"------With _theirs_ should sail,
Pursue the triumph and partake the gale"--

if those who know how to set a due value on the blessing, were not the
last to decide confidently on their own pretensions to it.

There is a cant in the present day about genius, as every thing in
poetry: there was a cant in the time of Pope about sense, as performing
all sorts of wonders. It was a kind of watchword, the shibboleth of a
critical party of the day. As a proof of the exclusive attention which
it occupied in their minds, it is remarkable that in the Essay on
Criticism (not a very long poem) there are no less than half a score
successive couplets rhyming to the word _sense_. This appears almost
incredible without giving the instances, and no less so when they are
given.

"But of the two, less dangerous is the offence,
To tire our patience than mislead our sense."--_lines_ 3, 4.

"In search of wit these lose their common sense,
And then turn critics in their own defence."--_l._ 28, 29.

"Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence,
And fills up all the mighty void of sense."--_l._ 209, 10.

"Some by old words to fame have made pretence,
Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense."--_l._ 324, 5.

" 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence;