POE 
This fun in meaner hands would prove 
An engine of fmall force in love : 
Yet (lie, with graceful air and mien, 
Not to be told or fafely feen, 
Direiffs its wanton motion fo, 
That it wounds more than Cupid’s bow j 
Gives coolnefs to the match-lei's dame, 
To ev’ry other bread a flame. Atterbury. 
Paul fo fond of the name of a poet is grown, 
With gold he buys verfes and calls them his own. 
Go on, matter Paul, nor mind what the world fays. 
They are furely his own for which a man pays. Martial. 
While fafter than his coftive brain indites, 
Philo’s quick hand in flowing letters writes; 
His cafe appears fo me like honed Teagqe’s, 
When he was run away with by his legs. 
Phcebus, give Philo o’er himfelf command; 
Quicken his fenfes, or reftrain his hand : 
Let hyn be kept from paper, pen, and ink; 
So he may ceafe to write, and learn to think. Prior. 
When Phcebus was am’rous and long'd to be rude, 
Niifs Daphne cry’d Ptfh ! and ran fwift to the wood ; 
And, rather than do fuch a naughty affair, 
She became a fine laurel to deck the god’s hair. 
The nymph was, no doubt, of a cold conftitution; 
For fure, to turn tree was an odd refolution. 
Yet in this (he behav’d like a true modern fpoufe, 
For (he fled from his arms to diftinguifli his brows. Smart. 
Hiftorians inform us, that the earlieft words of actions 
or of thoughts were written in verfe. Laws, medical 
precepts, and hiftory, each had this form; and the 
reafon of this is evident. It is well known that, among 
the ignorant of all ages, appeals to reafon and to the 
moral feelings are ufelefs. Senfual defires are always fo 
lirong in uncivilized man, that the firft attempts at go¬ 
vernment mud be made by arraying one paflion Sgainlt 
the other. Thofe who could not be convinced of the 
expediency of law were to be affrighted by its terrors. 
Thofe who would be loft in the indulgence of (loth, mult 
be roufed by vanity and envy ; or, in more agreeable 
words, by the love of glory and emulation. He who 
is deaf to pity, may neverthelefs open his hand to the 
wants of the affiiOled, if praife and adulation tempt him. 
Does it furprife us, then, that the early philofophers were 
compelled to adopt that language in which alone they 
found an audience? They laid hold on the fenfes, and 
thus thew enchained the underftanding. They placed, 
in the firft inftance, a glowing and pafiionate picture 
before the eye; and the axiom it conveyed was received' 
without examination. With the foft influence of found 
during the feaft, they melted the barbarian’s foul into 
undefined emotions of tendernefs, and inftilled the fofter 
and the wifer precepts. The natural love of parents 
forms a ftrong hold on the affe&ions cf all; and the 
early bards availed themfelves of it in a high degree. To 
praife our departed fires, and to recount their traditional 
knowledge, mull have been all the mental employment 
the uncivilized poffeffed. To boaft proudly of a father’s 
valour, and to give in the moll ftriking expreflions his 
opinion when oppofed by another, to exaggerate and 
invent his exploits, feems a natural and not very cenfu- 
rable error. But the fweeteft and molt beautiful idea 
which pofleffes man in the ftate of fociety we fpeak of, 
is the one that departed relations hover over us in hea¬ 
venly forms, and that, as one’s afticns are conformable to 
the tenor of their examples, fo are they pleafed or dif- 
pleafed with us. It is from this exquifite notion that a 
great part of the fublime heathen mythology was derived. 
The remembrance of a fuperiormind remaining long amid 
his defendants, gradually extinguifhed minor errors ; 
and the embellifhments of his hiftorians on the one hand, 
joined to the natural admiration for the ancient on the 
other, (oon exalted him to a god. Thus the inventors 
Vol* XX. No. 1407. 
t r y. 753 
of ufeful arts were firft heroes, then demigods, laftly, gods. 
The union of the belief in fupernatural qualities, and the 
love of Celt diverging into that of clan and country, footi 
afforded fitbjeft for an high ami lofty poetry; and thus 
arofe the Ode, wherein we have traced all other forms of 
compofition. 
We propofe in our fketch of poetry to treat of four 
diftinft fchools. The firft is the ancient fchool of poetry; 
comprifirig the Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. 2. The 
poetry of the continent, extending from the time of the 
troubadours or wandering minftrels, till near the begin¬ 
ning of the French revolution. 3. The poetry of our 
own country. 4. The modern fchool of poetry, embra¬ 
cing alfo fuch. retrofpeffive views of the verfe of other 
nations as w'e have omitted in the preceding divifions. 
In this fketch it is propofed only to touch curforily on 
the belt known and mod commonly admired ; to omit as 
much as poflible every biographical notice not immediately 
called for; not to fearch for obfcure or indifferent au¬ 
thors. The critical analyfes of the more important of 
tiie poets are original; but, as it cannot be expected of 
us to have read the whole, fomeare fecond-hand, though, 
from the curfory reading we have made of their fubje&s, 
in our opinion corredt. 
I. Of Ancient Poetry. 
The Hebrew poetry is the moll ancient (of any im¬ 
portance) that we know of; and it is as good as it is old. 
We obferve in the Bible, poetry applied to its higheft and 
moft natural ufes; to the cultivation of the moral feel¬ 
ings, the worfiiip of God, and the defcription of his 
works. Together with thefe topics, the Bible contains 
large and interefting portions of the hiftory of the times, 
and ftatutes of law. The extraordinary fublimity of 
many pnffages in this book is fo great as to throw all the 
higheft flights of Homer or Virgil into the (hade; and 
this very circumftance feems to prove, that the thoughts 
contained in the Bible were impreffed on the mind of their 
writers diredtly by God ; or, in other words, that they 
are the refult of infpiration ; for how elfe would it be 
poflible for the Jews, an ignorant and fenfual race, to 
have outftripped in every moral and religious maxim, 
the Greeks, who had made advances in knowledge only 
juft now reached by ourfelves ? We have affumed that 
the Scriptures are poetry, though they are not commonly 
read in that form. But all writers agree that fuch is the 
original ftrudture of the chief part o' thefe works ; and a 
rhythm is eafily obfervable, even in the Englifh tranfla- 
tions. On the ftrudhire of Hebrew verfe we can advance 
nothing fatisfaffcry ; we (hall therefore forbear to trouble 
our readers with the obfcurities of the learned. It is 
enough for us to enjoy the beauty of the matter, without 
troubling ourfelves with the manner it is conveyed to us 
in. The Scriptures are a perpetual feaft for the poetical 
foul. How grand and majeftic are the prayers and thanks¬ 
givings of thele works ! how concife in narration, how 
magnificently defcriptive, is Job’s account of the horfe 
and the leviathan ! how exquilitely dramatic, as in the 
epifodes of Jofeph and his brethren, and Naomi and 
Ruth, Artaxerxes andEfther! But we need not point 
out their beauties. The Scriptures are fo well ftudied in 
this country, that their excellencies are well known. 
Perhaps, however, if children were not dunned with 
them at fchool before they can underltand them, this 
knowledge would be (fill more extenflvely diffuled. 
Homer. —It feems a fair guefs, after all contradiffory 
teftimonies have been confldered, to fay, that Homer, 
accuftomed to recite popular odes to the Greeks, collected, 
in a highly-civilized ftate of fociety, the thoughts of the 
ancient minftrels; re-caft them into his own numbers; 
feized a fubjedt that ferved to commit or (ling them to¬ 
gether ; and, endued with a great degree of learning and 
an extraordinary imagination, compofed and wrote en¬ 
tirely the Iliad as it now (lands. This Cuppofition ariies 
more from the work itfelf than from any biography ; for 
9 F every 
