PNEUMIC ACtU. 



I'OETRY. 



velocity of efflux of air through a mull orifice, and by r the experi- 

 mental velocity, then 



v' = .65 v, for orifices in a thin wall, 

 = .93 V, for ryliiulrie.-il spouts, 

 = .94 v, for conical spouts, and those 



narrowing from the wall of the gasometer ; so that there is, a for 

 li.|iiiiin. a true rota eoit/rarta, which reconciles theory with experiment, 

 M in the case of Torricelli's theorem. [Errusiox ; HTDKODYNAUKS.] 



I'NEUMIC ACID. The lungs of most animals contain a peculiar 

 acid, partly free, but chiefly in the form of a soda salt, to which this 

 name has been given. Its composition is unknown and hence its exist- 

 ence as a distinct acid must be regarded as doubtful. 



PN Kl - Mi >MA. [Lc!o, DISEASES or.] 



POAi'HIXU. [GAME LAWS.] 



POETRY, in the usual and proper signification of the Word, is 

 applied to any composition in metre. It designates the outward 

 form, not the style or the subject-matter treated. As, however, tin-n- 

 an certain subjects, certain feelings and language, which belong to 

 good poetry, a prose coni|Kwiti<ni, in which these characteristics are 

 risible, is often termed " poetical " or " poetry," just as a bad poem is 

 called " prosaic." In both instances we speak thus when we wish to 

 express praise or blame, as the case may be, and wo use the words 

 metaphorically. (See Whately's Rhetoric, 1 page 278.) 



The art of poetry is an imitative art Its object, in common with 

 all such arts, is to give pleasure by imitation. So far music, painting, 

 ifulpture, and poetry agree. They differ in the means which each 

 employs to effect the imitation. Music works by harmony and melody, 

 painting by colour, sculpture by form, and poetry by words arranged 

 in metre. In no case, however, is it the proper province of art to 

 produce illusion, that is to say, the person whose feelings are to 

 be affected always remains conscious that his emotion is not the result 

 of anything really purring, but is merely analogous to that emotion 

 which the reality would produce. 



The imitative power of art thus consists in producing results 

 resembling, but not identical with, those created by natural objects, 

 or by human passion, character, and action. Hence the difference 

 between a diorama and a picture, or between a waxwork figure and 

 a statue ; illusion is the aim of the one ; imitation, properly so called, 

 of the other. Hence, too, it is difficult to vindicate the mimicry of 

 special sounds, such as hail or thunder, in music. 



The metre in poetry answers a double purpose : in itself it affords 

 pleasure by iu rhythm, and acts as a powerful auxiliary to the sense 

 which the mere words express; but, above all, it preserves the 

 i UK in i of art by -operating as a constant barrier against any approach 

 to reality. In thin way the poet avows the fact that his work is a 

 work of art, and he makes the reader or hearer aware of the relation 

 in which he and the author stand to each other. The imitative power 

 may work in safety when hedged off from real life by the fence of 

 metrical form, and thus it is that Wordsworth lays down the " per- 

 ception of similitude in dissimilitude " as one of the principles on 

 which verse gives pleasure. 



The next question is, in what mode does poetry imitate ? Painting 

 and sculpture copy outward forms themselves; poetry and music, 

 being restricted to instruments of a different kind, aim at imitating 

 the effect of those forms, that is to say, at producing the pleasurable 

 emotion in the reader or the hearer, though in these cases they cannot 

 imitate the mean*. On the other hand, the two former arts con only 

 represent one moment of action or expression, and must tell their 

 story by selecting that moment properly ; music and poetry can 

 supply a succession of images and sentiment* all going to make up 

 a whole. There is one advantage which poetry possesses over all its 

 sister arts, viz., that of being able to assert : as it is the only art 

 which employs words for its instruments, it is the only one which 

 can enounce a proposition and command this element of the moral 

 sublime. 



Poetry, froitprit, or " making," seems to be so called because good 

 poetry creates or re-embodies the impressions which the poet has 

 imbibed into his own mind by observation. This faculty of pro- 

 ducing from such elements the impression of individual character, 

 action, or scenery is the power which we generally term imagination. 

 Without it, the attempt at imitation must necessarily fail. Words- 

 worth (Preface to ' Lyrical Ballads ') says, " Poetry is the spontaneous 

 overflow of powerful feelings ; it takes its origin from emotion recol- 

 lected in tranquillity. The emotion is contemplated until by a species 

 of reaction the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion 

 kindred to that which woo livfore the subject of contemplation in 

 gradually produced, and does iteejf actually exist in the mind." Thin 

 we take to be a description of the mode in which imagination works. 

 The poet, by close and habitual observation, stores his mind with the 

 circumstances which have given rue to or attended the pnxlin 'tn-n !' 

 notion in himself. The result of thin observation he works up so as 

 to create in others an emotion kindred tn that which he bos himself 

 experienced; kindred, but not idrnti<"i], for, ax Wordsworth truly 

 remarks, the excitement must en-exist with an overbalance of pleasure. 

 Now, many of the emotions which the ix>ct excites* are, when called 

 forth by real events, peculiarly painful. It is his business so to 

 combine them with pleasing associations, so to soften their disgusting 



features and render prominent their more attractive ones, and above 

 all so to give unity to the whole, that, taken with the consciousness of 

 their existing in a work of art, and not in reality, they become a source of 

 cxquuite delight Such a work it reality, seen through the medium 

 of the poet's mind, and clothed by him in a bodily form so as to 

 retain its vividness, but lose its deformity. 



It has IK .MI often observed that the language of savages is highly 

 BMtaphodoal, and what is commonly called poetical ; that nations in 

 their earlier stage show a peculiar fondness and aptitude for poetry. 

 The truth is, th.it there, exists in the mind of man a natural craving 

 fur individuality. We gain knowledge by generalising from individual 

 objects, and we are always eager to re-embody our abstractions, 

 in the most civilised state, there is a perpetual tendency in the mass of 

 mankind to wards "realism," while the consistent and familiar use of ab- 

 stract terms and symbols implies long and severe discipline of the reason- 

 ing powers. These feelings are the groundwork of all allegory. If wo 

 reflect a moment, we know that " justice " means that disposition of mind 

 which we see exhibited by individuals who are called "just," yet we 

 speak of her as if she were a real existing being, and paint her with a 

 pair of scales and a sword. Thus the appetite for the imitative arts 

 is one deeply implanted in man ; he cannot be satisfied unless cha- 

 racter or action lie embodied to the eye by colour or form, or brought 

 vividly before the mind by the description of the poet Abstract 

 terms are indistinct, and require metaphors or similes to give them 

 substance and moke them palpable to the apprehension. One of the 

 most wonderful phenomena connected with the Greeks is, that while 

 ii ins of the people constantly tended, as Bishop Thirl wall says, to 

 embody the spiritual and personify the indefinite, they excelled no 

 IM in the dry and abstract studies of philosophy. If Hon 



, his and Sophocles, have never been rivalled in poetry, it was 

 Aristotle on the other hand who analysed with the greatest precision 

 the process of human reasoning, and left us in his 'Ethics' and 

 his 'Polities' treatises which are still instructive in their respective 

 deportments. 



We must now proceed to say something of the diction of poetry. 

 Words are the instruments of the poet! they are the tools with which 

 he work*. We think that Mr. Wordsworth pushes his theory of 

 simple language a little too far. We fully sympathise with ! 

 jection of " those phrases and figures of speech which from father "to 

 sou have long been regarded as the common inheritance of j 

 Such conventional forms of expression at last become adverse to the 

 very object of all poetry ; instead of conveying any definite or sub- 

 stantial image, they degenerate into mere formula; of the vaguest and 

 most unsatisfactory kind. But, just as metre at once gives pleasure 

 by its adaptation to the subject-matter, and forms a sort of framework 

 in which the poet exhibits his composition to the reader, so may 

 language, by its appropriateness and by its dissimilitude to the 

 phraseology of common life, supply another twofold source of pleasure. 

 There are ballads, and even larger compositions, in which the simple 

 and homely diction suite the treatment of the subject and adds force 

 and strength to the expression. But, who will say that in such a 

 work as the ' Agamemnon ' of vEschylus, where the whole drama is 

 knit together by one pervading feeling of mysterious dignity, the 

 language should not bear a proportion to the other qualities of the 

 work? 



" Let gorgeous tragedy 

 In sceptcrcd pall come sweeping by : " 



stately and ornate diction is a part of her trappings. 



It remains to speak briefly of the different moulds into which a 

 subject may be cast by a poet, and according to which we call a 

 poem epic, dramatic, lyric, tc. There is great difficulty in this part 

 of our subject. The ancients, indeed, applied such terms as " epos," 

 or " elegeion," to the outward form only, but, in modern language, the 

 matter of a poem, its length, or its mode of treatment, often decides the 

 class to which it is commonly assigned. Moreover, there are many 

 works of a mixed character which we cannot place in any recognised 

 division. To what genus do Dante's ' Divina Commtdia,' Wordsworth's 

 ' Excursion,' and Spenser's ' Fairy Queen ' respectively belong ? Certain 

 brood distinctions may, however, be laid down, though they be inca- 

 pable of definite application iu every instance. 



1. A poem nay be in the form of a narrative of events which the 

 poet professes to recount; although he sometimes introduces his 

 heroes as speaking in the first person, and uses the historical present 

 tense for the sake of greater energy, still the events are supposed to 

 be pott. The subject-matter is external, that is to say, the writer does 

 not merely pour forth his own feelings as excited by certain actions 

 or circumstances, but describes the actions or circumstances them- 

 selves. Of this kind is all epic and narrative poetry. 



2. A |KK-t may develope the action to the reader or supposed spec- 

 tator liy imagining that the personages of the story show ite progress 

 and their own characters by what they themselves say and do, not by 

 what the author narrates of them. Hi-re the time is supposed to be 

 present, and the subject-matt cr still more purely external. Dramatic 

 poetry, with all ite numerous subdivisions, is of this kind. 



8. The author may principally aim at expressing the overflow of hin 

 own emotions and his own sentiments, instead of narrating what is 

 past, or supposing something present to be acted before ue. 

 object will then be to awaken an echo of similar feelings in the > 



