EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
177 
If once right reason drives that cloud away, 
Truth breaks upon us with resistless day ; 
Trust not yourselves, but your defects to know, 
Make use of ev’ry friend — and ev’ry foe. 
Avoid extremes ; and show the fault of such, 
Who still are pleased too little or too much. 
At ev’ry trifle scorn to take offence. 
That always shows great pride, or little sense ; 
Those tender stomachs are not sure the best, 
Which nauseate all, and nothing can digest : 
Yet let not each gay turn thy rapture move, 
For fools admire, but men of sense approve. 
Be thou the first true merit to befriend. 
His praise is lost who stays till all commend. 
Be silent always when you doubt your sense ; 
And speak, tho’ sure, with seeming diffidence '• 
Some positive, persisting fops we know, 
That, if once wrong, will needs be always so ; 
But you with pleasure own your errors past, 
And make each day a critic on the last. 
’Tis not enough, your counsel still be true; 
Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do ; 
Men must be taught, as if you taught them not, 
And things unknown propos’d as things forgot. 
Without good breeding, truth is disapprov’d ; 
That only makes superior sense belov’d. 
Be niggards of advice on no pretence ; 
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. 
Pope’s * Essay on Criticism ? 
No one can have watched the growing frequency in the 
intercourse among peoples, various communities or profes- 
sions of the same nation, without being struck by the fact, 
that pari passu the constitution of a tribunal progresses, before 
which the personages in the great drama of life are brought 
for judgment. 
