PODALIRIUS POETRY. 



dangerous, as nature has the power of throwing off i works by Malone.) The first patent of this kind, 

 the disease in the extremities. The notion that issued in the reign of Charles I. (1630), assigns as 

 there is no remedy against the podagra, and that a 



person who has been once attacked can never be 

 cured, is erroneous. By shortening the period of 

 inflammation , the secretion of the gouty matter may 

 be promoted, and the pain more speedily assuaged. 

 In the interval of the attacks, if attention is paid to 

 the diet and manner of living, if the patient confines 

 himself to simple food, and avoids the exciting 

 causes of the disease, its violence may be gradually 

 diminished, and the disease itself may be eradicat- 

 ed ; while, by the neglect of these precautions, it 

 continually becomes aggravated, and, as the system 

 grows weaker, irregular and retrocedent, in which 

 stage it is often fatal. See Gout. 



POD A L I RI US . See ^Escvlapiut. 



PODOLIA ; a government of Russia, bounded 

 north by Volhynia and Grodno, east by Ekaterino- 

 slav and Cherson, south by Moldavia and the Dnie- 

 ster, and west by Bukowine ; population, 1,462,000 

 square miles, 20,350. It is divided into 12 circles. 

 The inhabitants are mostly Poles, but Russians and 

 Jews are numerous. 



PCECILE (minion) a portico in Athens, contain- 

 ing a picture gallery. (See Polygnotus.) Zeno 

 taught his doctrines here, whence he was called the 

 stoic (from <rma.; a portico) , and his school, the stoic 

 school. See Zeno and Stoics. 



POELENBURG, CORNELIUS, a painter, born at 

 Utrecht, 1586, became a pupil of Bloemaert, and 

 afterwards went to Rome. Here he studied Ra- 

 phael's works ; but he was deficient in design, and 

 therefore confined himself principally to natural 

 scenes on a small scale, in which he excelled. 

 Rubens adorned his own cabinet with Poelenburg's 

 productions. Charles I. invited him to England, 

 where he painted a portrait of the king and other 

 works, but soon returned home, and died at Utrecht, 

 in 1660. His works are rare, and esteemed for de- 

 licacy of touch and sweetness of colouring. 



POETICS. See Poetry. 



POET LAUREATE. Among the Greeks, from 

 whom the custom was also adopted by the Romans, 

 it was the practice to crown the successful poets in 

 the musical contests (see Music) with a wreath of 

 laurel. The emperor Domitian crowned with his 

 own hand poets and orators, at the Capitoline games, 

 which had been instituted by him. In the thirteenth 

 century, the custom was renewed by the Italians, 

 and the crowning of Petrarca in the capitol was 

 solemnized with great pomp. Every one must re- 

 collect the description of the coronation of Corinne. 

 The German emperors conferred the title of poet 

 laureate (gekronte dichter, or, as he is called by the 

 Italians, poeta cesareo) on their court poet. Conrad 

 Celtes was the first who received that honour. The 

 emperors also granted to the counts palatine the 

 right of conferring that title. In England, the first 

 mention of a king's poet, under the title of poet 

 laureate, occurs, according to Warton, in the reign 

 of Edward IV. from whom John Kay received it. 

 Poeta laureatus was, however, also an academical 

 title in England, conferred by the universities when 

 the candidate received the degrees in grammar 

 (which included rhetoric and versification). The 

 last instance of a laureated degree at Oxford occurs 

 in 1512. Skelton was laureated at both universities 

 (in 1489 and 1493), and seems also to have been 

 court laureate to Henry VIII. Ben Jonson was 

 court poet to James I., and received a pension, but 

 does not appear to have had the title of laureate 

 formally granted him. Dryden was appointed lau- 

 reate to Charles II., and afterwards to James II., 

 by regular patent under privy seal. (See his prose 



the yearly gratuity to the laureate 100, and a tierce 

 of Canary wine out of the royal cellars. Nalnun 

 'I ate, Rowe, Eusden, Cibber, Whitehead, T. War- 

 ton, Pye (who consented to a commutation of his 

 wine for A'27), and Southey (1813), have been the 

 successors of Dryden. 



POETRY, POESY (from the Greek <r<,,W, from 

 roitu, I create, or produce, with reference probably 

 to the creative power essential to a poet). The 

 numberless unsuccessful attempts to define poetry 

 warn us against circumscribing within the compass 

 of a few words, a subject so vast, so variegated, and 

 so interwoven with all the activities of the human 

 spirit. The definitions usually given, even if true, 

 amount only to illustrations or explanations. To 

 make a full exposition of our views on this subject 

 would far exceed our limits. One of the chief traits 

 of the poetical is, that it peculiarly affects the ima- 

 gination and the feelings. When we speak of ac- 

 tions or the creations of genius as poetical, the term 

 implies further that they had their origin in concep- 

 tions in which the imagination and the feelings were 

 chief agents. Hence the universality of poetry; 

 hence the preponderance of the poetical in the lan- 

 guage and conceptions of early nations. A common 

 idea, the result of experience, or simple reasoning 

 may be conceived (and accordingly expressed) by 

 the poet in such a way as to strike our feelings with 

 peculiar force, or ideas which, though elevated in 

 themselves, are familiar to all, may receive new im- 

 pressiveness from a new and striking way of expres- 

 sing them. For instance, the precept to love our 

 enemies ; who does not feel that this elevated sen- 

 timent is rendered still more striking by the illus- 

 tration of Menou, who adds to the precept, " like the 

 sandal tree, which sheds perfume on the axe that 

 fells it?" A great part of poetry, in fact, consists 

 in a striking expression of common ideas, because it 

 is impossible that a poet should always have new 

 ideas. It is gratifying to find a new conception of 

 a familiar idea presenting the subject in a light in 

 which we had never viewed it. But if the language 

 addressed to feeling and imagination chiefly, is often 

 used to convey a plain idea poetically, or to give a 

 familiar one a new charm, this language, on the 

 other hand, is often the natural expression of an ele- 

 vated imagination, which soars through regions to 

 which our wishes, hopes and faith aspire, and speaks 

 in metaphors because common language is inadequate 

 to express its conceptions. Poetry has been divided 

 into natural and artificial ; the former signifying 

 that poetry which consists in conceptions only, and 

 not in the expression and arrangement of them by 

 the rules of art. According to its subjects, and the 

 relation which the poet holds to his productions, it 

 is divided into the poetry of subjective feeling, or 

 lyrical poetry (see Lyrics) ; narrative poetry (see 

 Epic), and that which presents actions as happening, 

 while the poet himself is kept entirely out of view ; 

 dramatic poetry (see Drama). The name machinery 

 is given in epic and dramatic poetry to superhuman 

 beings introduced by the poet to solve difficulties or 

 perform exploits which surpass human power. 



Poetics is the theory of poetry, and is partly a 

 branch of practical aesthetics, partly a branch of 

 philology ; the former, as far as the principles of the 

 beautiful and of the fine arts are applied to poetry ; 

 the latter, as far as it is the theory of poetic style, 

 or the technical part of poetry. It is one of the 

 theories earliest developed, nay, aesthetics grew 

 out of it. Among the Greeks, Aristotle treated it 

 in his *it Uamnnns, of which we only possess a frag- 

 ment (best edition by Gottfr. Hermann). Horace 



