Page:The Works of Alexander Pope (1717).djvu/124
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88
ESSAY on CRITICISM.
But those attain'd, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthen'd way,
Th' increasing prospect tires our wandring eyes,
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!
[1]A perfect Judge will read each work of wit
With the same spirit that its Author writ,
Survey the Whole, nor seek slight faults to find;
Where nature moves, and rapture warms the mind;
Nor lose, for that malignant dull delight,
The gen'rous pleasure to be charm'd with wit.
But in such lays as neither ebb, nor flow,
Correctly cold, and regularly low,
That shunning faults, one quiet tenour keep;
We cannot blame indeed———but we may sleep.
In wit, as nature, what affects our hearts
Is not th' exactness of peculiar parts;
'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call,
But the joint force and full result of all.
The growing labours of the lengthen'd way,
Th' increasing prospect tires our wandring eyes,
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!
[1]A perfect Judge will read each work of wit
With the same spirit that its Author writ,
Survey the Whole, nor seek slight faults to find;
Where nature moves, and rapture warms the mind;
Nor lose, for that malignant dull delight,
The gen'rous pleasure to be charm'd with wit.
But in such lays as neither ebb, nor flow,
Correctly cold, and regularly low,
That shunning faults, one quiet tenour keep;
We cannot blame indeed———but we may sleep.
In wit, as nature, what affects our hearts
Is not th' exactness of peculiar parts;
'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call,
But the joint force and full result of all.
- ↑ Diligenter legendum est, ac pœne ad scribendi sollicitudinem: Nec per partes modo scrutanda sunt omnia, sed perlectus liber utique ex integro resumendus. Quintil.
Thus