POETRY. 
ings, exclamations, and rapture.” To the 
same purpose, but in less inflated language. 
Dr. Blair has observed, that it is not so 
easy as might at first be imagined to ascer- 
tain with minute precision wherein poetry 
differs from prose. In point of fact, every 
reflecting reader must be sensible, that as 
it is difficult to determine the precise line 
where different shades of colour terminate, 
or even the boundaries of animal and vege- 
table nature, so it is a matter of no small 
nicety to fix the point where composition 
rises from the scale of prose to that of 
poetry. 
By a small addition to the ideas of Ai'i- 
stotle, poetry may, however, be defined an 
imitative and creative art, whose energies 
are exerted )[)y means of words metrically 
arranged, the end and design of which art 
is to amuse the fancy, and powerfully to 
excite the feelings. 
It is the favourite expression of Aristotle, 
that poetry is a mimetic or imitative art ; 
and in most particulars it may be justly so 
defined. The subjects of the poet’s imita- 
tion are the scenes of nature, and the trans- 
actions of human life. This we shall find 
to be the case, if we particularly examine 
the productions of those to whom the con- 
current voice of ages has given the title of 
poet. AVhen we open the Iliad of Homer, 
we behold a lively representation of the 
actions and speeches of heroes and chiefs. 
The dramas of jEschylns, of Sophocles, of 
Aristophanes, and of their numerous tribes 
of successors, are nothing more than imita- 
tions of human manners. And when the 
lover displays his passion in song, what 
does he but exhibit to view the tablet of 
his heart, where we may trace his feelings, 
and view him agitated by doubt or exulting 
in hope. The chief interest of didactic 
poetry consists in the vivid and picturesque 
descriptions, the imitations or representa- 
tions of nature, which relieve the insipidity 
of unornamented precept. This is mani- 
fest, when it is recollected, that the pleasure 
excited by the Georgic of Virgil is not occa- 
sioned by his agricultural instructions, but 
by his descriptions of the various phenome- 
na which in the course of rural occupations 
arrest the attention of the lover of nature. 
The word poet, in its original import, sig- 
nifies creator. And as names are not un- 
frequently significant of the nature of the 
ideas which they represent, the name itself 
of poetry will direct us to one of its most 
distinguishing characteristics. It is indeed 
one of the noblest qualities of poetry, that 
it opens to the mind a new creation. 
“ The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, 
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from 
earth to heaven ; 
And as imagination bodies fortli 
The form of things unknown, the poet’s 
pen 
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy 
nothing 
A local habitation and a name.” 
The poet enjoys the privilege of ranging 
tlirough the boundless field of possibilities, 
and of selecting his objects according to the 
impulse of his fancy, as controuled and cor- 
rected by the discretion of his judgment. 
Wliat is striking and interesting he may 
make prominent in his picture ; what is of- 
fensive, deformed, or gross, he is at liberty 
to conceal or to soften. In the realities of 
life a thousand circumstances intervene to 
check the enthusiastic interest which our 
hearts are disposed to take in any specific 
occurrence. These circumstances the poet 
has a prescriptive right to exclude from his 
representations. As all ideas of men are 
primitively derived from objects of sense, 
he cannot go beyond the materials which 
the station and the powers of man supply. 
But he can, by an endless combination of 
these materials, produce ideal beings and 
fancied situations, which interest us the 
more the better the powers of fiction to 
which they owe their birth are concealed 
from us. Like the favoured statuary of 
Greece, he is surrounded by naked beauties, 
from each of which he selects its peculiar 
excellency, and produces a whole, which, 
though strictly natural, surpasses the rea- 
lities of nature. 
The mathematician in his investigation of 
truth is confined to the narrow path of rea- 
son. The same may be said of the philoso- 
pher. The slightest deviation into the fields 
of imagination frustrates their pursuit, and 
disappoints their hopes of fame. The histo- 
rian must found his reputation upon a pa- 
tient investigation of facts, and beware of 
giving the loosened rein to his inventive ta- 
lents. The orator, indeed, calls fancy to 
the aid of reason; but she ought to be 
strictly an auxiliary. If his edifice be not 
founded on the solid 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, 
