...affectation," though he joined the rest in approving the doctrine memorialized in Pope's familiar couplet: True Wit is Nature to advantage drest, What oft was thought, but ne'er so well exprest. Though later in life Johnson was to censure this pithy definition for reducing wit from intellectual...

...following passage: 28 J. Butt, ed.. The Poems of Alexander Pope, London: Methuen, 1963, 146. ** Ibid., 146. True Wit is Nature to Advantage drest. What oft was Thought, but ne'er so well Exprest. Somethmg, whose Truth convinc'd at Sight we find. That gives us back the Image of our Mind. (l1. 297-300)10...

...becoming at an extreme, in the definition that provoked Johnson's censure, Pope's dress of thought: "True Wit is Nature to Advantage drest, / What oft was Thought, but ne'er so well Exprest" (Essay on Criticism, 11. 287-98). Dryden's version of the argument was even starker in its insistence...

...Butt, ed., The Poems of Alexander Pope, London: Methuen, 1963, 146. " Ibid., 146. True Wit is Nuture to Advantage drest. What oft was Thought, but ne'er so well Exprest, Something, whose Truth convinc'd at Sight we find. That gives us back the Image of our Mind. (ll. 297-300)10...

...usually to demonstrate the "ornamentalist view" of poetry that is supposed to have dominated the period: "True Wit is Nature to Advantage drest, / What oft was Thought, but ne'er so well Exprest." But if the reader merely goes on with Pope to complete the sentence - "Something, whose Truth convinc'd...

...thoughts and words elegantly adapted to the subject, "t8 and on Pope's lines in the Essay on Criticism: True Wit is Nature to Advantage drest, What oft was Thought, but ne'er so well Exprest, Someth1ng, whose Truth convinc'd at Sight we find. That gives us back the Image ol our Mind. (lines...

...redefined not as something public and outside, as in Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism (1711) - "True Wit is Nature to Advantage drest / What oft was Thought, but ne'er so well Exprest" - but as something inside and private, as in Emerson's words in "The Poet" (1844): "Thou shalt leave...

...aesthetic concept familiar to the epoch, whose poetics was formulated by Pope himself at an early age: True Wit is Nature to advantage drest. What oft was Thought, but ne'er so well Expressif '0Canto t,v. 121ff;Pope 1965,222. " Essay on Criticism, V. 297f; Pope 1965, 153. Belinda...

...of thought and expression, Wit and Nature, form and matter, which stand at the center of the poem: True Wit is Nature to Advantage drest, What oft was Thought, but ne'er so well Exprest, Something, whose Truth convinc'd at Sight we find, That gives us back the Image of our Mind: (lines...

...Pope gave the ornamental view its most celebrated expression in his "Essay on Criticism": True wil is Nature to advantage drest. What oft was Thought, but ne'er so well Evprest. And And again Expression is the Dryss of Thought, and still Appears more decent as more...