Note 265 — AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM. (continued 2)
Reading edition
Dionysius of Halicarnassus.—Pope.
These prosaic lines, this spiritless eulogy, are much below the merit of the critic whom they are intended to celebrate.—Warton.
A most meagre account of a very excellent and judicious critic. But what can we expect when men overstep the limit of their enquiries, and rush in where learning has not authorised them to tread.—Wakefield.
The lines first appeared in the second edition. In a pretended letter to Addison, dated October 10, 1714, Pope speaks of having found a particular remark in one of the treatises of the Greek critic, but he had probably never looked into the original when this couplet was written, and seems to have falsely inferred from chance quotations that the comments upon Homer were the special characteristic of the works of Dionysius. Pope was indebted for the leading phrase in his couplet to a passage of Rochester, quoted by Wakefield:
Compare each phrase, examine ev'ry line, Weigh ev'ry word, and ev'ry thought refine.