An Essay on Criticism Part 1

An Essay on Criticism.

by John Oldmixon.

INTRODUCTION

John Oldmixon's _Essay on Criticism_, like his _Reflections on Dr.

Swift's Letter to the Earl of Oxford, about the English Tongue_,[1]

provides evidence to support Dr. Johnson's description of its author as a "scribbler for a party," and indicates that Oldmixon must have been devoted to gathering examples of what appeared to him to be the good and bad in literature.

The story of the appearance of the _Essay on Criticism_ in 1728 should begin in 1724, when Oldmixon published in one volume his _Critical History of England, Ecclesiastical and Civil_. Dr. Zachary Grey's criticism of this book was answered by Oldmixon in 1725 in _A Review of Dr. Zachary Grey's Defence of our Ancient and Modern Historians_. In 1726 a two-volume edition of the _Critical History of England_ appeared with the 1725 edition of the _Review of Dr. Zachary Grey's Defence_ appended to the first volume. In the preface to the second volume of the _Critical History_ Oldmixon referred to the _Essay on Criticism_, stating that it was ready for the press, but that since it would have made the second volume too large, it would be published at a later date.

The _Essay_, he stated, was to prepare the public for his translation of Abbe Bouhours' _La Maniere De Bien Penser_. It was not, however, until 1728 that the _Essay_ reached the public. Besides appearing separately, it was appended, in place of the now removed answer to Dr. Grey, to the "third" edition of the _Critical History_.[2] There is no reference to the addition of the _Essay_ in the preface to the first volume, but its appearance and addition is referred to in the preface to the second volume.

Oldmixon seems to have had more than one purpose for writing the _Essay_; one of them is made quite clear in the second paragraph:

I shall not, in this _Essay_, enter into the philosophical Part of Criticism which _Corneille_ complains of, and that _Aristotle_ and his Commentators have treated of Poetry, rather as _Philosophers_ than Poets. I shall not attempt to give Reasons why Thoughts are _sublime_, _n.o.ble_, _delicate_, _agreeable_, and the like, but content my self with producing Examples of every Kind of right Thinking, and leave it to Authors of more Capacity and Leisure, to treat the Matter _a Fond_, and teach us to imitate our selves what we admire in others.

The remarks concerning the English need for guidance in "right thinking"

are obviously intended to prepare a public for Oldmixon's translation of Bouhours' _La Maniere De Bien Penser_. Following the method of Bouhours, who was in turn following Longinus, Oldmixon gives examples from English literature of the various divisions of "right thinking" and, also like Bouhours, he includes specimens of failures in this art. The bad examples he presents provide ample evidence that the Essay was also serving a Whig polemical purpose, for they are drawn from such writers as Clarendon, Pope and, in particular, Laurence Echard. The tone and nature of Oldmixon's remarks on Echard, whose History he had already criticized at length in the second volume of the _Critical History_, can be seen in this explanation of his general treatment of that author:

I must sincerely acknowledge, that it was not for Want of Will, that I did not mention what is beautiful in our Historian, but for Want of Opportunity.

Oldmixon's remarks on Pope's _Homer_ are sometimes laudatory, but more often patronizing; the criticism of Pope's _Essay on Criticism_ is quite pointed:

I dare not say any Thing of the last _Essay on Criticism_ in Verse, but that if any more curious Reader has discovered in it something new, which is not in Dryden's _Prefaces_, _Dedications_, and his _Essay on Dramatick Poetry_, not to mention the _French_ Criticks, I should be very glad to have the Benefit of the Discovery.

The rift between Pope and Oldmixon can perhaps be dated from the publication by the latter in 1714 of the "Receipt to make a cuckold"

with great apologies for its indecency. Oldmixon continued to tempt satiric fate in the ensuing years, and one wonders if, when seeking a subst.i.tute for the _Dunciad_ in the "last" _Miscellany_ of 1728, Pope may not have remembered Oldmixon's announcement in 1726 of his intention to publish an _Essay on Criticism_ which was to be written after the manner of Bouhours. It is not impossible that this was one of many influences acting upon Pope to organize the "high flights of poetry" he had been collecting over the years for a Scriblerian project. Oldmixon appears, with Gildon and Dennis, among the porpoises in Chapter VI of _Peri Bathous_, and the presentation of some of the material in the _Bathous_, although more directly indebted to Longinus, does bring Oldmixon's _Essay_ to mind.

It would seem that Oldmixon felt that more than the porpoises referred to him, for in his translation and adaptation of Bouhours' _La Maniere De Bien Penser_, which he published under the t.i.tle of _The Arts of Logic and Rhetorick_ later in 1728, the references to Pope are much harsher, and Swift also comes under more pointed attack. _Gulliver's Travels_, _A Tale of A Tub_ (already censured by Oldmixon in his _Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter_), the _Essay on Criticism_, _Windsor Forest_ and the _Homer_ are the objects of bitter criticism. In the concluding pages of _The Arts of Logic and Rhetorick_ Oldmixon wrote:

This delicate Author [Pope] has written a _rhiming Essay on Criticism_, and made himself merry with his Brethren in a notable Treatise call'd the _Art of Sinking_, to which he and his Partner S----t, have contributed, more than all the rest of their contemporary writers, if _Trifling_ and _Grimace_ are not in the high Parts of Writing.... What a Precipice is it from Locke's Human Understanding to Swift's Lilliput and Profundity!... there might have been Hopes of rising again; but we sink now like Ships laden with Lead, and must despair of ever recovering the Height from which we have fallen.[3]

As we move from Oldmixon's _Essay on Criticism_ to Pope's _Peri Bathous_ and on to _The Arts of Logic and Rhetorick_, we perhaps hear the stretching of the spring on a trap, that snapped in the 1735 edition of the _Dunciad_, in which Oldmixon replaced Dennis as the "Senior" diver "Who but to sink the deeper, rose the higher."[4]

The _Essay on Criticism_ is, however, more than an example of the inter-relation of literature and politics in the eighteenth century; and it is more than a step on the way to its author's immortalizing in lead. It presents, albeit not very imaginatively, a statement of many of the literary theories and att.i.tudes of the Augustan period. However brief and incomplete, the remarks about the language of poetry and upon the effects of certain literary pa.s.sages are of interest as imperfect exercises in a type of practical criticism. The material used by Oldmixon and the literary references he makes indicate, as do many of his other writings, that, although he was a "scribbler for a party," he was a man of some literary sense, taste and intelligence.

Robert Madden, C.S.B.

St. Michael's College University of Toronto

NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION

1. The _Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter_ was reprinted with an introduction by Louis Landa by the Augustan Reprint Society, no. 15 (1948).

2. The issue which appeared separately is the same as that which was appended to the first volume of the _Critical History_, save for the price, 1s. 6d, printed on the t.i.tle page.

3. John Oldmixon, _The Arts of Logic and Rhetorick_ (London, 1728), pp.

416-17.

4. Cf. _Dunciad_ A, II, ll. 271-78, and _Dunciad_ B, II, ll. 283-90, in James Sutherland, ed., _The Dunciad_ in _The Poems of Alexander Pope_, Vol. V, 2nd ed. (London, 1953). Oldmixon was less prominent in the 1728 edition (Dunciad A, II, ll. 199-202); when he was elevated to a higher level of dullness he was succeeded in his original place by Leonard Welstead (Dunciad B, II, ll. 207-10).

AN ESSAY ON _CRITICISM_

As it regards

Design, Thought, and Expression,

In PROSE and VERSE.

_By the AUTHOR of the Critical History of_ ENGLAND.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

_LONDON:_ Printed for J. PEMBERTON, at the _Golden-Buck_ in _Fleet-Street_.

MDCCXXVIII.

1_s._ 6_d._

[Ill.u.s.tration]

AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM;

As it regards

_Design, Thought, and Expression, in Prose and Verse._

I am very far from any Conceit of my own Ability, to treat of so nice a Subject as this, in a Manner worthy of it; but having frequently observed what Errors have been committed by both Writers and Readers for want of a right Judgement, I could not help collecting some loose Hints I had by me, and putting them into a little Form, to shew rather what I would do than what I can do; and to excite some happier Genius, to give us better Lights than we have hitherto been led by, which is said with great Sincerity, and without the least Mixture of Vanity or Affectation.

I shall not, in this _Essay_, enter into the philosophical Part of Criticism which _Corneille_ complains of, and that _Aristotle_ and his Commentators have treated of Poetry, rather as _Philosophers_ than _Poets_. I shall not attempt to give Reasons why Thoughts are _sublime_, _n.o.ble_, _delicate_, _agreeable_, and the like, but content my self with producing Examples of every Kind of right Thinking, and leave it to Authors of more Capacity and Leisure, to treat the Matter a _Fond_, and teach us to imitate our selves what we admire in others.

_Aristotle_, _Horace_, _Bossu_, _Boileau_, _Dacier_, and several other Criticks, have directed us right in the Rules of Epick and Dramatick Poetry, and _Rapin_ has done the same as to _History_, and other Parts of polite Learning. Several Attempts have been made in _England_ to instruct us, as well as the _French_ have been instructed; but far from striking out any new Lights, our _Essays_ are infinitely short of the Criticisms of our Neighbours. They teach us nothing which is not to be found there, and give us what they take thence curtailed and imperfect.

'Tis true, they have drest up their Rules in Verse, and have succeeded in it very well. There is something so just and beautiful in my Lord _Roscommon_'s Essay and Translation of _Horace_'s _Ars Poetica_, as excels any Thing in _French_ within the like Compa.s.s. I have read the late Duke of _Buckingham_'s Essay very often, but I don't think it such a perfect Piece as _Dryden_ represents it, in his long and tedious Dedication to that n.o.ble Lord before the _aeneis_. There are many Things very well thought in it, and they do not seem to be much the better for the Poetry; which is so prosaick, that if the Rhimes were pared away, it would be reduced to downright Prose. Indeed _Horace_'s Epistle to the _Piso's_ is not much more poetick; and I do not think, that the modern Criticks, like the Oracles of Old, give the greater Sanction to their Rules, for that they are put into Rhime.

I dare not say any Thing of the last _Essay_ on _Criticism_ in Verse, but that if any more curious Reader has discovered in it something new, which is not in _Dryden_'s _Prefaces_, _Dedications_, and his _Essay_ on _Dramatick Poetry_, not to mention the _French_ Criticks, I should be very glad to have the Benefit of the Discovery.

I was strangely surprised to meet with such a Pa.s.sage, as what follows, in the Writings of so good an Author as Sir _Robert Howard_. _Preface_ to Duke of _Lerma_: "In the Difference of Tragedy and Comedy, there can be no Determination but by the _Taste_; and whoever would endeavour to like or dislike by the Rules of others, he will be as unsuccessful as if he should try to be perswaded into a Power of believing, not what he must, but what others direct him to believe."

Thus are _Aristotle_, _Horace_, and all that have commented on them; thus are _Boileau_, the Lord _Roscommon_, the Duke of _Bucks_, and all the modern Criticks, confounded with a Word or two, and the Rules of Writing rendered useless and ridiculous.