tendency of his
own book, as against the evidence of the book itself. The book is
unexceptionable authority: and, as against _that_, the author has no
_locus standi_. Both Horace and Pope, however little they might be aware
of it, were secretly governed by the same moving principle--viz., not to
teach (which was impossible for two reasons)--but to use this very
impossibility, this very want of flexibility in the subject to the
ostensible purpose of the writers, as the resistance of the atmosphere
from which they would derive the motion of their wings. That it was
impossible in a poem seriously to teach the principles of criticism, we
venture to affirm on a double argument: 1st, that the teaching, if in
earnest, must be _polemic_: and how alien from the spirit of poetry to
move eternally through controversial discussions! 2ndly, that the
teaching, from the very necessities of metre, must be _eclectic_;
innumerable things must be suppressed; and how alien from the spirit of
science to move by discontinuous links according to the capricious
bidding of poetic decorum! Divinity itself is not more entangled in the
necessities of fighting for every step in advance, and maintaining the
ground by eternal preparation for hostility, than is philosophic
criticism; a discipline so little matured, that at this day we possess
in any language nothing but fragments and hints towards its
construction. To dispute in verse has been celebrated as the
accomplishment of Lucretius, of Sir John Davies, of Dryden: but then
this very disputation has always been eclectic; not exhausting even the
_essential_ arguments; but playing gracefully with those only which
could promise a brilliant effect. Such a mimic disputation is like a
histrionic fencing match, where the object of the actor is not in good
earnest to put his antagonist to the sword, but to exhibit a few elegant
passes in _carte_ and _tierce_, not forgetting the secondary object of
displaying to advantage any diamonds and rubies that may chance to
scintillate upon his sword-hand.

Had Pope, or had Horace, been requested to explain the _rationale_ of
his own poem on Criticism, it is pretty certain that each (and from the
same causes) would have talked nonsense. The very gifts so rare and so
exquisite by which these extraordinary men were adorned--the graceful
negligence, the delicacy of tact, the impassioned _abandon_[48] upon
subjects suited to their _modes_ of geniality, though not absol