latter infers how close the cognation of the creative and the critical
faculty.

And now for another striking instance of sliding, unconsciously, from
critic to poet.

"But most by numbers judge a poet's song,
And smooth or rough, with them is right or wrong:
In the bright muse, though thousand charms conspire,
Her voice is all these tuneful fools admire;
Who haunt Parnassus but to please their ear,
Not mend their minds; as some to church repair,
Not for the doctrine, but the music, there.
These equal syllables alone require,
Though oft the ear the open vowels tire;
While expletives their feeble aid do join,
And ten low words oft creep in one dull line.
While they ring round the same unvaried chimes,
With sure returns of still expected rhymes;
Where'er you find the 'cooling western breeze,'
In the next line, it 'whispers through the trees;'
If crystal streams 'with pleasing murmurs creep,'
The reader's threaten'd (not in vain) with 'sleep;'
Then, at the last and only couplet fraught
With some unmeaning thing they call a thought,
A needless Alexandrine ends the song,
That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
Leave such to tune their own dull rhymes!"--

Who are the "MOST" that "JUDGE a poet's song by numbers?" with whom
"smooth or rough is RIGHT or WRONG?" Who are "the tuneful fools," who, of
the Muse's thousand charms, "ADMIRE her tuneful voice" only? The haunters
of Parnassus, whose attraction thither is the "PLEASURE" of their ear, not
the instruction of their mind; who "REQUIRE" nothing more than "equal
syllables?"--For these first eight lines, you have the bad critic, and the
bad critic only.

But who are "THEY" that "ring round the same unvaried chimes" of rhymes;
who bestow upon "you," "the reader,"--"breeze," "trees;" "creep," and
"sleep;" whose one thought has no meaning; who have scotched the snake,
not killed it; and who are to be abandoned to the solitary delight of
their own bad verses? In these last ELEVEN lines, you have the bad poet,
and the bad poet only. Whilst in the three intermediate verses, "Though
oft the ear," &c., you have the imperceptible slide effected from critic
to poet. Did Pope know and intend this? We think not; and we think there
is in the construction itself proof positive to the inadvertency. For
where is the antecedent referred to in

"While THEY ring round?"

He who looks for it will arrive first at the "THES