POETRY. 



basis of reason, it will fall, together with 

 its embellishments, to the ground. In 

 oratory, fancy embellishes the operations 

 of judgment ; but so far as poetry is a 

 creative art, imagination is its primary 

 cause, and judgment a secondary agent, 

 employed to prune the luxuriant shoots 

 of fancy. 



It is the grand source of the excellence 

 of poetic imitation, that this imitation is 

 effected by words. Aristotle has denned 

 words as " sounds significant :'* they are 

 significant of ideas. Men that adopt the 

 same language, by a tacit compact, agree 

 that certain sounds shall be the repre- 

 sentatives of certain ideas. But ideas re- 

 present their archetypes. When, there- 

 fore, we use words, we revive in the 

 minds of those who understand our lan- 

 guage the pictures of the objects of 

 which we speak. The poetic imitation 

 then being carried on by means of words, 

 evidently embraces all objects of which 

 mankind have ever formed ideas. Its 

 energies are not crippled. It expatiates 

 in the universe, and even passes 



"the flaming bounds of space and 

 time." 



This circumstance is justly noted by the in- 

 genious Mr. Harris, as bestowing upon 

 poetry a decisive superiority over the art 

 of painting. The energies of painting are 

 confined to those objects that can be re- 

 presented by colour and figure. Poetry 

 can also express these objects, though, it 

 must be confessed, with a far inferior de- 

 gree of exquisiteness ; but this deficiency 

 is amply compensated by the extensive 

 range of the poet's excursions. He dives 

 into the human heart, developes the 

 windingsof the heart, pourtrays in all their 

 circumstances the workings of the pas- 

 sions, gives form and body to the most 

 abstract ideas, and by the language which 

 he puts into the mouths of his characters 

 he unlocks the secrets of their mind. 

 There is another grand advantage which 

 the poet possesses over the painter, 

 namely, that the latter is confined to the 

 transactions that happen in a moment of 

 time ; while the former presents to our 

 view a long series of consecutive events. 

 An interesting picture might no doubt 

 be drawn of the pious agony with which 

 ./Eneas witnessed the obstinacy of his fa- 

 ther, in refusing to save himself from the 

 sword of the Greeks by quitting his an- 

 cient and long-loved abode. But what a 

 varied pleasure do we experience in 

 reading of the circumstances that pre- 



ceded and that followed this event, iu 

 tracing the steps of the duteous son from 

 the palace of Priam to his father's man- 

 sion, and in beholding him at length bear- 

 ing his parent beyond the reacii of the 

 foe. Aristotle's doctrine, that a finished 

 composition should have a beginning, a 

 middle, and an end, is founded on reason ; 

 and the mind feels a superior degree of 

 satisfaction, when the rise, the circum- 

 stances, and the consequences of events, 

 are displayed before it in artful order. 



But the poetic imitation or representa- 

 tion is effected, not merely by words, but 

 by words metrically, or at least melo- 

 diously arranged. 



Melody is naturally pleasing to the hu- 

 man ear ; and it is not surprizing, that 

 the cultivators of an art, whose province 

 it is to delight, should be careful in bring- 

 ing as nearly as possible to perfection 

 the melody of their numbers. It is asto- 

 nishing with what accuracy the Greeks 

 and Romans attended to this particular ; 

 how minutely they weighed the value of 

 almost every syllable ; how strictly their 

 bards were obliged to conform to the es- 

 tablished standard. In modern times, 

 and in our own language, greater lati- 

 tude is allowed ; yet almost every I'eader 

 of poetry is aware of the charms of me- 

 lodious composition. What a sensible 

 difference do we perceive between the 

 careless couplets of Churchill and the po- 

 lished numbers of Pope. How much 

 more pleasing to the ear are the measur- 

 ed sentences of M'Pherson, than a host 

 of lines which we sometimes find printed 

 in the form of verses. 



But though melodious and metrical ar- 

 rangement of words be one of the cha- 

 racteristics, and, as Dr. Blair denominates 

 it, "the exterior distinction" of poetry, 

 it is necessary to observe, that too many 

 writers seem to assign to this characteris- 

 tic a place of eminence to which it is by 

 no means entitled. In consequence of 

 this error, vast multitudes of composi- 

 tions are obtruded upon the world under 

 the name of poems, which possess no 

 other merit than that of regularity of ver- 

 sification and smoothness of numbers. 

 Against these wearisome productions Ho- 

 race has long ago protested, in his memo- 

 rable declaration, that the quality of me- 

 diocrity is denied to poets, and that 

 poetry includes something more in its 

 definition than the measuring of syllables 

 and the tagging of a verse. If th'; heart 

 does not glow with the flame of genius, 

 the mechanism of art will be of no avail. 

 No one can excite strong 1 feelings in 



