An Essay on Criticism: Part III

In all you speak, let truth and candor shine

Be silent always, when you doubt your sense;
And speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence

Some positive persisting fops we know,
Who, if once wrong will needs be always so

For the worst avarice is that of sense

With mean complacence, ne'er betray your trust,
Nor be so civil as to prove unjust

Fear not the anger of the wise to raise,
Those best can bear reproof who merit praise.

Leave dangerous truths to unsuccessful satires,
And flattery to fulsome dedicators
Whom, when they praise, the world believes no more

'Tis best sometimes your censure to restrain,
And charitably let the dull be vain.
Your silence there is better than your spite,
For who can rail so long as they can write?

False steps but help them to renew the race,
As after stumbling, jades will mend their pace.

What crowds of these, impenitently bold,
In sounds and jingling syllables grown old,
Still run on poets in a raging vein,
Even to the dregs and squeezing of the brain

What crowds of these, impenitently bold,
In sounds and jingling syllables grown old,
Still run on poets in a raging vein,
Even to the dregs and squeezing of the brain

The bookful blockhead ignorantly read,
With loads of learned lumber in his head,
With his own tongue still edifies his ears,
And always listening to himself appears

All books he reads and all he reads assails

But where's the man who counsel can bestow,
Still pleased to teach, and yet not proud to know?

Unbiased, or by favor, or in spite,
Not dully prepossessed, nor blindly right

In grave Quintilian's copious work we find
The justest rules and clearest method joined

An ardent judge, who, zealous in his trust,
With warmth gives sentence, yet is always just

Whose own example strengthens all his laws;
And is himself that great sublime he draws.

With tyranny then superstition joined
As that the body, this enslaved the mind;
Much was believed but little understood,
And to be dull was construed to be good

A second deluge learning thus o'errun,
And the monks finished what the Goths begun.

Rome's ancient genius o'er its ruins spread
Shakes off the dust, and rears his reverent head

But soon by impious arms from Latium chased,
Their ancient bounds the banished muses passed.

Thence arts o'er all the northern world advance,
But critic-learning flourished most in France

Yet some there were, among the sounder few
Of those who less presumed and better knew,
Who durst assert the juster ancient cause,
And here restored wit's fundamental laws.

The learned reflect on what before they knew
Careless of censure, nor too fond of fame,
Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame,
Averse alike to flatter, or offend,
Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend.