96 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [BOOK II 



for occasions have their revolutions, and what has once been 

 advantageously used may be so again, either as an old thing 

 or a new one. Nor can the usefulness of these sayings in 

 civil affairs be questioned, when Caesar himself wrote a book 

 upon the subject, which we wish were extant ; foi all those 

 we have yet seen of the kind appear to be collected with 

 little choice and judgment. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



The Second leading Branch of Learning Poetry. Its Division into 

 Narrative, Dramatic, and Parabolic. Three Examples of the latter 

 species detailed. 



POETRY is a kind of learning generally confined to the 

 measure of words, but otherwise extremely licentious, and 

 truly belonging to the imagination, which, being unrestrained 

 by laws, may make what unnatural mixtures and separations 

 it pleases. It is taken in two senses, or with respect to 

 words and matter. The first is but a character of style and 

 a certain form of speech not relating to the subject, for a 

 true narration may be delivered in verse and a feigned one 

 in prose ; but the second is a capital part of learning, and no 

 other than feigned history. And here, as in our divisions, 

 we endeavour to find and trace the tine sources of learning, 

 and this frequently without giving way to custom or tho 

 established order, we shall take no particular notice of 

 satire, elegy, epigram, ode, &c., but turn them over to philo 

 sophy and the arts of speech, and under the name of poetry 

 treat nothing more than imaginary history. 



The justest division of poetry, except what it shares in 

 common with history (which has its feigned chronicles, 

 feigned lives, and feigned relations), is, 1. Into narrative ; 

 2. Dramatic; and, 3. Allegorical. Narrative poetry is such 

 an exact imitation of history as to deceive, did it not often 

 carry things beyond probability. Dramatic poetry is a kind 

 of visible history, giving the images of things as if they were 

 present, whilst history represents them as pasfc. But allego 

 rical poetry is history with its type, which represents intel 

 lectual things to the senses. 



Narrative poetry, otherwise called heroic poetry, seema, 



