbage about it, was much admir'd by the Italians, whose Delicacy is exemplary to other Nations; whence one may conclude, that whatever Subject has Truth and Likeness in it according to Nature, or our Conception of it, will always please, as an exact: and lively Imitation. I shall take no more Notice of the Criticisms on Milton in this Place, nor perhaps in any other; but I can never read the Remarks of the Criticks on the Paradise Lost, without calling to Mind the Boast of King Alphonso, who criticising on the Form of the Creation, said, If he had been consulted in it, it should have been more perfect.