Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 353, March 1845

Abstain, then, from judging, O Critic that wilt be! Humble thine understanding in reverence! Open thy soul to beliefs! Yield up thy heart, dissolving and overcome, to love! Cultivate self-suspicion! and learn! learn! learn! The bountiful years that lift up the oak to maturity, shall rear, and strengthen, and ripen thee! Knowledge of books, knowledge of men, knowledge of Nature – and solicited, and roused, and sharpened, in the manifold and studious conversation with books, and with men, and with Nature – last and greatest – the knowledge of thyself – shall bring thee out large-hearted, high-minded, sensitive, apprehensive, comprehensive, informed and original, clear and profound, genial and exact, scrutinizing and pardoning, candid, and generous, and just – in a word, a finished CRITIC. The steadfast and mighty laws of the moral and intellectual world have taken safe care and tutelage of thee, and confer upon thee, in thy now accomplished powers, the natural and well-earned remuneration of honestly, laboriously, and pertinaciously dedicated powers!

And as for thee, O Poet that wilt be, con thou, by night and by day, the biography of John Milton!

And now – in conclusion – for the very noblest strain in didactic poetry.

"Those Rules of old discover'd, not devised,
Are Nature still, but Nature methodised;
Nature, like Liberty, is but restrain'd
By the same laws which first herself ordain'd.
"Hear how learn'd Greece her useful rules indites,
When to repress, and when indulge our flights:
High on Parnassus' top her sons she show'd,
And pointed out those arduous paths they trod;
Held from afar, aloft, th' immortal prize,
And urged the rest by equal steps to rise:
Just precepts thus from great examples given,
She drew from them what they derived from Heaven.
The gen'rous critic fann'd the poet's fire,
And taught the world with reason to admire.
Then Criticism the Muse's handmaid proved,
To dress her charms, and make her more beloved.

****

"You, then, whose judgment the right course would steer,
Know well each Ancient's proper character:
His fable, subject, scope in ev'ry page;
Religion, country, genius of his age:
Without all these at once before your eyes,
Cavil you may, but never criticise.
Be Homer's works your study and delight,
Read them by day, and meditate by night;
Thence form your Judgment, thence your maxims bring,
And trace the muses upward to their spring.
Still with itself compared, his text peruse;
And let your comment be the Mantuan muse.
"When first young Maro in his boundless mind
A work t' outlast immortal Rome design'd,
Perhaps he seem'd above the critic's law,
And but from Nature's fountains scorn'd to draw:
But when t' examine ev'ry part he came,
Nature and Homer were, he found, the same.
Convinced, amazed, he checks the bold design;
And rules as strict his labour'd work confine,
As if the Stagyrite o'erlook'd each line.
Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem;
To copy nature is to copy them.
Some beauties yet no precepts can declare,
For there's a happiness as well as care.
Music resembles poetry; in each
Are nameless graces which no methods teach,
And which a master-hand alone can reach.
If, where the rules not far enough extend,
(Since rules were made but to promote their end,)
Some lucky license answer to the full
Th' intent proposed, that license is a rule.
Thus Pegasus, a nearer way to take,
May boldly deviate from the common track;
Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend,
And rise to faults true critics dare not mend.
From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part,
And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art,
Which, without passing through the judgment, gains
The heart, and all its end at once attains.
In prospects thus, some objects please our eyes,
Which out of nature's common order rise,
The shapeless rock, or hanging precipice.
But though the ancients thus their rules invade,
(As kings dispense with laws themselves have made,)
Moderns, beware! or if you must offend
Against the precept, ne'er transgress its end;
Let it be seldom, and compell'd by need,
And have, at least, their precedent to plead,
The critic else proceeds without remorse,
Seizes your fame, and puts his laws in force.
I know there are, to whose presumptuous thought
Those freer beauties, ev'n in them, seem faults.
Some figures monstrous and mis-shaped appear,
Consider'd singly, or beheld too near;
Which, but proportion'd to their light or place,
Due distance reconciles to form and grace.
A prudent chief not always must display
His powers in equal ranks, and fair array,
But with the occasion and the place comply,
Conceal his force, nay seem sometimes to fly.
Those oft are stratagems which errors seem;
Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream.
Still green with bays each ancient altar stands,
Above the reach of sacrilegious hands;
Secure from flames, from Envy's fiercer rage,
Destructive war, and all-involving age.
See from each clime the learn'd their incense bring!
Hear, in all tongues consenting paeans ring!
In praise so just let ev'ry voice be join'd,
And fill the gen'ral chorus of mankind.
Hail, bards triumphant! born in happier days;
Immortal heirs of universal praise!
Whose honours with increase of ages grow,
As streams roll down, enlarging as they flow;