116 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



tunes of persons rewarded or punished according to merit. 

 And as real history disgusts us with a familiar and constant 

 similitude of things, poetry relieves us by unexpected turns 

 and changes, and thus not only delights, but inculcates 

 morality and nobleness of soul. Whence it may be justly 

 esteemed of a Divine nature, as it raises the mind, by ac- 

 commodating the images of things to our desires, and not, 

 like history and reason, subjecting the mind to things. 

 And by these its charms, and congruity to the mind, with 

 the assistance also of music, which conveys it the sweeter, 

 it makes its own way, so as to have been in high esteem in 

 the most ignorant ages, and among the most barbarous 

 people, while other kinds of learning were utterly ex 

 cluded. 



Dramatic poetry, which has the theatre for its world, 

 would be of excellent use if it were sound; for the disci 

 pline and corruption of the theatre is of very great conse 

 quence. And the corruptions of this kind are numerous in 

 our times, but the regulation quite neglected. The action 

 of the theatre, though modern states esteem it but ludi 

 crous, unless it be satirical and biting, was carefully watched 

 by the ancients, that it might improve mankind in virtue: 

 and indeed many wise men and great philosophers have 

 thought it to the mind as the bow to the fiddle; and certain 

 it is, though a great secret in nature, that the minds of men 

 in company are more open to affections and impressions 

 than when alone. 



But allegorical poetry excels the others, and appears a 

 solemn, sacred thing, which religion itself generally makes 

 use of, to preserve an intercourse between divine and human 

 things; yet this, also, is corrupted by a levity and indul 

 gence of genius toward allegory. Its use is ambiguous, and 

 made to serve contrary purposes; for it envelops as well 

 as illustrates the first seeming to endeavor at an art of 

 concealment, and the other at a method of instructing, 

 much used by the ancients. For when the discoveries nnd 

 conclusions of reason, though now common, were new, 



