Ver. 452. _Some valuing those of their own side or mind, &c._] 3. The third and last instance of partiality in the learned, is party and faction, which is considered from ver. 451 to 474, where he shows how men of this turn deceive themselves, when they load a writer of their own side with commendation. They fancy they are paying tribute to merit, when they are only sacrificing to self-love. But this is not the worst. He further shows, that this party spirit has often very ill effects on science itself, while, in support of faction, it labours to depress some rising genius, that was, perhaps, raised by nature to enlighten his age and country. By which he would insinuate, that all the baser and viler passions seek refuge, and find support in party madness. Ver. 474. _Be thou the first, &c._] The poet having now gone through the last cause of wrong judgment, and the root of all the rest, partiality, and ended his remarks upon it with a detection of the two rankest kinds, those which arise out of party rage and envy, takes the occasion, which this affords him, of closing his second division in the most graceful manner, from ver. 473 to 560, by concluding from the premises, and calling upon the true critic to be careful of his charge, which is the protection and support of wit; for, the defence of it from malevolent censure is its true protection, and the illustration of its beauties, is its true support. He first shows, the critic ought to do this service without loss of time, and on these motives:--1. Out of regard to himself, for there is some merit in giving the world notice of an excellence, but little or none, in pointing, like an index, to the beaten road of admiration. 2. Out of regard to the poem, for the short duration of modern works requires that they should begin to live betimes. He compares the life of modern wit (which in a changeable dialect, must soon pass away), and that of the ancient (which survives in an universal language), to the difference between the patriarchal age and our own, and observes, that while the ancient writings live for ever, as it were, in brass and marble, the modern are but like paintings, which, of how masterly a hand soever, have no sooner gained their requisite perfection by the softening and ripening of their tints, which they do in a very few years, but they begin to fade and die away. 3. Lastly, our author shows that the critic ought in justice to do this service out of regard to the poet, when he considers the slender dowry the muse brings along with her. In youth it is only a vain and short-lived pleasure; and in maturer years, an accession of care and labour, in proportion to the weight of reputation to be sustained, and of the increase of envy to be opposed: and therefore, concludes his reasoning on this head with that pathetic and insinuating address to the critic, from ver. 508 to 526. Ah! let not learning, &c.