463 
FOE 
difference can be observed. It is almost | 
equally common in damp situations with the 
former. 
Podura atra is of a short, subglobulav 
shape, with lengthened antenna; : its colour 
is a glossy black. It is found on the bark ol 
trees, &c. 
Podura plumbea is of a biueish black or 
deep lead-colour, and is found in similar 
situations. 
Podura arborea is of a lengthened form, 
and of a black colour, with the feet and cau- 
dal fork waite. It is chiefly found on the 
bark of trees, among mosses, ike. There are 
1 4 species. 
POEM. See Poetry. 
POETRY is that kind of literary com- 
position which is characterised by metrical 
harmony. Various have been the attributes 
and pretensions assigned to poetry. By some 
it has been made to consist in fiction, by others 
in imitation. By one critic it has been ela- 
borately designated as “the art of illustrating 
in metrical numbers every being in nature, 
and every object of imagination, for the de- 
light and improvement of mankind.” By a 
more judicious writer it is assumed to be “ the 
language of passion, or of enlivened imagi- 
nation, formed most commonly into regular 
numbers and this definition, though not 
perfectly correct, is, perhaps, less exception- 
able than any other which has been sub- 
mitted to investigation. 
Poetry is commonly called an art, yet is 
not unfrequently classed with the sciences ; a 
dignity perpetuated to it by traditional au- 
thority, from the early ages, when the bard 
was a personage sacred as the priest, and all 
the knowledge or the wisdom extant was en- 
veloped in fable, or unfolded in numbers. 
In the progress of society from barbarism 
to refinement, it was impossible that the ana- 
logies subsisting between certain operations 
of intellect should be overlooked; and the 
mythology of Greece, which embodied even 
the abstractions of science, gave to these me- 
taphysical relations a personal character coi - 
responding with the sympathies and depend- 
ances of domestic life. In these popular 
personifications, a remarkable predilection ap- 
pears for the triple numbers. The Parcaq 
the Furies, the Graces, and originally the 
muses, were composed of sisterly triads. In 
like maimer, music, poetry, and painting, from 
the intimate connection observed between the 
two first of these arts, and their supposed affi- 
nity to the last, were united in the same bond 
of union ; and the legitimacy of the relation 
on which this elegant allegory was founded, is 
yet recognized in popular language as an un- 
equivocal and undisputed truth. 
Of these kindred arts, music and poetry 
issued from the same woods, cheri-hed and 
respected by the rudest and most uncultivated 
generations of men. The metre of poetry is 
evidently borrowed from the simple melodies 
of music; and it may be presumed, was pro- 
duced in the first efforts to combine vocal 
with instrumental sounds. The ambition of 
the primitive poet must have been limited to 
that artificial modulation of language which 
is now considered as the least, and lowest of 
poetical attainments, but which unquestion- 
ably forms a radical part in the constitution of 
poetry. The origin of painting is not equally 
remote. Many subordinate arts, concomitant 
with the progress of civilization, must have 
POE 
previously existed ; and it is w T el! known that 
poetry inspired enthusiasm and veneration, 
not only in the ferocious tribes of Scandinavia, 
but in the Hebrews and the Arabs, to whom 
the delineation of the human form was an art 
proscribed by legislative authority, or con- 
temned by national prejudice. The first spe- 
cimens of poetry could not but be rude as 
the society for which they were composed 
Alliteration appears to have been an initial 
character of verse ; and the rudiments even 
of rhyme are discernible in those similar or 
identical terminations adopted by the Celtic 
and Runic bards, and exemplified in the 
practice of Oriental antiquity. By the agency 
of metre, a poetical style was gradually pro- 
duced; and in the labour of balancing and ad- 
justing his sentences, the poet insensibly ac- 
quired vigilance, discrimination, and taste. 
Figurative language, which is familiar to a 
primitive state of society, has supplied to 
every people some of the purest elements of 
poetry. But this language is not the ex- 
clusive property of the poet; it belongs to 
every writer of imagination; and though more 
essential to verse, is almost equally becoming 
in prose; nor would it be difficult to produce 
from Bacon and Jeremy Taylor in one age, 
from Burke and Gibbon in another, as bril- 
liant combinations of thought as any that have 
been exhibited in verse. 
The following passage from Shakspeare, 
though written in prose, is as rich in imagery 
as any part of his metrical compositions: 
“ This goodlv frame, the earth, seems to me a 
sterile promontory ; this most excellent cano- 
py, the air; this majestical roof, fretted with 
golden fire, why it appears no other thing to 
me than a foul' and pestilential congregation 
of vapours. \V hat a piece of work is man ! 
Flow noble in reason ; how infinite in faculties; 
in form and moving, how express and admi- 
rable; in action, how like an angel ; in appre- j 
henslon, how like a god!” The figures of rhe- | 
toric, therefore, (see Rhetoric,) including ' 
all the varieties of metaphor, allegory, and 
simile, are common to. all the higher orders of 
literary composition; the mechanism ot verse 
being, perhaps, the only positive liue of de- 
marcation, by which the boundaries of prose 
and verse are distinguished from each other* 
Antient poetry. 
That the higher order of poetry is not un- 
attainable in an uncultivated age, is a truth 
eminently illustrated by the example ot the 
Hebrew people. Admitting language to be, 
as Mr. Richardson ingeniously observes, the 
barometer ot society, by which its comparativ e 
barbarism or civilization is indicated, it will 
be obvious that the bards of Sion composed 
their lofty songs for a primitive nation, tena- 
cious of its customs and opinions, unenlight- 
ened by science, uncorrected by taste, and as 
little acquainted with the arts as the refine- 
ments of polished life. 
The simplicity and energy of the Hebrew 
language, accorded happily with the sublime 
nature of sacred poetry ; and to the pecu- 
liarities in its constitution it is, perhaps, owing 
that the primitive character of its composition 
is tenaciously preserved to whatever language 
transferred, or with whatever idioms assi- 
milated. The musical harmony of the He- 
brew language is now but imperfectly know n , 
its prosody is, however, sufficiently under- 
P O t 
stood to suggest a comparison between its 
rhymes, and the wild measures familiar to 
the Scandinavian nation. Alliteration was 
freely admitted in their verse, as were iden- 
tical terminations and other artificial em- 
bellishments; but its distinctive feature was 
a symmetrical disposition of the sentences, 
which were cast into parallel verses of 
equal length, and correspondent in sense 
and sound: the sentiment expressed in the 
first distich being repeated and amplified in 
the second, as in the following examples: 
“ The Lord rewardeth me according to 
my righteousness: according to the clean- 
ness of my hand he hath recompensed me. 
The-statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing 
the heart: the commandment of the Lord is 
pure, and enlighteneth the eyes. The fear of 
the Lord is clean, enduring for ever : the 
judgments of the Lord are pure and righteous 
altogether.” This practice, which appears 
to have been peculiar to the Hebrews, was 
derived from their riles of worship ; in which 
the sacred hymns were chaunted by bands of 
singers, who alternately responded to each 
other. 
'The Hebrew bards employ few epithets: 
the brevity of their style renders its sublimity 
conspicuous; their imagery is bold and ener- 
getic; their magnificent conceptions issue 
from the mind in native majesty and strength; 
their imagination is ever rich and exuberant ; 
and to them, metaphors spontaneously arise 
on every subject, in inexhaustible beauty and 
fertility. 
Although Hebrew poetry presents- nothing 
that in critical language can be classed with 
epic or dramatic compos tion, it affords innu- 
merable examples of the lyric, the elegiac, and 
the didactic style. In {he prophecies, the 
favourite figure is allegory : the Hebrews hav- 
ing, in common with other Oriental nations, a 
decided predilection for the parabolic species 
of writing. It would be injustice to the sacred, 
bard, not to remember in what country he 
wrote, and with what people he lived. On 
examination, his images will be found to have 
been faithfully transcribed from nature, and 
beautifully to have harmonized with the 
scenes and manners familiar to his observa- 
tion and experience; but the pure and un- 
corrupted theism maintained by the inspired 
bard, is his most exalted attribute, and is evi- 
dently the cause of his pre-eminence in sub- 
limity over all other Oriental writers. 
The Arabs were not, like the Hebrews, a 
stationary people, insulated from the rest of 
mankind. Alternately engaged in commerce 
and in war, their erratic chiefs visited distant 
regions ; and in their intervals of leisure, were 
no less ambitious to obtain poetical distinction, 
than they had been to secure military fame. 
Poetry, which constituted the sacred science 
of the Hebrews, became with the Arabs a po- 
lite accomplishment ; and as the copiousness 
of their language supplied all the aptitudes 
of numbers, it is not surprizing that im- 
provisator! bards should have been found in 
their deserts. The distich, and many other 
forms of metrical composition, adapted to 
familiar occasions, were of Arabian invention ; 
and it is the plausible suggestion of sir Wil- 
liam Jones, that rhymes were borrowed from- 
Eastern literature bv the Provencal and Cas- 
tilian poets, through whose influence they 
were naturalized to Europe. With all the 
copiousness and flexibility of the Arabic,, the 
