370 SOME DEFINITIONS 



than half the truth. Matthew Arnold called it a 

 " criticism of life," which is just what one would expect 

 Matthew Arnold would caU it; and Dr. Johnson said 

 it was the " essence of common sense," which is 

 also precisely what one would expect Dr. Johnson 

 would say. Better still was Sir Isaac Newton's 

 definition of poetry as an "ingenious sort of non- 

 sense." I remember that my father was accustomed 

 to say that poetry was the one thing he could not 

 understand. But he did not, Hke the great Newton, 

 put the blame on poetry. A humble-minded man, he 

 owned that it was a defect in himself, a bUnd spot 

 which prevented him from seeing what others could 

 see. Best of all is the anonymous author of 7he 

 Faculty of Language (1831), who held that poetry 

 originates in a defect of the mind — its inability to 

 express what it means in literal language. 



Has this inquiry then brought us no nearer to the 

 understanding of what poetry really is, to say nothing 

 of its function .? No and Yes. No; but it was worth 

 making, since it has incidentally given us a good 

 laugh at the wisdom of our wisest, who, in trying to 

 define poetry, succeed only in defining themselves. 

 Yes; because, when we have taken all these several 

 pronouncements, and about forty more which any 

 "industrious fly" may gather from the books, and 

 mixed and vigorously stirred them up together, like 

 the various ingredients of a plum-pudding, we dis- 

 cover in the process and by tasting the mixture that 

 poetry is just what it is to you and to me and to 



