'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation Part 3

_PREFACE to MR. POPE_

Sir,

About two Years ago, upon a slight Misapprehension of some Expressions of yours, which my Resentment, or perhaps my Pride, interpreted to the Disadvantage of a Poetical Trifle, I had then newly publish'd, I suffer'd myself to be unreasonably transported, so far, as to inscribe you an angry, and inconsiderate Preface; without previous Examination into the Justness of my Proceeding. I have lately had the Mortification to learn from your own Hand that you were entirely guiltless of the fact charg'd upon you; so that, in attempting to retaliate a suppos'd Injury, I have done a real Injustice.

The only Thing which an honest Man ought to be more asham'd of than his faults, is a Reluctance against confessing them. I have already acknowledg'd mine to yourself: But no publick Guilt is well aton'd, by a private Satisfaction; I therefore send you a Duplicate of my Letter, by way of the World, that all, who remember my Offence, may also witness my Repentance.

Sir,

I am under the greatest Confusion I ever felt in my Life, to find by your Letter, that I have been guilty of a Crime, which I can never forgive Myself, were it for no other Reason, than that You have forgiven it. I might have learnt from your Writings the Extent of your Soul, and shou'd have concluded it impossible for the Author of those elevated Sentiments, to sink beneath them in his Practice.

You are generously moderate, when you mitigate my Guilt, and miscall it a Credulity; 'twas a pa.s.sionate, and most unjustifiable Levity, and must still have remain'd unpardonable, whatever Truth might have been found in its mistaken Occasion.

What stings me most, in my Reflection on this Folly, is, that I know not how to atone it; I will endeavour it, however; being always asham'd, when I have attempted to revenge an Injury, but never more proud, than when I have begg'd pardon for an Error.

If you needed an Inducement to the strengthening your Forgiveness, you might gather it from these two Considerations; First, The Crime was almost a Sin against Conviction; for though not happy enough to know you personally, your Mind had been my intimate Acquaintance, and regarded with a kind of partial Tenderness, that made it little less than Miracle, that I attempted to offend you. A sudden Warmth, to which, by Nature, I am much too liable, transported me to a Condition, I shall best describe in Shakespear's Sense, somewhere or other.

Blind in th' obscuring Mist of heedless Rage, I've rashly shot my Arrows o'er a House, And hurt my Brother....

A Second Consideration is, the Occasion you have gather'd to punish my Injustice, with more than double Sharpness, by your Manner of receiving it. The Armour of your Mind is temper'd so divinely, that my mere Human Weapons have not only fail'd to pierce, but broke to pieces in rebounding. You meet a.s.saults, like some expert Arabian, who, declining any Use of his own Javelin, arrests those which come against him, in the Fierceness of their Motion, and overcomes his Enemies, by detaining their own Weapons. 'Tis a n.o.ble Triumph you now exercise, by the Superiority of your Nature; and while I see you looking down upon the Distance of my Frailty, I am forc'd to own a Glory, which I envy you; and am quite asham'd of the poor Figure I am making, in the bottom of the Prospect. I feel, I am sure, Remorse, enough to satisfy you for the Wrong, but to express it, wou'd, I think, exceed even your own Power.

Yours, whose sweet Songs can rival Orpheu's Strain, And force the wondring Woods to dance again, Make moving Mountains hear your pow'rful Call, And headlong Streams hang list'ning in their Fall.

No Words can be worthy to come after these; I will therefore hasten to tell you, that I am, and will ever be, with the greatest Truth and Respect,

SIR,

Your Most Humble,

and Most Obedient Servant,

A. Hill.

I have now attempted, as far as I am able, to throw off a Weight, which my Mind has been uneasy under. I cannot say, in the City Phrase, that I have balanc'd the Account, but you must admit of Composition, where full Payment is impossible. I shall be so far from regretting you the old Benefit of Lex talionis, that I forgive you heartily, beforehand, for any thing you may hereafter think fit to say, or do, to my Disadvantage; nay, the Pleasure I enjoy by reflecting on your good Nature, will degenerate to a Pain, if one Accident or other, in the Course of your Life, does not favour me with some Occasion of advancing your Interest.

Having said thus much to you, in your Quality of a Good Man, I will proceed to address you, in your other Quality, of a Great Poet; in which Light I look up to you with extraordinary Comfort, as to a new Constellation breaking out upon our World, with equal Heat, and Brightness, and cross-spangling, as it were, the whole Heaven of Wit with your milky way of Genius.

You cou'd never have been born at a Time, which more wanted the Influence of your Example: All the Fire you bring with you, and the Judgment you are acquiring, in the Course of your Journey, will be put to their full stress, to support and rebuild the sinking Honours of Poetry.

It was a Custom, which prevail'd generally among the Ancients, to impute Celestial Descent to their Heroes; The Vanity, methinks, might have been pardonable, and rational, if apply'd to an Art; since Arts, when they are at once delightful and profitable, as you will certainly leave Poetry, have one real Mark of Divinity, they become, in some measure, immortal. And as the oldest, and, I think, the sublimest Poem in the World, is of Hebrew Original, and was made immediately after pa.s.sing the Red-Sea, at a Time, when the Author had neither Leisure, nor Possibility, to invent a new Art: It must therefore be undeniable, either that the Hebrews brought Poetry out of Egypt, or that Moses receiv'd it from G.o.d, by immediate Inspiration. This last, being what a Poet should be fondest of believing, I wou'd fain suppose it probable, that G.o.d, who was pleas'd to instruct Moses with what Ceremony he wou'd be wors.h.i.+p'd, taught him also a Mode of Thinking, and expressing Thought, unprophan'd by vulgar Use, and peculiar to that Wors.h.i.+p.

G.o.d then taught Poetry first to the Hebrews, and the Hebrews to Mankind in general.

But, however this may have been, there is, apparently, a divine Spirit, glowing forcibly in the Hebrew Poetry, a kind of terrible Simplicity; a magnificent Plainness! which is commonly lost, in Paraphrase, by our mistaken Endeavours after heightening the Sentiments, by a figurative Expression; This is very ill Judg'd: The little Ornaments of Rhetorick might serve, fortunately enough, to swell out the Leanness of some modern Compositions; but to shadow over the l.u.s.tre of a divine Hebrew Thought, by an Affectation of enliv'ning it, is to paint upon a Diamond, and call it an Ornament.

It is a surprizing Reflection, that these n.o.ble Hebrew Poets shou'd have written with such admirable Vigour three Thousand Years ago; and that, instead of improving, we should affect to despise them; as if, to write smoothly, and without the Spirit of Imagery, were the true Art of Poetry, because the only Art we practise. It puts me in Mind of the famous Roman Lady, who suppos'd, that Men had, naturally, stinking Breaths, because she had been us'd to it, in her Husband.

The most obvious Defect in our Poetry, and I think the greatest it is liable to, is, that we study Form, and neglect Matter. We are often very flowing, and under a full Sail of Words, while we leave our Sense fast aground, as too weighty to float on Frothiness; We run on, upon false Scents, like a Spaniel, that starts away at Random after a Stone, which is kept back in the Hand, though It seem'd to fly before him. To speak with Freedom on this Subject, is a Task of more Danger than Honour; for few Minds have real Greatness enough to consider a Detection of their Errors, as a Warning to their Conduct, and an Advantage to their Fame; But no discerning Judgment will consider it as ill Nature, in one Writer, to mark the Faults of another. A general Practice of that Kind wou'd be the highest Service to poetry. No Disease can be cur'd, till its Nature is examin'd; and the first likely Step towards correcting our Errors, is resolving to learn impartially, that we have Errors to be corrected.

I will, therefore, with much Freedom, but no manner of Malice, remark an Instance or two, from no mean Writers, to prove, that our Poetry has been degenerating apace into mere Sound, or Harmony; nor ought This to be consider'd as an invidious Attempt, since whatever Pains we take, about polis.h.i.+ng our Numbers, where we raise not our Meaning, are as impertinently bestowed, as the Labour wou'd be, of setting a broken Leg after the Soul has left the Body. The Gunners have a Custom, when a Ball is too little for the Bore of their Canon, to wrap Towe about it, till it fills the Mouth of the Piece; after which, it is discharg'd, with a Thunder, proportionable to the Size of the Gun; But its Execution at the Mark, will immediately discover, that the Noise of the Discharge was a great deal too big for the Diameter of the Bullet. It is just the same thing with an unsinewy Imagination, sent abroad in sounding Numbers; The Loftiness of the Expression will astonish shallow Readers into a temporary Admiration, and support it, for a while; but the Bounce, however loud, goes no farther than the Ear; The Heart remains unreach'd by the Languor of the Sentiment.

Poetry, the most elevated Exertion of human Wit, is no more than a weak and contemptible Amus.e.m.e.nt, wanting Energy of Thought, or Propriety of Expression. Yet we may run into Error, by an injudicious Affectation of attaining Perfection, as Men, who are gazing upward, when they shou'd be looking to their Footsteps, stumble frequently against Posts, while they have the Sun in Contemplation.

In attempting, for Example, to modernize so lofty an Ode as the 104th Psalm, the Choice of Metaphors shou'd, methinks, have been considered, as one of the most remarkable Difficulties. There seems to have been a Necessity, that they shou'd be n.o.ble, as well as natural; and yet, if too much rais'd, they wou'd endanger an Extinction of the Charms, which they were design'd to ill.u.s.trate. That powerful Imagination of 'the Sea, climbing over the Mountains Tops, and rus.h.i.+ng back, upon the Plains, at the Voice of G.o.d's Thunder,' ought certainly to have been express'd with as much Plainness as possible: And, to demonstrate how ill the contrary Measure has succeeded, one need only observe how it looks in Mr. Trapp's Metaphorical Refinement.

"The Ebbing Deluge did its Troops recal, Drew off its Forces, and disclos'd the Ball, They, at th' Eternal's Signal march'd away."

Who does not discern, in this Place, what an Injury is done to the original Image, by the military Metaphor? Recalling the 'Troops' of a Deluge, 'Drawing off its Forces'; and its 'Marching away, at a Signal,' carry not only a visible Impropriety of Thought, but are infinitely below the Majesty of That G.o.d, who is so dreadfully represented thundering his Commands to the Ocean; They are directly the Reverse of that terrible Confusion, and overwhelming Uproar of Motion, which the Sea, in the Original, is suppos'd to fall into. The March of an Army is pleasing, orderly, slow; The Inundation of a Sea, from the Tops of the Mountains, frightful, wild and tumultuous; Every Justness and Grace of the original Conception is destroyed by the Metaphor.

In the same Psalm, the Hebrew Poet describing G.o.d, says, '....He maketh the Clouds his Chariots, and walketh on the Wings of the Wind.' Making the 'Clouds his Chariots,' is a strong and lively Thought; But That of 'walking on the Wings of the Wind,' is a Sublimity, that frightens, astonishes, and ravishes the Mind of a Reader, who conceives it, as he shou'd do. The Judgement of the Poet in this Place, is discernable in three different Particulars; The Thought is in itself highly n.o.ble, and elevated; To move at all upon the Wind, carries with it an Image of much Majesty and Terror; But this natural Grandeur he first encreas'd by the Word 'Wings,' which represents the Motion, as not only on the Winds, but on the Winds in their utmost Violence, and Rapidity of Agitation. But then at last, comes that finis.h.i.+ng Sublimity, which attends the Word 'walks'! The Poet is not satisfied to represent G.o.d, as riding on the Winds; nor even as riding on them in a Tempest; He therefore tells us, that He walks on their Wings; that so our Idea might be heighten'd to the utmost, by reflecting on this calm, and easy Motion of the Deity, upon a Violence, so rapid, so furious, and ungovernable, to our human Conception. Yet as nothing can be more sublime, so nothing can be more simple, and plain, than this n.o.ble Imagination. But Mr. Trapp, not contented to express, attempts unhappily to adorn this inimitable Beauty, in the following Manner.

"Who, borne in Triumph o'er the Heavenly Plains, Rides on the Clouds, and holds a Storm in Reins, Flies on the Wings of the sonorous Wind, &c."

Here his imperfect, and diminis.h.i.+ng Metaphor, of the 'Rains,' has quite ruin'd the Image; What rational, much less n.o.ble Idea, can any Man conceive of a Wind in a Bridle? The unlucky Word 'Plains'

too, is a downright Contradiction to the Meaning of the Pa.s.sage.

What wider Difference in Nature, than between driving a Chariot over a Plain, and moving enthron'd, amidst That rolling, and terrible Perplexity of Motions, which we figure to our Imagination, from a 'Chariot of Clouds'? But the mistaken Embellishment of the Word 'flies,' in the last Verse, is an Error almost unpardonable; Instead of improving the Conception, it has made it trifling, and contemptible, and utterly destroy'd the very Soul of its Energy! 'flies' on the Wind! What an Image is That, to express the Majesty of G.o.d? To 'walk' on the Wind is astonis.h.i.+ng, and horrible; But to 'fly' on the Wind, is the Employment of a Bat, of an Owl, of a Feather! Mr. Trapp is, I believe, a Gentleman of so much Candour, and so true a Friend to the Interest of the Art he professes, that there will be no Occasion to ask his pardon, for dragging a Criminal Metaphor, or two, out of the Immunity of his Protection.

Mr. Philips has lately been told in Print, by one of our best Criticks, that he has excell'd all the Ancients, in his Pastoral Writings; He will, therefore, be apt to wonder, that I take the Liberty to say, in downright Respect to Truth, and the Justice due to Poetry, that I have not only seen modern pastorals, much better than His, but that his appear, to me, neither natural, nor equal. One might extend this Remark to the very Names of his Shepherds; Lobbin, Hobbinol, and Cuddy are nothing of a Piece, with Lanquet, Mico, and Argol; nor do his Personages agree better with themselves, than their Names with one another. Mico, for Example, at the first Sight we have of him, is a very polite Speaker, and as metaphorical as Mr. Trapp.

"This Place may seem for Shepherds Leisure made, So lovingly these Elms unite their Shade!

Th'ambitious Woodbine! how it climbs, to breathe Its balmy Sweets around, on all beneath!"

But, alas! this Fit of Eloquence, like most other Blessings, is of very short Continuance; It holds him but Just one Speech: In the beginning of the next, he is as very a Rustick, as Colin Clout, and has forgot all his Breeding.

"No Skill of Musick can I, simple Swain, No fine Device, thine Ear to entertain; Albeit some deal I pipe, rude though it be, Sufficient to divert my, Sheep, and Me."

There is no Transformation In Ovid more sudden, or surprizing; He has Reason indeed to say, that, when he "pipes some deal," his 'Sheep' are 'diverted' with him. His Readers, I am afraid too, are as merry as his Sheep; If he was but as skilful in Change of Time, as he is in Change of Dialect, commend me to him for a Musician! The pied Piper, who drew all the Rats of a City out, after his Melody, came not near him for Variety.

If the late excellent Mr. Addison, whose Verses abound in Graces, which can never be too much admir'd, shall be, often, found liable to an Overflow of his Meaning, by this Dropsical Wordiness, which we so generally give into, it will serve at the same time, as a Comfort, and a Warning; and incline us to a severe Examination of our Writings, when we venture out upon a World, that will, one time or other, be sure to censure us impartially; In That Gentleman's Works, whoever looks close, will discover Thorns on every Branch of his Roses; For Example, we all hear, with Delight, in his celebrated Letter from Italy, that, there,

... The Muse so oft her Harp has strung, That not a Mountain rears its Head unsung.

But, he adds, in the very next Line, that every shady Thicket too, grows renown'd in Verse; now one can never help remembering, that Thickets are Births, as it were of Yesterday; the mere Infancy of Woods! and that the oldest Woods in Italy may be growing on Foundations of ruin'd Cities, which flourish'd in the Times he there speaks of; whence it must naturally be inferr'd, that to say, the Italian Thickets grow renown'd in Roman Verse, though the Mountains really do so, is to make Use of Words, without Regard to their Meaning; A Lapse of dangerous Consequence, because, when the Understanding is once shock'd, this most rapturous Elevation of the Mind (as when cold Water is thrown suddenly upon boiling) sinks at once to chilling Flatness, and is considered as mere Gingle and childish Amus.e.m.e.nt.

No Man, I believe, has read without Pleasure, his fine and lively Descriptions of the Nar, c.l.i.tumnus, Mincio, and Albula, but the worst of it is, he winds us so long, in and out, between these Rivers, that he loses himself in their Maeanders, and brings us, at last, to a strange Stream indeed, which is 'immortaliz'd in Song,' and yet 'lost In Oblivion.'

"I look for Streams, immortaliz'd, in Song, Which lost, and buried in Oblivion lie."

The Thought, in this Place, is very lively and just, but quite obscur'd by the Redundancy and Wantonness of the Expression. Had he only said 'lost,' and 'buried,' It might have been urg'd, that the Rivers were dry'd up, and no longer to be found, in their old Channels. But, let them be lost, as to Existence, as certainly as he will, they can never be lost in 'Oblivion,' if they are 'immortaliz'd' in Poetry. 'Immortal' is a favourite Word in this Gentleman's Writings, and leads him, as most Favourites are apt to do, into very frequent Errors.

It is naturally unpleasant, to be detain'd too long in the Maziness of one tedious Thought, express'd many Ways successively. When we read that the 'Tiber is dest.i.tute of Strength,' what else can we conclude, but that its Stream is a weak one? But we are oblig'd to hear, also, that it 'derives its Source from an unthrifty Urn': Well, now, may we go on? No; its 'Urn' is not only 'unthrifty,' but its 'Source' is unfruitful. By this time, one can scarce help, enquiring, what new Meaning is convey'd to the Apprehension, by the Multiplication of the Phrases? And not finding any, we have no Reflection to satisfy ourselves with, but, that the strongest Flow of Fancy, is most subject to Whirlpools.