I would not do sweet woman wrong There be hearts that love the poet's song, Yet love the poet more; But careless of his lowly lot, How many myriads heed him not Save when he sings. Then do not, dearest lady, deem That poet-spirits find In the passionate thought and glorious dream PRINTED BY J. FLETCHER, UPPER HAYMARKET, NORWICH. WHATEVER share of time and talent may have been expended on criticising the merits of particular works of the imagination, we are not aware that any successful attempt has ever been made to explain the nature of poetry, or to show by what general characteristics it is distinguished from prose. One has canvassed the structure of a story,—another the probability of its incidents,a third has been engaged on the purity of its diction, or the propriety of its metaphors, while a comparatively small number only have approached the grand question as to what poetry is, and whence it derives its immortal power over the mind of man. We are not vain enough to imagine that we can accomplish that which few have attempted, and none succeeded in; but we have thought that such an inquiry into the nature and design of poetry as our limits will admit, would form a not inapt sequel to a late paper on the character and properties of that Genius which creates it. In so It has been usual to rank poetry among the fine arts. far as this view is correct, it must, we apprehend, unquestionably be considered the first of them; because it combines the excellencies of all with many which are peculiar to itself. It has the vivid beauty of painting, the sublime simplicity of sculpture, and the rich and thrilling tenderness of music, while it outlasts them all. The "Venus" of Apelles is no more-the music of Timotheus has vanished with the breath which inspired it; but time has served only to sanctify and render holy the sublime invention of Homer; and the shadowy and terrible creations of Milton will endure so long as man has a taste to appreciate them. Poetry may not attain its end so well as sculpture or painting; but it is because that end is higher. It deals with more varied and remote objects, and has to do with abstract ideas and questions of intellect, which none of the other arts could touch. Indeed it may be said, without any violation of truth, that the highest work of the other arts has been to embody and give expression to those ideas which the imagination of the poet had already conceived. Painting and sculpture are essentially imitative arts; while poetry is so only by accident. This, then, we conceive, forms the grand distinguishing feature of poetry that it is always something different from the literal prosaic fact, such as we see it with the eye of reason. True poetry is never an exact delineation of things as they are. The materials of poetry are to be found in the world around us; but not poetry itself: if it were,-if it spread over the face of the breathing earth, like sun-light or the balmy air,—we should have nothing to do but to copy it as nearly as we could; and it would then be imitation, description-not creation. Prose is the presentment of ideas in their single and simple form, for the purposes of reasoning or persuasion; it is the organ of the understanding, and deals in realities and deductions; it tends by regular gradations to a given object, and, in proportion as it fails of effecting that object, it is imperfect. Poetry, on the other hand, is essentially complicated; it is produced by various powers common to most persons, but more especially by those which are peculiar to the gifted few. Prose takes things one by one, bestows upon them each a cool and calculating survey, and selects such as may be best adapted to its ends. Poetry comprehends all at a glance, and a multitude of bold and breathing images are flung out of its burning grasp, as it were "molten" and massed together. One is the child of Reason—the other the offspring of the Imagination. This last is indeed the crowning spirit of all poetry. It is the first moving or creating principle of the mind. It is the genius of personification. It concentrates the many into the one, colouring and investing its own complex creation with the attributes of all. It changes the literal fact, and enriches as it changes. It is now bright and rapid as the lightning-now awful as collected thunder. It fills creation with all that is wild, and unearthly, and terrible. It is the origin of Shakspeare's passionate and Milton's sublime creations. It is an intense and burning power-a concentration of the intellect, collecting all its scattered energies, and issuing on one mighty flood of thought. An element scarcely less essential to poetry is the Fancy. This differs from the imagination, inasmuch as it effects by deliberate comparison that which the other does by a single glance. Like the imperial ice-palace, "it shines, but it is cold." It is the machinery of poetry, without its fervour and passion. While the imagination alters and remodels the original thought, the fancy invests it with a thousand lively comparisons and beautiful images, which are yet extraneous and, in great measure, foreign to the first idea itself. Like the ivy clinging to the oak, it surrounds it with things which ornament without changing it. The effects then produced by the operation of these two, we should define to be genuine poetry. Every one who has considered the subject will allow that it is often impossible to justify the finest things in poetry, on the grounds of ordinary logic: yet their effect upon the mind is not diminished. The question then arises—are such the fitting rules by which to judge of the merits of poetry? We think not. Thus we feel the resistless force of Milton's fine paradox, when he speaks of "darkness visible," though utterly unable to explain it. And when he personifies the "name of Demogorgon,' we see the form moving before us in dim and shadowy grandeur, and wonder at the mighty spell by which it has been conjured into being; though, to test such a personification by ordinary rule, we should be at a loss to discover its propriety. We are far from here claiming for poetry a "divine right" of exemption from all rule or law. It is subject to reason-not, indeed, as prose is subject, throughout all its images, but independently of its imagery and elevation of sentiment. It must not then be tried by a standard to which it does not profess to assimilate itself; and little deference need be paid to the army of "hired scribblers," who, with minds incapable of rising to the elevation of poetry, aspire to be judges of its merits, and find fault with all which does not come within the compass of their own prosaic understandings. The question has been asked-What objects have a right to be considered poetical? We have already remarked, that the poetic faculty does not consist in describing what is splendid already, as the most accurate copyist would then be the best poet; nor in selecting the most beautiful, as that is the province of taste. Nevertheless certain objects, inasmuch as they approach that standard to which it is the aim of the poet to raise the faculties and feelings of the soul, may be considered most poetical or nearest allied to poetry. Under this view, the ruin that has braved the tempests of a thousand winters-the bright rivers and blue oceans-the sun-crowned mountains and shadowy foreststhe stars, "bright defiers of rest and change," and the storm that seems to mingle earth and sky in wild and terrible tumultmemory and hope, the morning and evening stars of life-revenge and ambition, that sting the soul to madness—or beauty and love, that lull it to repose, like a golden calm poured over the stormy sea; whatever, in short, elevates the spirit, wakes all its passions, and causes it to give them vent in a tempest of "winged words," has a claim to be considered poetical. The object of poetry, indeed, is to exalt and aggrandise: it never stoops to the contemplation of mean objects, except to expose them to scorn and contempt; its standards are above mortality, not below it. Those objects, then, whatever they be, which approach nearest to the conceptions of the poet, have surely a fair title to be considered most poetical. We have styled poetry a creation. The idea then of a character or place, may be poetically conceived, as well as the expression. Thus all the fabled wonders of ancient mythologythe wild fictions of Arabian enchantments-the giants and dwarfs, fairies, knights, and queens, starting from silent glades and haunted depths in "magic Spenser's wildly warbling lay". Shakspeare's Ariel, alternately raising and quelling the stormMilton's Satan urged on by burning ambition to war with the Almighty, a personification of all that is gloomy and grand in heaven or earth-must all have been poetical, in whatever language the conceptions had been clothed. If we except Homer-who, whether we consider the warmth. and sublimity of his sentiments, the fulness and strength of his description, the vast power of his invention, or the daring eleva→ tion of his expression, must assuredly rank as the first and greatest of all poets-none, we think, have established so mighty a sway over this noble art, as our own Shakspeare and Milton. In regard to them, we scarcely know whether to prefer their sub |