Be filent always, when you doubt your sense;
And speak, tho' sure, with seeming diffidence :
Some positive, persisting fops we know,
Who if once wrong, will needs be always fo;
But you, with pleasure own your errors past,
And make each day a critique on the last.

'Tis not enough your counsel still be true;
Blunt truths more mischief than nice falfhoods do;
Men must be taught as if you taught them not,
And things unknown propos'd as things forgot.
Without good breeding, truth is disapprov'd;
That only makes superior sense belov'd.

Be niggards of advice on no pretence: For the worst avarice is that of sense. With mean complaisance ne'er betray your truft, Nor be so civil as to prove unjust. Fear not the anger of the wife to raife; Those best can bear reproof, who merit praife. 'Tis best sometimes your censure to restrain, And charitably let the dull be vain : Your filence there is better than your spite; For who can rail so long as they can write ? Still humming on, their drowsy course they keep, And lash'd so long, like tops, are lash'd a-sleep. False steps but help them to renew the race, As, after stumbling, jades will mend their pace. What crouds of these, impertinently bold, In sounds and jingling fyllables grown old, Still run on poets, in a raging vein, Even to the dregs and squeezings of the brain, Strain out the last dull droppings of their sense, And rhyme with all the rage of impotence.

Such shameless bards we have; and yet 'tis true, There are as mad, abandon'd critics too. The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head, With his own tongue still edifies his ears, And always list'ning to himself appears. All books he reads, and all he reads affails, From Dryden's fables down to Durfey's tales.

But where's the man, who counsel can bestow, Still pleas'd to teach, and yet not proud to know?

Unbiass'd, or by favour, or by spite;
Not dully prepossess'd, nor blindly right;
Tho' learn'd, well-bred; and tho' well-bred, fincere;
Modestly bold, and humanly severe :
Who to a friend his faults can freely show,
And gladly praise the merit of a foe ?
Blest with a taste exact, yet unconfin'd;
A knowledge both of books and human kind;
Gen'rous converse; a soul exempt from pride;
And love to paise, with reason on his side ?

Here the poet introduces a concife history of criticism, with the characters of the best critics, viz. Aristotle, Horace, Dionyfius, Petronius, Quintilian, and Longinus. He then speaks of the decay of criticism and of its revival; gives us short characters of Erasmus, Vida, Boileau, the duke of Buckingham, lord Roscommon, and concludes with. an elogium on his late friend and preceptor Mr. Walsh.

Thus have we given the reader the whole scope and design of Mr. Pope's essay, with an abstract of his precepts, and some of those ornamental parts which he has artfully and judiciously thrown in to enrich and adorn his rules, and render them the more permanent and pleasing. Had we introduced all the beauties, we must have transcribed the whole poem, which, notwithstanding the subject runs so much into common place, is indeed fo full of them, that what the author says of Longinus, may with propriety be applied to himself.

-Him all the nine inspire,
And bless their critic with a poet's fire.
An ardent judge, who zealous in his trust,
With warmth gives sentence, yet is always juft;
Whose own examples strengthens all his laws;
And is himself that great fublime he draws.

We shall conclude this article on criticism with an obfervation of Dr. Garth's, which may help to excite candour in the professors of this art; an ingredient very neceffary, yet much wanted by our modern critics.

" 'Tis to be lamented, says he, that gentlemen still continue to behave thus unfairly, and treat one another every day with most injurious libels. The Muses should be ladies of chaste and fair behaviour; when they are otherwise, they are Furies. 'Tis certain, that Parnassus is at best but a barren mountain, and its inhabitants contrive to make it more so by their unneighbourly deportment. The authors are the only corporation that endeavour at the ruin of their own society; yet every day may convince them how much a rich fool is respected above a poor wit. The only talents in esteem at present are those of Exchange Alley; one tally is worth a grove of bays; and 'tis of more consequence to be well red in the tables of interest, and the rise and fall of stocks, than in the revolution of empires. This reflection was occafioned by the treatment Mr. Dryden met with, who (fays the Doctor) was libelled in his life-time by the very men who had no other excellencies, but as they were his imitators. Where he was allowed to have sentiments superior to all others, they charged him with theft: But how did he steal? No otherwise, than like those who steal beggars children, only to cloath them the better. As his earlier works wanted no maturity, so his latter wanted no force or spirit; and the falling off of his hair had no other consequence than to make his laurels be seen the more."

Poets who write in the preceptive manner should take care to chuse such subjects as are worthy of their muse, and of confequence to all mankind; for to bestow both parts and pains to teach people trifles that are unworthy of their attention, is to the last degree ridiculous.

Among poems of the useful and interesting kind, Dr. Armstrong's Art of preserving health deferves, I think, particular notice, as well in confideration of the fubject, as of the elegant and masterly manner in which he has treated it; for he has made those things, which are in their own nature dry and unentertaining, perfectly agreeable and pleasing, by adhering to the rules observed by Virgil and others in the conduct of these poems.

The author has divided this poem into four books, and confidered how our health is promoted or impair'd by air, diet, exercise, and the possions. It opens with an invocation to Hygeia the goddess of health, whose aid, he observes, the difficulty of the subject has render'd neceffary.

Without thy chearful active energy
No rapture swells the breast, no poet sings,
No more the maids of Helicon delight.
Come then with me, O Goddess heavenly gay !
Begin the song; and let it sweetly flow,
And let it wisely teach thy wholesome laws :
"How best the fickle fabric to support
" Of mortal man; in healthful body how
" A healthy mind the longest to maintain."
'Tis hard, in such a strife of rules, to chuse
The best, and those of most extensive use;
Harder in clear and animated song,,
Dry philosophic precepts to convey.
Yet with thy aid the secret wilds I trace
Of nature, and with daring steps proceed
Thro' paths the muses never trod before.

He then pays a compliment to Dr. Mead, and entering on the subject air, inveighs against that which we breathe in London, and says,

_ It is not air

That from a thousand lungs reeks back to thine,
Sated with exhalations rank and fell,

The spoil of dunghills, and the putrid thaw
Of nature, when from shape and texture she
Relapses into fighting elements :
It is not air, but floats a nauseous mass.
Of all obscene, corrupt, offenfive things.
Much moisture hurts; but here a fordid bath,
With oily rancour fraught, relaxes more
The solid frame than simple moisture can.

The reflection he has made on the benefit we receive from burning of pit-coal is truly philosophical, and drawn from experience; for, it has been observed, that no plague or peftilential disorder (properly fo called) has appear'd in London since the introduction, and general use of this kind of fuel.

The directions he then gives for the choice of air,, and of a country situation, are delivered in a manner very poetical and pleasing,

While yet you breathe, away; the rural wilds
Invite; the mountains call you, and the vales,
The woods, the streams, and each ambrofial breeze
That fans the ever undulating sky;
A kindly sky! whose foft'ring pow'r regales
Man, beast, and all the vegetable reign.
Find then some woodland scene where nature smiles
Benign, where all her honeft children thrive.
To us there wants not many a happy seat;
Look round the smiling land, fuch numbers rise
We hardly fix, bewilder'd in our choice.
See where enthron'd, in adamatine ftate,
Proud of her Bards, imperial Windsor fits;
There chuse thy feat, in fome afpiring grove
Fast by the slowly-winding Thames; or where
Broader she laves fair Richmond's green retreats,
(Richmond that fees an hundred villas rife
Rural or gay.) O! from the fummer's rage
O! wrap me in the friendly gloom that hides
Umbrageous Ham! But if the busy town
Attract thee still to toil for pow'r or gold,
Sweetly thou mayst thy vacant hours possess
In Hampstead, courted by the western wind;
Or Greenwich, waving o'er the winding flood;
Or lose the world amid the fylvan wilds
Of Dulwich, yet by barb'rous arts unfpoil'd.

We have already taken notice of the allufions to ancient fables in Virgil and others, and of the frequent use made of the figure called Prosopopæia, by which the properties of life are given, not only to inanimate Beings, but to Virtues, Vices, Diseases, &c. Some of these beauties will be seen in the first paragraph of the following paffage.

Green rife the Kentish hills in chearful air;
But on the marshy plains that Effex spreads
Build not, nor reft too long, thy wand'ring feet.
For on a ruftic throne of dewy turf,
With baneful fogs her aching temples bound,
Quartana there prefides: a meagre fiend
Begot by Eurus, when his brutal force