In the first line, wit is used, in the modern sense, for the effort of fancy; in the second line it is used in the ancient sense, for the result of judgment. This trick, played the reader, he endeavoured to keep out of sight, by altering the lines as they now stand, Some, to whom heav'n in wit has been profuse, Want as much more, to turn it to its use. For the words, "to manage it," as the lines were at first, too plainly discovered the change put upon the reader, in the use of the word "wit." This is now a little covered by the latter expression of "turn it to its use." But then the alteration, in the preceding line, from "store of wit," to "profuse," was an unlucky change. For though he who has "store of wit" may want more, yet he to whom it was given in "profusion" could hardly be said to want more. The truth is, the poet had said a lively thing, and would, at all hazards, preserve the reputation of it, though the very topic he is upon obliged him to detect the imposition, in the very next lines, which show he meant two very different things, by the very same term, in the two preceding: For wit and judgment often are at strife, Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife. Ver. 88. _Those rules of old, &c._] Cicero has, best of any one I know, explained what that thing is which reduces the wild and scattered parts of human knowledge into arts. "Nihil est quod ad artem redigi possit, nisi ille prius, qui illa tenet, quorum artem instituere vult, habeat illam scientiam, ut ex iis rebus, quarum ars nondum sit, artem efficere possit.--Omnia fere, quæ sunt conclusa nunc artibus, dispersa et dissipata quondam fuerunt, ut in musicis, &c. Adhibita est igitur ars quædam extrinsecus ex alio genere quodam, quod sibi totum PHILOSOPHI assumunt, quæ rem dissolutam divulsamque conglutinaret, et ratione quadam constringeret." De Orat. l. i. c. 41, 42. Ver. 112, 114. _Some on the leaves--Some dryly plain._] The first are the apes of those learned Italian critics who at the restoration of letters, having found the classic writers miserably deformed by the hands of monkish librarians, very commendably employed their pains and talents in restoring them to their native purity. The second, the plagiarists from the French critics, who had made some admirable commentaries on the ancient critics. But that acumen and taste, which separately constitute the distinct value of those two species of Italian and French criticism, make no part of the character of these paltry mimics at home described by our poet in the following lines, These leave the sense, their learning to display, And those explain the meaning quite away. Which species is the least hurtful, the poet has enabled us to determine in the lines with which he opens his poem, But, of the two, less dang'rous is th' offence To tire our patience, than mislead our sense.