An Essay on Criticism: Part I

'Tis hard to say if greater want of skill
Appear in writing or in judging ill,
But of the two less dangerous is the offense
To tire our patience than mislead our sense
Some few in that but numbers err in this,
Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss

These born to judge as well as those to write
Let such teach others who themselves excel,
And censure freely, who have written well

All fools have still an itching to deride
And fain would be upon the laughing side

All fools have still an itching to deride
And fain would be upon the laughing side

Those half-learned witlings, numerous in our isle,
As half-formed insects on the banks of Nile
Unfinished things one knows not what to call
Their generation is so equivocal

Launch not beyond your depth, but be discreet
And mark that point where sense and dullness meet.

Each might his several province well command,
Would all but stoop to what they understand.

Unerring nature still divinely bright,
One clear, unchanged and universal light,
Life force and beauty, must to all impart,
At once the source and end and test of art

Unerring nature still divinely bright,
One clear, unchanged and universal light,
Life force and beauty, must to all impart,
At once the source and end and test of art

Works without show and without pomp presides
In some fair body thus the informing soul
With spirits feeds, with vigor fills the whole

Some, to whom Heaven in wit has been profuse,
Want as much more, to turn it to its use

For wit and judgment often are at strife,
Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife.

The winged courser, like a generous horse,
Shows most true mettle when you check his course.

Nature, like liberty, is but restrained
By the same laws which first herself ordained.

Hear how learned Greece her useful rules indites,
When to repress and when indulge our flights.

High on Parnassus' top her sons she showed,
And pointed out those arduous paths they trod

Just precepts thus from great examples given,
She drew from them what they derived from Heaven.

You then, whose judgment the right course would steer,
Know well each ancient's proper character,
His fable subject scope in every 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.

In prospects, thus, some objects please our eyes,
Which out of nature's common order rise,
The shapeless rock or hanging precipice.

Moderns beware! or if you must offend
Against the precept, ne'er transgress its end

I know there are, to whose presumptuous thoughts
Those freer beauties, even in them, seem faults

A prudent chief not always must display
His powers in equal ranks and fair array

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.

Hear, in all tongues consenting Paeans ring!
In praise so just let every voice be joined,
And fill the general chorus of mankind.