THE ART-PRINCIPLE IN POETRY l8l 



this theoretical aim of our inquiry is not its only 

 aim ; there is a practical interest to be served by it, 

 too. The theory, to be sure, might if attained yield 

 us the pleasure of a gratified curiosity ; but we may 

 rightly demand of such an inquiry that it furnish 

 us with a discipline in culture, and with a perma- 

 nent canon of taste. If its result is real, this should 

 put us in possession of a touchstone by which not 

 only to sift the pretensions of a production that pro- 

 fesses to be poetry, but to discriminate between 

 works undoubtedly poetic, and to assign to each 

 its place according to its merits. Our question, 

 then, is not simply whether there is a single essen- 

 tial principle of poetic art, and what it is ; but, more 

 pertinently, just what the subtle quality is that 

 makes a poem a poem, and determines, by the 

 degree of its presence, the rank of any poem in 

 the great company of poems. 



The surest method of settling this question might 

 seem to be to examine those works which the mature 

 judgment of the world has pronounced the best ex- 

 amples of poetry, and by a careful analysis and com- 

 parison penetrate at length to their common secret. 

 But the execution of this would require at least an 

 academic term of daily lectures. In no less time 



