An Unknown Letter of Nicolas Poussin

Abstract

To judge the full significance of these words, it is necessary to forget Pope's original text which was unknown to Lessing, and to concentrate on the corrupt version he had before him and the improvement he suggested. Lessing changed ' not' into ' all', a negation into an emphatic affirmation, he transformed the sentence into its direct opposite, and yet he declared calmly that this alteration did not really change the meaning! Lessing was evidently well acquainted with what Mr. Empson has called the seventh type of ambiguity.2 Mr. Empson tells us that there are phrases in which it "does not matter which of two 'opposites' is taken ", and he illustrates this paradox by a splendid example-from Pope : " Let us Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man A mighty maze ! But not without a plan."