This passage is well imitated by Roscommon in his Essay on Translated
Verse.
The first great work, (a task perform'd by few)
Is, that _yourself_ may to _yourself_ be true:
No mask, no tricks, no favour, no reserve!
_Dissect_ your mind, examine ev'ry _nerve_.
Whoever vainly on his strength depends,
_Begins_ like Virgil, but like Maevius _ends_.
* * * * *
Each poet with a different talent writes,
One _praises_, one _instructs_, another _bites_.
Horace did ne'er aspire to Epick Bays,
Nor lofty Maro stoop to Lyrick Lays.
Examine how your _humour_ is inclin'd,
And which the ruling passion of your mind:
Then, seek a Poet who your way does bend,
And chuse an Author as you chuse a friend.
United by this sympathetick bond,
You grow familiar, intimate, and fond;
Your thoughts, your words your stiles, your Souls agree,
No longer his _interpreter_, but _He_.
_Stooping_ to Lyrick Lays, though not inapplicable to some of the
lighter odes of Horace, is not descriptive of the general character of
the Lyrick Muse. _Musa dedit Fidibus Divas &c._
Pope takes up the same thought in his Essay on Criticism.
Be sure yourself and your own reach to know,
How far your genius, taste, and learning go;
Launch not beyond your depth, but be discreet,
And mark that point where sense and dulness meet.
* * * * *
Like Kings we lose the conquests gain'd before,
By vain ambition still to make them more:
Each might his servile province well command,
Would all but stoop to what they understand.
71.--_A cunning phrase_.] _Callida junctura_.
_Jason de Nores_ and many other interpreters agree that Horace here
recommends, after Aristotle, the artful elevation of style by the use
of common words in an uncommon sense, producing at once an air of
familiarity and magnificence. Some however confine the expression,
_callida junctura_, to signify _compound words_. The Author of the
English Commentary adopts the first construction; but considers the
precept in both senses, and illustrates each by many beautiful examples
from the plays of Shakespeare. These examples he has accompanied with
much elegant and judicious observation, as the reader of taste will be
convinced by the following short extracts.
"The writers of that time had so _latinized_ the English language, that
the pure _English Idiom_, which Shakespeare generally follows, has all
the air of _novelty_, which other writers are used to affect by foreign
phraseology.--In short, the articles here enumerated are but so many
ways of departing from the usual and simpler forms of speech, without
neglecting too much the grace of ease and perspicuity; in which
well-tempered licence one of the greatest charms of all poetry, but
especially of Shakespeare's poetry, consists. Not that he was always and
every where so happy. His expression sometimes, and by the very means,
here exemplified, becomes _hard_, _obscure_, and _unnatural_. This is
the extreme on the other side. But in general, we may say, that He hath
either followed the direction of Horace very ably, or hath hit upon his
rule very happily."
76.--THE STRAIT-LAC'D CETHEGI.] CINCTUTIS _Cethegis_. Jason de Nores
differs, and I think very justly, from those who interpret _Cinctutis_
to signify _loose_, _bare_, or _naked_--EXERTOS & NUDOS. The plain sense
of the radical word _cingo_ is directly opposite. The word _cinctutis_
is here assumed to express a severity of manners by an allusion to an
antique gravity of dress; and the Poet, adds _de Nores_, very happily
forms a new word himself, as a vindication and example of the licence
he recommends. Cicero numbers M. Corn. Cethegus among the old Roman
Orators; and Horace himself again refers to the Cethegi in his Epistle
to Florus, and on the subject of the use of words.
_Obscurata diu papula bonus eruet, atque_
Proseret in lucem speciosa vocabula rer*um;
***need a Latin speaker to check this out***
_Quae priscis memorata_ CATONIBUS _atque_ CETHEGIS,
Nunc situs informis premit & deserta vetustas;
Adsciscet nova quae genitor produxerit usus.
Mark where a bold expressive phrase appears,
Bright thro' the rubbish of some hundred years;
Command _old words_ that long have slept, to wake,
Words, that wife Bacon, or brave Raleigh spake;
Or bid _the new_ be English, ages hence,
For Use will father what's begot by Sense.