These two observations account for what may seem as strange, as it is
infallibly true; I mean, they show us why good writers have the lowest,
and bad writers the highest, opinion of their own performances. They who
have only a partial idea of this perfection, as their portion of ignorance
or knowledge of it is greater or less, have proportionable degrees of
modesty or conceit.
Nor, though natural good understanding makes a tolerably just judgment in
things of this nature, will the reader judge the worse, for forming to
himself a notion of what he ought to expect from the piece he has in hand,
before he begins his perusal of it.
The ode, as it is the eldest kind of poetry, so it is more spiritous, and
more remote from prose, than any other, in sense, sound, expression, and
conduct. Its thoughts should be uncommon, sublime, and moral; its numbers
full, easy, and most harmonious; its expression pure, strong, delicate,
yet unaffected; and of a curious felicity beyond other poems; its conduct
should be rapturous, somewhat abrupt, and immethodical to a vulgar eye.
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