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 a