fresh acquisitions, to future ages. In these pursuits, therefore, the first speculators lie under great disadvantages, and, even when they fail, are entitled to praise. Their pupils, with far inferior intellectual 5 powers, speedily surpass them in actual attainments. Every girl who has read Mrs. Marcet's Little Dialogues on Political Economy,* could teach Montaguet or Walpole many lessons in finance. Any intelligent man may now, by resolutely applying himself for a few 10 years to mathematics, learn more than the great Newton knew after half a century of study and meditation. But it is not thus with music, with painting, or with sculpture. Still less is it thus with poetry. The 15 progress of refinement rarely supplies these arts with better objects of imitation. It may indeed improve the instruments which are necessary to the mechanical operations of the musician, the sculptor, and the painter. But language, the machine of the poet, is * Mrs. Marcet (1769-1858), a writer on educational topics. Besides her conversations on Political Economy, she wrote others on Chemistry, Natural Philosophy, &c. Political Economy is the science of the laws that regulate the distribution of wealth. + Montague, Charles, Earl of Halifax (1661-1715), was Chancellor of the Exchequer in William III.'s reign. He distinguished himself as a financier by establishing the Bank of England. Walpole, Sir Robert (1676-1745), also a Chancellor of the Exchequer, under George I. and George II. His financial ability was displayed in connection with the South Sea Scheme. § Newton, Sir Isaac (1642-1727), famous as Mathematician and Natural Philosopher. He discovered the law of universal gravitation, extended the Higher Mathematics, and made original investigations into the nature of light. best fitted for his purpose in its rudest state. Nations, like individuals, first perceive, and then abstract. They advance from particular images to general terms. Hence the vocabulary of an enlightened society is philosophical, that of a half-civilised people is poetical. 5 This change in the language of men is partly the cause and partly the effect of a corresponding change in the nature of their intellectual operations, a change by which science gains and poetry loses. Generalisation is necessary to the advancement of knowledge, but particularity is indispensable to the creations of the imagination. In proportion as men know more and think more, they look less at individuals and more at classes. They therefore make better theories and worse poems. They give us vague phrases instead of images, and personified qualities instead of men. They may be better able to analyse human nature than their predecessors. But analysis is not the business of the poet. His office is to portray not to dissect. may believe in a moral sense, like Shaftesbury.* He may refer all human actions to self-interest like Helvetius,+ or he may never think about the matter at all. His creed on such subjects will no more influence his poetry, properly so called, than the notions which a He ΙΟ 15 He 20 * Shaftesbury, Earl of (1671-1713), an English Philosopher, the friend of the poet Pope, and author of several philosophical treatises named 'Characteristics'. He assumed a certain internal sense (the Moral Sense) as perceiving both the beautiful and the good. Helvetius (1715-1771), a French philosopher, one of whose leading tenets was that all human conduct is grounded in self-interest. painter may have conceived respecting the lachrymal glands,* or the circulation of the blood, will affect the tears of his Niobe,† or the blushes of his Aurora.§ If Shakespeare had written a book on the motives of 5 human actions, it is by no means certain that it would have been a good one. It is extremely improbable that it would have contained half so much able reasoning on the subject as is to be found in the fable of The Bees. But could Mandeville§ have created Io an Iago?|| Well as he knew how to resolve characters into their elements, would he have been able to combine those elements in such a manner as to make up a man-a real, living, individual man? Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy 15 poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind, if anything which gives so much pleasure ought to be called unsoundness. By poetry we mean, not, of course, all writing in verse, nor even all good writing *Lachrymal Glands, the vessels of the eye that secrete the tears. ↑ Niobe, a character in Greek mythology. She had twelve children, and taunted Latona because she had only two, Apollo and Diana. Latona in revenge caused all Niobe's children to be destroyed. Niobe was inconsolable, wept herself to death and was changed into stone. The name came to be a personification of female sorrow, and the legend was a favourite subject in ancient sculpture. Aurora, the goddess of early morning, called by Homer 'rosy-fingered'. According to the Greek myth, she set out before the sun, and was the pioneer of his rising. § Mandeville, Bernard de (1670-1733), a writer on social subjects, and author of the Fable of the Bees,' a satire enforcing the dictum that civilisation is based on the vices of society. || Iago, a leading character in Shakespeare's 'Othello'-and the type of an artful villain of the blackest dye. in verse. Our definition excludes many metrical compositions which, on other grounds, deserve the highest praise. By poetry we mean, the art of employing words in such a manner as to produce an illusion on the imagination, the art of doing by 5 means of words what the painter does by means of colours. Thus the greatest of poets* has described it, in lines universally admired for the vigour and felicity of their diction, and still more valuable on account of the just notion which they convey of the art in which 10 he excelled :— 'As imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen -Midsummer Night's Dream, Act. V., sc. 1. 15 These are the fruits of the 'fine frenzy' which he ascribes to the poet-a fine frenzy, doubtless, but still a frenzy. Truth, indeed, is essential to poetry; but it is the truth of madness. The reasonings are 20 just; but the premises are false. After the first suppositions have been made, everything ought to be consistent; but those first suppositions require a degree of credulity which almost amounts to a partial and temporary derangement of the intellect. Hence, of all people, children are the most imaginative. They abandon themselves without reserve to every illusion. Every image which is strongly presented to * The greatest of poets, Shakespeare, in 'Midsummer Night's Dream'. 25 their mental eye produces on them the effect of reality. No man, whatever his sensibility may be, is ever affected by Hamlet or Lear,* as a little girl is affected by the story of poor Red Riding-hood. 5 She knows that it is all false, that wolves cannot speak, that there are no wolves in England. Yet, in spite of her knowledge, she believes; she weeps, she trembles; she dares not go into a dark room lest she should feel the teeth of the monster at her throat. 10 Such is the despotism of the imagination over uncultivated minds. In a rude state of society, men are children with a greater variety of ideas. It is therefore in such a state of society that we may expect to find the poetical 15 temperament in its highest perfection. In an enlightened age there will be much intelligence, much science, much philosophy, abundance of just classification and subtle analysis, abundance of wit and eloquence, abundance of verses, and even of good 20 ones—but little poetry. Men will judge and compare ; but they will not create. They will talk about the old poets, and comment on them, and to a certain degree enjoy them. But they will scarcely be able to conceive the effect which poetry produced on their 25 ruder ancestors, the agony, the ecstasy, the plenitude of belief. The Greek rhapsodists,† according to * Hamlet and Lear, two of Shakespeare's great tragedies. + Greek Rhapsodists, were Bards who collected pieces of the 'Iliad' and the 'Odyssey,' enough to make a "ballad," and sang them as our own minstrels sang the deeds of famous heroes. (Greek rhapto to string together, and ode a song). |