AMIDST those thick clouds which envelope the first ages of the world, reason and history throw some lights on the origin and primitive employment of this divine art. Reason suggests, that before the invention of letters, all the people of the earth had no other method of transmitting to their descendants the principles of their worship, their religious ceremonies, their laws, and the renowned actions of their sages and heroes, than by poetry; which included all these objects in a kind of hymns that fathers sung to their children, in order to engrave them with indelible strokes in their hearts. History not only informs us, that Moses and Miriam, the first authors that are known to mankind, sung, on the borders of the Red sea, a song of divine praise, to celebrate the deliverance which the Almighty had vouchsafed to the people of Israel, by opening a passage to them through the waters; but it has also transmitted to us the song itself, which is at once the most ancient monument and a masterpiece of poetic composition.

The Greeks, a people the most ingenious, the most animated, and in every sense the most accomplished, that the world ever produced—strove to ravish from the Hebrews the precious gift of poetry, which was vouchsafed them by the Supreme Author of all nature, that they might ascribe it to their false deities. According to their ingenious fictions, Apollo became the god of poetry, and dwelt on the hills of Phocis, Parnassus and Helicon, whose feet were washed by the waters of Hippocrene, of which each mortal that ever drank was seized with a sacred delirium. The immortal swans floated on its waves. Apollo was accompanied by the Muses—those nine learned sisters—the daughters of Memory: and he was constantly attended by the Graces. Pegasus, his winged courser, transported him with a rapid flight into all the regions of the universe. Happy emblems! by which we at this day embellish our poetry, as no one has ever yet been able to invent more brilliant images.

The literary annals of all nations afford vestiges of poetry from the remotest ages. They are found among the most savage of the ancient barbarians, and the most desolate of all the Americans. Nature asserts her rights in every country and every age. Tacitus mentions the verses and the hymns of the Germans, at the time when that rough people yet inhabited the woods, and while their manners were still savage. The first inhabitants of Numidia and the other northern countries, those of Gaul, Albion, Iberia, Ausonia, and other nations of Europe, had their poetry, as well as the ancient people of Asia, and of the known borders of Africa. But the simple productions of nature have constantly something unformed, rough, and savage. The Divine Wisdom appears to have placed the ingenious and polished part of mankind on the earth, in order to refine that which comes from her bosom rude and imperfect: and thus art has polished poetry, which issued quite naked and savage from the brains of the first of mankind.

But what is Poetry? It would be to abridge the definition limits of the poetic empire, to contract the sphere of poetry. This divine art, should we say, in imitation of all the dictionaries and other treatises on versification, That poetry is the art of making verses, of lines or periods that are in rhyme or metre. This is rather a grammatical explanation of the word, than a real definition of the thing; and it would be to degrade poetry thus to define it. The father of criticism has denominated poetry μυθική, an imitative art: but this, though just in itself, is too general for a definition, as it does not discriminate poetry from other arts which depend equally on imitation. The justest definition seems to be that given by Baron Bielfeld *, That poetry is the * Elem. of art of expressing our thoughts by fiction. In fact, it is Univ.Erud. after this manner (if we reflect with attention) that all the metaphors and allegories, all the various kinds of fiction, form the first materials of a poetic edifice: it is thus that all images, all comparisons, allusions, and figures, especially those which personify moral subjects, as virtues and vices, concur to the decoration of such a structure. structure. A work, therefore, that is filled with invention, that incessantly presents images which render the reader attentive and affected, where the author gives interesting sentiments to everything that he makes speak, and where he makes speak by sensible figures all those objects which would affect the mind but weakly when clothed in a simple prosaic style, such a work is a poem. While that, though it be in verse, which is of a didactic, dogmatic, or moral nature, and where the objects are presented in a manner quite simple, without fiction, without images or ornaments, cannot be called poetry, but merely a work in verse; for the art of reducing thoughts, maxims, and periods, into rhyme or metre, is very different from the art of poetry.

An ingenious fable, a lively and interesting romance, a comedy, the sublime narrative of the actions of a hero, such as the Telemachus of M. Fenelon, though written in prose, but in measured prose, is therefore a work of poetry: because the foundation and the superstructure are the productions of genius, as the whole proceeds from fiction; and truth itself appears to have employed an innocent and agreeable deception to instruct with efficacy. This is so true, that the pencil also, in order to please and affect, has recourse to fiction; and this part of painting is called the poetic composition of a picture. It is therefore by the aid of fiction that poetry, so to speak, paints its expressions, that it gives a body and a mind to its thoughts, that it animates and exalts that which would otherwise have remained arid and insensible. It is the peculiar privilege of poetry to exalt inanimate things into animals, and abstract ideas into persons. The former licence is so common, that it is now considered as nothing more than a characteristic dialect appropriated by the poets to distinguish themselves from the writers of prose; and is at the same time so essential, that we question much if this species of composition could subsist without it: for it will perhaps, upon examination, be found, that in every poetical description some of the qualities of Animal Nature are ascribed to things not having life. Every work, therefore, where the thoughts are expressed by fictions or images, is poetical; and every work where they are expressed naturally, simply, and without ornament, although it be in verse, is prosaic.

Verse, however, is not to be regarded as foreign or superfluous to poetry. To reduce those images, those fictions, into verse, is one of the greatest difficulties in poetry, and one of the greatest merits in a poem: and for these reasons, the cadence, the harmony of sounds, particularly that of rhyme, delight the ear to a high degree, and the mind insensibly repeats them while the eye reads them. There results therefore a pleasure to the mind, and a strong attachment to these ornaments; but this pleasure would be frivolous, and even childish, if it were not attended by a real utility. Verses were invented in the first ages of the world, merely to aid thought and to strengthen the memory; for cadence, harmony, and especially rhyme, afford the greatest assistance to the memory that art can invent; and the images, or excellencies, poetic fictions, that strike our senses, assist in graving them with such deep traces in our minds, as even time itself frequently cannot efface. How many excellent apophthegms, sentences, maxims, and precepts, would have been buried in the abyss of oblivion, if poetry had not preserved them by its harmony? To give more efficacy to this lively impression, the first poets sung their verses, and the words and phrases must necessarily have been reduced, at least to cadence, or they could not have been susceptible of musical expression. One of the great excellencies, therefore, though not a necessary constituent of poetry, consists in its being expressed in verse. See Part III.

PART I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE ART.

I. Of the Essence and End of Poetry.

The essence of Polite Arts in general, and consequently of poetry in particular, consists in expression; and we think that, to be poetical, the expression must necessarily arise from fiction, or invention. (See the article ART, particularly from No. 12. to the end.) This invention, which is the fruit of happy genius alone, arises,

1. From the subject itself of which we undertake to treat; 2. From the manner in which we treat that subject, or the species of writing of which we make use; 3. From the plan that we propose to follow in conformity to this manner; and, 4. From the method of executing this plan in its full detail. Our first guides, the ancients, afford us no lights that can elucidate all these objects in general. The precepts which Aristotle lays down, relate to epic and dramatic poetry only: and which, by the way, confirms our idea, that antiquity itself made the essence of poetry to consist in fiction, and not in that species of verse which is destitute of it, or in that which is not capable of it. But since this art has risen to a great degree of perfection; and as poetry, like electricity, communicates its fire to every thing it

touches, and animates and embellishes whatever it treats; there seems to be no subject in the universe to which poetry cannot be applied, and which it cannot render equally brilliant and pleasing. From this universality of poetry, from its peculiar property of expression by fiction, which is applicable to all subjects, have arisen its different species, of which a particular description will be given in the second part.

Horace, in a well-known verse, has been supposed to declare the end of poetry to be twofold, to please, or to instruct:

Aut prodesset volunt, aut delectaret poetae.

But Dr Beattie * maintains, that the ultimate end of this art is to please; instruction being only one of the poetry means (and not always a necessary one) by which that * Essays on ultimate end is to be accomplished. The passage rightly understood, he observes, will not appear to contain any Part i. thing inconsistent with this doctrine. The author is chap i. there stating a comparison between the Greek and Roman writers, with a view to the poetry of the stage; and, after commending the former for their correctness, and for the liberal spirit wherewith they conducted their literary labours, and blaming his countrymen for their inaccuracy. inaccuracy and avarice, he proceeds thus: "The ends proposed by our dramatic poets (or by poets in general) are, to please, to instruct, or to do both. When instruction is your aim, let your moral sentences be expressed with brevity, that they may be readily understood, and long remembered; where you mean to please, let your fictions be conformable to truth or probability. The elder part of your audience (or readers) have no relish for poems that give pleasure only without instruction; nor the younger for such writings as give instruction without pleasure. He only can secure the universal suffrage in his favour, who blends the useful with the agreeable, and delights at the same time that he instructs the reader. Such are the works that bring money to the bookseller, that pass into foreign countries, and perpetuate the author's name through a long succession of ages."—Now, what is the meaning of all this? What, but that to the perfection of dramatic poetry (or, if you please, of poetry in general) both sound morals and beautiful fiction are requisite? But Horace never meant to say, that instruction, as well as pleasure, is necessary to give to any composition the poetical character; or he would not in another place have celebrated with so much affection and rapture the melting strains of Sappho, and the playful genius of Anacreon,—two authors transcendently sweet, but not remarkable instructive. We are sure, that pathos, and harmony, and elevated language, were, in Horace's opinion, essential to poetry; and of these decorations nobody will affirm that instruction is the end, who considers that the most instructive books in the world are written in plain prose.

In short, our author has endeavoured by many ingenious arguments and illustrations to establish it as a truth in criticism, that the end of poetry is to please. Verses, if pleasing, may be poetical, though they convey little or no instruction; but verses, whose sole merit it is that they convey instruction, are not poetical. Instruction, however, he admits, especially in poems of length, is necessary to their perfection, because they would not be perfectly agreeable without it.

Sect. II. Of the Standard of Poetical Invention.

Homer's beautiful description of the heavens and earth, as they appear in a calm evening by the light of the moon and stars, concludes with this circumstance, "And the heart of the shepherd is glad." Madame Dacier, from the turn she gives to the passage in her version, seems to think, and Pope, in order perhaps to make out his couplet, insinuates, that the gladness of the shepherd is owing to his sense of the utility of those luminaries. And this may in part be the case: but this is not in Homer; nor is it a necessary consideration. It is true, that, in contemplating the material universe, they who discern the causes and effects of things must be more rapturously entertained than those who perceive nothing but shape and size, colour and motion. Yet, in the mere outside of Nature's work, there is a splendour and a magnificence to which even untutored minds cannot attend without great delight.

Not that all peasants or all philosophers are equally susceptible of these charming impressions. It is strange to observe the callousness of some men, before whom all the glories of heaven and earth pass in daily succession, without touching their hearts, elevating their fancy, or leaving any durable remembrance. Even of those who pretend to sensibility, how many are there to whom the lustre of the rising or setting sun; the sparkling concave of the midnight sky; the mountain-forest tossing and roaring to the storm, or warbling with all the melodies of a summer evening; the sweet interchange of hill and dale, shade and sunshine, grove, lawn, and water, which an extensive landscape offers to the view; the scenery of the ocean, so lovely, so majestic, and so tremendous; and the many pleasing varieties of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, could never afford so much real satisfaction, as the steams and noise of a ball-room, the insipid fiddling and squeaking of an opera, or the vexations and wranglings of a card-table!

But some minds there are of a different make; who, even in the early part of life, receive from the contemplation of Nature a species of delight which they would hardly exchange for any other, and who, as avarice and ambition are not the infirmities of that period, would, with equal sincerity and rapture, exclaim,

I care not, Fortune, what you me deny; You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace; You cannot shut the windows of the sky, Through which Aurora shows her bright'ning face; You cannot bar my constant feet to trace The woods and lawns by living stream at eve.

Castle of Indolence.

Such minds have always in them the seeds of true taste, and frequently of imitative genius. At least, though their enthusiastic or visionary turn of mind (as the man of the world would call it) should not always incline them to practise poetry or painting, we need not scruple to affirm, that without some portion of this enthusiasm no person ever became a true poet or painter. For he who would imitate the works of nature, must first accurately observe them; and accurate observation is to be expected from those only who take great pleasure in it.

To a mind thus disposed no part of creation is indifferent. In the crowded city and howling wilderness; in the cultivated province and solitary isle; in the flowery lawn and craggy mountain; in the murmur of the rivulet and in the uproar of the ocean; in the radiance of summer and gloom of winter; in the thunder of heaven and in the whisper of the breeze; he still finds something to rouse or to soothe his imagination, to draw forth his affections, or to employ his understanding. And from every mental energy that is not attended with pain, and even from some of those that are, as moderate terror and pity, a sound mind derives satisfaction; exercise being equally necessary to the body and the soul, and to both equally productive of health and pleasure.

This happy sensibility to the beauties of nature should be cherished in young persons. It engages them to contemplate the Creator in his wonderful works; it purifies and harmonizes the soul, and prepares it for moral and intellectual discipline; it supplies an endless source of amusement; it contributes even to bodily health; and, as a strict analogy subsists between material and moral beauty, it leads the heart by an easy transition from the one to the other; and thus recommends virtue for its transcendant loveliness, and makes vice appear the object of contempt and abomination. An intimate acquaintance with the best descriptive poets, Spenser, Milton, and Thomson, but above all with the divine Georgic, joined to some practice in the art of drawing, will promote this amiable sensibility in early years; for then the face of nature has novelty superadded to its other charms, the passions are not pre-engaged, the heart is free from care, and the imagination warm and romantic.

But not to insist longer on those ardent emotions that are peculiar to the enthusiastic disciple of nature, may it not be affirmed of all men, without exception, or at least of all the enlightened part of mankind, that they are gratified by the contemplation of things natural, as opposed to unnatural? Monstrous sights please but for a moment, if they please at all; for they derive their charm from the beholder's amazement, which is quickly over. We read indeed of a man of rank in Sicily * who chooses to adorn his villa with pictures and statues of most unnatural deformity: but it is a singular instance; and one would not be much more surprised to hear of a person living without food, or growing fat by the use of poison. To say of any thing, that it is contrary to nature, denotes censure and disgust on the part of the speaker; as the epithet natural intimates an agreeable quality, and seems for the most part to imply that a thing is as it ought to be, suitable to our own taste, and congenial with our own constitution. Think with what sentiments we should peruse a poem, in which nature was totally misrepresented, and principles of thought and of operation supposed to take place, repugnant to every thing we had seen or heard of—in which, for example, avarice and coldness were ascribed to youth, and prodigality and passionate attachment to the old; in which men were made to act at random, sometimes according to character, and sometimes contrary to it; in which cruelty and envy were productive of love, and beneficence and kind affection of hatred; in which beauty was invariably the object of dislike, and ugliness of desire; in which society was rendered happy by atheism and the promiscuous perpetration of crimes, and justice and fortitude were held in universal contempt. Or think, how we should relish a painting, where no regard was had to the proportions, colours, or any of the physical laws, of Nature:—where the ears and eyes of animals were placed in their shoulders; where the sky was green and the grass crimson; where trees grew with their branches in the earth and their roots in the air; where men were seen fighting after their heads were cut off, ships sailing on the land, lions entangled in cobwebs, sheep preying on dead carcases, fishes sporting in the woods, and elephants walking on the sea. Could such figures and combinations give pleasure, or merit the appellation of sublime or beautiful? Should we hesitate to pronounce their author mad? And are the absurdities of madmen proper subjects either of amusement or of imitation to reasonable beings?

Let it be remarked, too, that though we distinguish our internal powers by different names, because otherwise we could not speak of them so as to be understood, they are all but so many energies of the same individual mind; and therefore it is not to be supposed, that what contradicts any one leading faculty should yield permanent delight to the rest. That cannot be agreeable to reason, which conscience disapproves; nor can that gratify imagination, which is repugnant to reason.—Besides, belief and acquiescence of mind are pleasant, as invention. Distrust and disbelief are painful: and therefore, that only can give solid and general satisfaction, which has something of plausibility in it; something which we conceive it possible for a rational being to believe. But no rational being can acquiesce in what is obviously contrary to nature, or implies palpable absurdity.

Poetry, therefore, and indeed every art whose end is to please, must be natural; and if so, must exhibit real matter of fact, or something like it; that is, in other words, must be either according to truth or according to verisimilitude.

And though every part of the material universe abounds in objects of pleasurable contemplation, yet nothing in nature so powerfully touches our hearts, or gives so great variety of exercise to our moral and intellectual faculties, as man. Human affairs and human feelings are universally interesting. There are many who have no great relish for the poetry that delineates only irrational or inanimate beings; but to that which exhibits the fortunes, the characters, and the conduct of men, there is hardly any person who does not listen with sympathy and delight. And hence to imitate human action, is considered by Aristotle as essential to this art; and must be allowed to be essential to the most pleasing and most instructive part of it, Epic and Dramatic composition. Mere descriptions, however beautiful, and moral reflections, however just, become tiresome, where our passions are not occasionally awakened by some event that concerns our fellow men. Do not all readers of taste receive peculiar pleasure from those little tales or episodes with which Thomson's descriptive poem on the Seasons is here and there enlivened? and are they not sensible, that the thunder-storm would not have been half so interesting without the tale of the two lovers (Summer, v. 1171); nor the harvest-scene, without that of Palemon and Lavinia (Autumn, v. 177): nor the driving snows, without that exquisite picture of a man perishing among them (Winter, v. 276)? It is much to be regretted, that Young did not employ the same artifice to animate his Night-Thoughts. Sentiments and descriptions may be regarded as the pilasters, carvings, gildings, and other decorations of the poetical fabric: but human actions are the columns and the rafters that give it stability and elevation. Or, changing the metaphor, we may consider these as the soul which informs the lovely frame; while those are little more than the ornaments of the body.

Whether the pleasure we take in things natural, and our dislike to what is the reverse, be the effect of habit or of constitution, is not a material inquiry. There is nothing absurd in supposing, that between the soul, in its first formation, and the rest of nature, a mutual harmony and sympathy may have been established, which experience may indeed confirm, but no perverse habits could entirely subdue. As no sort of education could make man believe the contrary of a self-evident axiom, great influence or reconcile him to a life of perfect solitude; so we should imagine, that our love of nature and regularity over sentiment might still remain with us in some degree, though we had been born and bred in the Sicilian villa above mentioned, and never heard any thing applauded but what deserved censure, nor censured but what merited applause. Yet poetry, habit must be allowed to have a powerful influence over the Of the sentiments and feelings of mankind; for objects to invention, which we have been long accustomed, we are apt to contract a fondness; we conceive them readily, and contemplate them with pleasure; nor do we quit our old tracts of speculation or practice without reluctance and pain. Hence in part arises our attachment to our own professions, our old acquaintance, our native soil, our homes, and to the very hills, streams, and rocks in our neighbourhood. It would therefore be strange, if man, accustomed as he is from his earliest days to the regularity of nature, did not contract a liking to her productions and principles of operation.

Yet we neither expect nor desire, that every human invention, where the end is only to please, should be an exact transcript of real existence. It is enough, that the mind acquiesce in it as probable or plausible, or such as we think might happen without any direct opposition to the laws of nature:—Or, to speak more accurately, it is enough that it be consistent, either, first, with general experience; or, secondly, with popular opinion; or thirdly, that it be consistent with itself, and connected with probable circumstances.

First: If a human invention be consistent with general experience, we acquiesce in it as sufficiently probable. Particular experiences, however, there may be, so uncommon, and so little expected, that we should not admit their probability, if we did not know them to be true. No man of sense believes, that he has any likelihood of being enriched by the discovery of hidden treasure; or thinks it probable, on purchasing a lottery-ticket, that he shall gain the first prize; and yet great wealth has actually been acquired by such good fortune. But we should look upon these as poor expedients in a play or romance for bringing about a happy catastrophe. We expect that fiction should be more consonant to the general tenor of human affairs; in a word, that not possibility, but probability, should be the standard of poetical invention.

Secondly: Fiction is admitted as conformable to this standard, when it accords with received opinions. These may be erroneous, but are not often apparently repugnant to nature. On this account, and because they are familiar to us from our infancy, the mind readily acquiesces in them, or at least yields them that degree of credit which is necessary to render them pleasing; hence the fairies, ghosts, and witches of Shakespeare, are admitted as probable beings; and angels obtain a place in religious pictures, though we know that they do not now appear in the scenery of real life. A poet who should at this day make the whole action of his tragedy depend upon enchantment, and produce the chief events by the assistance of supernatural agents, would indeed be censured as transgressing the bounds of probability, be banished from the theatre to the nursery, and condemned to write fairy tales instead of tragedies. But Shakespeare was in no danger of such censures: In his days the doctrine of witchcraft was established both by law and by the fashion; and it was not only unpoltite, but criminal, to doubt it. Now indeed it is admitted only by the vulgar; but it does not therefore follow that an old poem built upon it should not be acceptable to the learned themselves. When a popular opinion has long been exploded, and has become repugnant to philosophical belief, the fictions built upon it are still admitted as natural, both because we all remember to have listened to them in childhood with some degree of credit, and because we know that they were accounted natural by the people to whom they were first addressed; whose sentiments and views of things we are willing to adopt, when, by the power of pleasing description, we are introduced into their scenes, and made acquainted with their manners. Hence we admit the theology of the ancient poets, their Elysium and Tartarus, Scylla and Charybdis, Cyclops and Circe, and the rest of those "beautiful wonders" (as Horace calls them) which were believed in the heroic ages; as well as the demons and enchantments of Tasso, which may be supposed to have obtained no small degree of credit among the Italians of the 16th century, and are suitable enough to the notions that prevailed universally in Europe not long before (A). In fact, when poetry is in other respects true, when it gives an accurate display of those parts of nature about which we know that men in all ages must have entertained the same opinion, namely, those appearances in the visible creation, and those feelings and workings of the human mind, which are obvious to all mankind;—when poetry is thus far according to nature, we are very willing to be indulgent to what is fictitious in it, and to grant a temporary allowance to any system of fable which the author pleases to adopt; provided that he lay the scene in a distant country, or fix the date to a remote period. This is no unreasonable piece of complaisance; we owe it both to the poet and to ourselves; for without it we should neither form a right estimate of his genius, nor receive from his works that pleasure which they were intended to impart. Let him, however, take care, that his system of fable be such as his countrymen and contemporaries (to whom his work is immediately addressed) might be supposed capable of yielding their assent to; for otherwise we should not believe him to be in earnest; and let him connect it as much as he can with probable circumstances, and make it appear in a series of events consistent with itself.

For (thirdly) if this be the case, we shall admit his story as probable, or at least as natural, and consequently be interested in it, even though it be not warranted by general experience, and derive but slender authority from popular opinion. Caliban, in the Tempest, would have shocked the mind as an improbability, if we had not been made acquainted with his origin, and seen his character displayed in a series of consistent behaviour. But when we are told that he sprung from a witch and a demon, a connection not contrary to the laws of nature, as they were understood in Shakespeare's time, and find his manners conformable to his descent, we are easily reconciled to the fiction. In the same sense, the Lilliputians

(A) In the 14th century, the common people of Italy believed that the poet Dante went down to hell; that the Inferno was a true account of what he saw there; and that his sallow complexion, and stunted beard (which seemed by its growth and colour to have been too near the fire), were the consequence of his passing so much of his time in that hot and smoky region. See Vicende della Letteratura del Sig. C. Denina, cap. 4. of Swift may pass for probable beings; not so much because we know that a belief in pigmies was once current in the world (for the true ancient pigmy was at least thrice as tall as those whom Gulliver visited), but because we find that every circumstance relating to them accords with itself; and with their supposed character. It is not the size of the people only that is diminutive; their country, seas, ships, and towns, are all in exact proportion; their theological and political principles, their passions, manners, customs, and all the parts of their conduct, betray a levity and littleness perfectly suitable: and so simple is the whole narration, and apparently so artless and sincere, that we should not much wonder if it had imposed (as we have been told it has) upon some persons of no contemptible understanding. The same degree of credit may perhaps for the same reasons be due to his giants. But when he grounds his narrative upon a contradiction to nature; when he presents us with rational brutes, and irrational men; when he tells us of horses building houses for habitation, milking cows for food, riding in carriages, and holding conversations on the laws and politics of Europe: not all his genius (and he there exerts it to the utmost) is able to reconcile us to so monstrous a fiction: we may smile at some of his absurd exaggerations; we may be pleased with the energy of style, and accuracy of description, in particular places; and a malevolent heart may triumph in the satire; but we can never relish it as a fable, because it is at once unnatural and self-contradictory. Swift's judgment seems to have forsaken him on this occasion: he wallows in nastiness and brutality: and the general run of his satire is downright defamation. Laelian's True History, is a heap of extravagancies put together without order or unity, or any other apparent design than to ridicule the language and manner of grave authors. His ravings, which have no better right to the name of fable, than a hill of rubbish has to that of palace, are destitute of every colour of plausibility. Animal trees, ships sailing in the sky, armies of monstrous things travelling between the sun and moon on a pavement of cobwebs, rival nations of men inhabiting woods and mountains in a whale's belly,—are like the dreams of a bedlamite than the inventions of a rational being.

If we were to prosecute this subject any farther, it would be proper to remark, that in some kinds of poetical invention a stricter probability is required than in others:—that, for instance, Comedy, whether dramatic or narrative (b), must seldom deviate from the ordinary course of human affairs, because it exhibits the manners of real and even of familiar life:—that the tragic poet, because he imitates characters more exalted, and generally refers to events little known, or long since past, may be allowed a wider range; but must never attempt the marvellous fictions of the epic muse, because he addresses his work, not only to the passions and imagination of mankind, but also to their eyes and ears, which are not easily imposed on, and refuse to be gratified with any representation that does not come very near the truth:—that the epic poem may claim still ampler privileges, because its fictions are not subject to the scrutiny of any outward sense, and because it conveys information in regard both to the highest human characters, and the most important and wonderful events, and also to the affairs of unseen worlds and superior beings. Nor would it be improper to observe, that the several species of comic, of tragic, of epic composition, are not confined to the same degree of probability: for that farce may be allowed to be less probable than the regular comedy; the masque than the regular tragedy; and the mixed epic, such as the Fairy Queen, and Orlando Furioso, than the pure epopee of Homer, Virgil, and Milton. But this part of the subject seems not to require further illustration. Enough has been said to show, that nothing unnatural can please; and that therefore poetry, whose end is to please, must be according to nature.

And if so, it must be either according to real nature, or according to nature somewhat different from the reality.

Sect. III. Of the System of Nature exhibited by Poetry.

To exhibit real nature is the business of the historian; who, if he were strictly to confine himself to his own sphere, would never record even the minutest circumstance of any speech, event, or description, which was not warranted by sufficient authority. It has been the historians' language of critics in every age, that the historian ought embellish to relate nothing as true which is false or dubious, and their works to conceal nothing material which he knows to be true, and make But it is to be doubted whether any writer of profane them history has ever been so scrupulous. Thucydides himself, who began his history when that war began which he records, and who set down every event soon after it happened, according to the most authentic information, seems, however, to have indulged his fancy not a little in his harangues and descriptions, particularly that of the plague of Athens: and the same thing has been practised, with greater latitude, by Livy and Tacitus, and more or less by all the best historians both ancient and modern. Nor are they to be blamed for it. By these improved or invented speeches, and by the heightenings thus given to their descriptions, their work becomes more interesting, and more useful; nobody is deceived, and historical truth is not materially affected. A medium is, however, to be observed in this, as in other things. When the historian lengthens a description into a detail of fictitious events, as Voltaire has done in his account of the battle of Fontenoy, he loses his credit with us, by raising a suspicion that he is more intent upon a pretty story than upon the truth. And we are disgusted with his insincerity, when, in defiance even of verisimilitude, he puts long elaborate orations in the mouth of those, of whom we know, either from the circumstances that they could not, or from more authentic records that they did not, make any such orations; as Dionysius of Halicarnassus has done in the case of Volumnia haranguing her son Coriolanus, and Flavius Josephus in that of Judah addressing his brother as viceroy of Egypt. From what these historians relate, one would conjecture

(b) Fielding's Tom Jones, Amelia, and Joseph Andrews, are examples of what may be called the Epic or Narrative Comedy, or more properly perhaps the Comic Epopee. Of Nature conjecture that the Roman matron had studied at Athens in Poetry, under some long-winded rhetorician, and that the Jewish patriarch must have been one of the most flowery orators of antiquity. But the fictitious part of history, or of story-telling, ought never to take up much room; and must be highly blamable when it leads into any mistake either of facts or of characters.

Now why do historians take the liberty to embellish their works in this manner? One reason, no doubt, is, that they may display their talents in oratory and narration; but the chief reason, as hinted already, is, to render their composition more agreeable. It would seem, then, that something more pleasing than real nature, or something which shall add to the pleasing qualities of real nature, may be devised by human fancy. And this may certainly be done. And this it is the poet's business to do. And when this is in any degree done by the historian, his narrative becomes in that degree poetical.

The possibility of thus improving upon nature must be obvious to every one. When we look at a landscape, we can fancy a thousand additional embellishments. Mountains loftier and more picturesque; rivers more copious, more limpid, and more beautifully winding; smoother and wider lawns; valleys more richly diversified; caverns and rocks more gloomy and more stupendous; ruins more majestic; buildings more magnificent; oceans more varied with islands, more splendid with shipping, or more agitated by storm, than any we have ever seen—it is easy for human imagination to conceive. Many things in art and nature exceed expectation; but nothing sensible transcends or equals the capacity of thought—a striking evidence of the dignity of the human soul! The finest woman in the world appears to every eye susceptible of improvement, except perhaps to that of her lover. No wonder, then, if in poetry events can be exhibited more compact, and of more pleasing variety, than those delineated by the historian, and scenes of inanimate nature more dreadful or more lovely, and human characters more sublime and more exquisite, both in good and evil. Yet still let nature supply the ground-work and materials, as well as the standard, of poetical fiction. The most expert painters use a layman, or other visible figure, to direct their hand and regulate their fancy. Homer himself founds his two poems on authentic tradition; and tragic as well epic poets have followed the example. The writers of romance, too, are ambitious to interweave true adventure with their fables; and when it can be conveniently done, to take the outlines of their plan from real life. Thus the tale of Robinson Crusoe is founded on an incident that actually befell one Alexander Selkirk, a seafaring man, who lived several years alone in the island of Juan Fernandez: Smollet is thought to have given us several of his own adventures in the history of Roderic Random; and the chief characters in Tom Jones, Joseph Andrews, and Pamela, are said to have been copied from real originals. Dramatic comedy, indeed, is for the most part purely fictitious; for if it were to exhibit real events as well as present manners, it would become too personal to be endured by a well-bred audience, and degenerate into downright abuse; which appears to have been the case with the old comedy of the Greeks*. But in general, hints taken from real existence will be found to give no little grace and stability to fiction, even in the most fanciful poem. These hints, however, may be improved by the poet's imagination, and set off with every probable ornament that can be devised, consistently with the design and genius of the work; or in other words, with the sympathies that the poet means to awaken in the mind of his reader. For mere poetical ornament, when it fails to interest the affections, is not only useless, but improper; all true poetry being directed to the heart, and intended to give pleasure by raising or soothing the passions—the only effectual way of pleasing a rational and moral creature. And therefore we would take Horace's maxim to be universal in poetry: "Non satis est, pulchra esse poe mae; dulcia sunt."† It is not enough that poems be beautiful; let them also be affecting:—For that this is the meaning of the word dulcia in this place, is admitted by the best interpreters, and is indeed evident from the context‡.

That the sentiments and feelings of percipient beings and when expressed in poetry, should call forth our affections, is natural enough; but can descriptions of inanimate things also be made affecting? Certainly they can; and the more they affect, the more they please us, and make them the more poetical we allow them to be. Virgil's Georgic is a noble specimen (and indeed the noblest in the world) of this sort of poetry. His admiration of external nature gains upon a reader of taste, till it rise to perfect enthusiasm. The following observations will perhaps explain this matter.

Every thing in nature is complex in itself, and bears innumerable relations to other things; and may therefore be viewed in an endless variety of lights, and consequently described in an endless variety of ways. Some descriptions are good, and others bad. An historical description, that enumerates all the qualities of any object, is certainly good because it is true; but may be as unafflicting as a logical definition. In poetry, no unafflicting description is good, however conformable to truth; for here we expect not a complete enumeration of qualities (the chief end of the art being to please), but only such an enumeration as may give a lively and interesting idea. It is not memory, or the knowledge of rules, that can qualify a poet for this sort of description; but a peculiar liveliness of fancy and sensibility of heart, the nature whereof we may explain by its effects, but we cannot lay down rules for the attainment of it.

When our mind is occupied by any emotion, we naturally use words and meditate on things that are suitable to it and tend to encourage it. If a man were to write a letter when he is very angry, there would probably be something of vehemence or bitterness in the style, even though the person to whom he wrote were not the object of his anger. The same thing holds true of every other strong passion or emotion:—while it predominates in the mind, it gives a peculiarity to our thoughts, as well as to our voice, gesture, and countenance: and hence we expect, that every personage introduced in poetry should see things through the medium of his ruling passion, and that his thoughts and poetry language should be tinged accordingly. A melancholy man walking in a grove, attends to those things that suit and encourage his melancholy; the sighing of the wind in the trees, the murmuring of waters, the darkness and solitude of the shades; A cheerful man in passion... Of Nature the same place, finds many subjects of cheerful meditations in Poetry, in the singing of birds, the brisk motions of the babbling stream, and the liveliness and variety of the verdure. Persons of different characters, contemplating the same thing, a Roman triumph, for instance, feel different emotions, and turn their view to different objects. One is filled with wonder at such a display of wealth and power; another exults in the idea of conquest, and pants for military renown; a third, stunned with clamour, and harassed with confusion, wishes for silence, security, and solitude; one melts with pity to the vanquished, and makes many a sad reflection upon the insignificance of worldly grandeur, and the uncertainty of human things; while the buffoon, and perhaps the philosopher, considers the whole as a vain piece of pageantry, which, by its solemn procedure, and by the admiration of so many people, is only rendered the more ridiculous:—and each of these persons would describe it in a way suitable to his own feelings, and tending to raise the same in others.

We see in Milton's Allegro and Penseroso, how a different cast of mind produces a variety in the manner of conceiving and contemplating the same rural scenery. In the former of these excellent poems, the author personates a cheerful man, and takes notice of those things in external nature that are suitable to cheerful thoughts, and tend to encourage them: in the latter, every object described is serious and solemn, and productive of calm reflection and tender melancholy; and we should not be easily persuaded, that Milton wrote the first under the influence of sorrow, or the second under that of gladness. We often see an author's character in his works; and if every author were in earnest when he writes, we should oftener see it. Thomson was a man of piety and benevolence, and a warm admirer of the beauties of nature; and every description in his delightful poem on the Seasons tends to raise the same laudable affections in his reader. The parts of nature that attract his notice are those which an impious or hard-hearted man would neither attend to, nor be affected with, at least in the same manner. In Swift we see a turn of mind very different from that of the amiable Thomson; little relish for the sublime or beautiful, and a perpetual succession of violent emotions. All his pictures of human life seem to show, that deformity and meanness were the favourite objects of his attention, and that his soul was a constant prey to indignation (c), disgust, and other gloomy passions, arising from such a view of things. And it is the tendency of almost all his writings (though it was not always the author's design), to communicate the same passions to his reader: insomuch, that notwithstanding his erudition and knowledge of the world, his abilities as a popular orator and man of business, the energy of his style, the elegance of some of his verses, and his extraordinary talents in wit and humour, there is reason to doubt, whether by studying his works any person was very much improved in piety or benevolence.

And thus we see, how the compositions of an ingenious author may operate upon the heart, whatever be the subject. The affections that prevail in the author Of Nature himself, direct his attention to objects congenial, and in Poetry give a peculiar bias to his inventive powers, and a peculiar colour to his language. Hence his work, as well as face, if nature is permitted to exert herself freely in that poetry it, will exhibit a picture of his mind, and awaken correspondent sympathies in the reader. When these are heart what favourable to virtue, which they always ought to be, ever be the work will have that sweet pathos to which Horace alludes in the passage above mentioned; and which we so highly admire, and so warmly approve, even in those parts of the Georgic that describe inanimate nature.

Horace's account of the matter in question differs not from what is here given. "It is not enough (says he*) * Ar. Poet. that poems be beautiful; let them be affecting, and v. 95—agitate the mind with whatever passions the poet wishes to impart. The human countenance, as it smiles on those who smile, accompanies also with sympathetic tears those who mourn. If you would have me weep, you must first weep yourself; then, and not before, shall I be touched with your misfortunes.—For nature first makes the emotions of our mind correspond with our circumstances, infusing real joy, sorrow, or resentment, according to the occasion; and afterwards gives the true pathetic utterance to the voice and language." This doctrine, which concerns the orator and the player no less than the poet, is strictly philosophical, and equally applicable to dramatic, to descriptive, and indeed to every species of interesting poetry. The poet's sensibility must first of all engage him warmly in his subject, and in every part of it; otherwise he will labour in vain to interest the reader. If he would paint external nature, as Virgil and Thomson have done, so as to make her amiable to others, he must first be enamoured of her himself; if he would have his heroes and heroines speak the language of love or sorrow, devotion or courage, ambition or anger, benevolence or pity, his heart must be susceptible of these emotions, and in some degree feel them, as long at least as he employs himself in framing words for them; being assured, that

He best shall paint them who can feel them most.

POPE'S Eloisa, v. 366.

The true poet, therefore, must not only study nature, and know the reality of things, but must also possess poet must fancy, to invent additional decorations; judgment, to possess fan-direct him in the choice of such as accord with verisimilitude; and sensibility, to enter with ardent emotions into every part of his subject, so as to transmute into every part of his work a pathos and energy sufficient to raise corresponding emotions in the reader.

"The historian and the poet (says Aristotle *) differ in this, that the former exhibits things as they are, sect. 9. the latter as they might be;"—i.e., in that state of perfection which is consistent with probability, and in which, for the sake of our own gratification, we wish to find them. If the poet, after all the liberties he is allowed to take with the truth, can produce nothing more exquisite than is commonly to be met with in history, his reader

(c) For part of this remark we have his own authority, often in his letters, and very explicitly in the Latin epitaph which he composed for himself:—"ubi seva indignatio ulterius cor lacerare nequit." See his last will and testament. Of Nature reader will be disappointed and dissatisfied. Poetical presentations must therefore be framed after a pattern of the highest probable perfection that the genius of the work will admit:—external nature must in them be more picturesque than in reality; action more animated; sentiments more expressive of the feelings and character, and more suitable to the circumstances of the speaker; personages better accomplished in those qualities that raise admiration, pity, terror, and other ardent emotions; and events more compact, more clearly connected with causes and consequences, and unfolded in an order more flattering to the fancy, and more interesting to the passions. But where, it may be said, is this pattern of perfection to be found? Not in real nature; otherwise history, which delineates real nature, would also delineate this pattern of perfection. It is to be found only in the mind of the poet; and it is imagination, regulated by knowledge, that enables him to form it.

In the beginning of life, and while experience is confined to a small circle, we admire every thing, and are pleased with very moderate excellence. A peasant thinks the hall of his landlord the finest apartment in the universe, listens with rapture to the strolling ballad-singer, and wonders at the rude wooden cuts that adorn his ruder compositions. A child looks upon his native village as a town; upon the brook that runs by as a river; and upon the meadows and hills in the neighbourhood as the most spacious and beautiful that can be. But when, after long absence, he returns in his declining years, to visit, once before he die, the dear spot that gave him birth, and those scenes whereof he remembers rather the original charms than the exact proportions; how is he disappointed to find every thing so debased and so diminished! The hills seem to have sunk into the ground, the brook to be dried up, and the village to be forsaken of its people; the parish-church, stripped of all its fancied magnificence, is become low, gloomy, and narrow; and the fields are now only the miniature of what they were. Had he never left this spot, his notions might have remained the same as at first; and had he travelled but a little way from it, they would not perhaps have received any material enlargement. It seems then to be from observation of many things of the same or similar kinds, that we acquire the talent of forming ideas more perfect than the real objects that lie immediately around us: and these ideas we may improve gradually more and more, according to the vivacity of our mind, and extent of our experience, till at last we come to raise them to a degree of perfection superior to any thing to be found in real life. There cannot be any mystery in this doctrine; for we think and speak to the same purpose every day. Thus nothing is more common than to say, that such an artist excels all we have ever known in his profession, and yet that we can still conceive a superior performance. A moralist, by bringing together into one view the separate virtues of many persons, is enabled to lay down a system of duty more perfect than any he has ever seen exemplified in human conduct. Whatever be the emotion the poet intends to raise in his reader, whether admiration or terror, joy or sorrow; and whatever be the object he would exhibit, whether Venus or Tisiphone, Achilles or Thersites, a palace or a pile of ruins, a dance or a battle; he generally copies an idea of his own imagination; considering each quality as it is found to exist in several individuals of a species, and Of Nature thence forming an assemblage more or less perfect in its kind, according to the purpose to which he means to apply it.

Hence it would appear, that the ideas of poetry are poetical rather general than singular; rather collected from the conceptions examination of a species or class of things, than copied must be from an individual. And this, according to Aristotle, is in fact the case, at least for the most part; whence that critic determines, that poetry is something more exquisite and more philosophical than history*. The historian may describe Bucephalus, but the poet delineates a war-horse; the former must have seen the animal he speaks of, or received authentic information concerning it, if he mean to describe it historically; for the latter, it is enough that he has seen several animals of that sort. The former tells us, what Achilles actually did and said; the latter, what such a species of human character as that which bears the name of Achilles would probably do or say in certain given circumstances.

It is indeed true, that the poet may, and often does, copy after individual objects. Homer, no doubt, took his characters from the life; or at least, in forming them, was careful to follow tradition as far as the nature of his plan would allow. But he probably took the freedom to add or heighten some qualities, and take away others; to make Achilles, for example, stronger, perhaps, and more impetuous, and more eminent for filial affection, and Hector more patriotic and more amiable than he really was. If he had not done this, or something like it, his work would have been rather a history than a poem; would have exhibited men and things as they were, and not as they might have been; and Achilles and Hector would have been the names of individual and real heroes; whereas, according to Aristotle, they are rather to be considered as two distinct modifications or species of the heroic character. Shakespeare's account of the cliffs of Dover comes so near the truth, that we cannot doubt of its having been written by one who had seen them: but he who takes it for an exact historical description, will be surprised when he comes to the place, and finds those cliffs not half so lofty as the poet had made him believe. An historian would be to blame for such amplification; because, being to describe an individual precipice, he ought to tell us just what it is; which if he did, the description would suit that place and perhaps no other in the whole world. But the poet means only to give an idea of what such a precipice may be: and therefore his description may perhaps be equally applicable to many such chalky precipices on the sea-shore.

This method of copying after general ideas formed by the artist from observation of many individuals, distinguishes the Italian and all the sublime painters, from the Dutch and their imitators. These give us bare nature, with the imperfections and peculiarities of individual things or persons; but those give nature improved as far as probability and the design of the piece will admit. Teniers and Hogarth draw faces, and figures, and dresses, from real life, and present manners; and therefore their pieces must in some degree lose the effect, and become awkward, when the present fashions become obsolete.—Raphael and Reynolds take their models from general nature; avoiding, as far as possible, (at least in all their great performances), those peculiarities that derive their beauty from mere fashion; and therefore their works must give pleasure, and appear elegant as long as men are capable of forming general ideas, and of judging from them. The last-mentioned incomparable artist is particularly observant of children, whose looks and attitudes, being less under the control of art and local manners, are more characteristic of the species than those of men and women. This field of observation has supplied him with many fine figures, particularly that most exquisite one of Comedy, struggling for and winning (for who could resist her?) the affections of Garrick—a figure which could never have occurred to the imagination of a painter who had confined his views to grown persons looking and moving in all the formality of polite life—a figure which in all ages and countries would be pronounced natural and engaging; whereas those human forms that we see every day bowing and courtesying, and strutting, and turning out their toes secundum artem, and dressed in ruffles, and wigs, and flounces, and hoop-petticoats, and full-trimmed suits, would appear elegant no further than the present fashions are propagated, and no longer than they remain unaltered.

There is, in the progress of human society, as well as of human life, a period to which it is of great importance for the higher order of poets to attend, and from which they will do well to take their characters, and manners, and the era of their events; namely, that wherein men are raised above savage life, and considerably improved by arts, government, and conversation; but not advanced so high in the ascent towards politeness, as to have acquired a habit of disguising their thoughts and passions, and of reducing their behaviour to the uniformity of the mode. Such was the period which Homer had the good fortune (as a poet) to live in, and to celebrate. This is the period at which the manners of men are most picturesque, and their adventures most romantic. This is the period when the appetites unperverted by luxury, the powers uncorrupted by effeminacy, and the thoughts disengaged from artificial restraint, will, in persons of similar dispositions and circumstances, operate in nearly the same way; and when, consequently, the characters of particular men will approach to the nature of poetical or general ideas, and, if well imitated, give pleasure to the whole, or at least to a great majority of mankind. But a character tinctured with the fashions of polite life would not be so generally interesting. Like a human figure adjusted by a modern dancing-master, and dressed by a modern tailor, it may have a good effect in satire, comedy, or farce: but if introduced into the higher poetry, it would be admired by those only who had learned to admire nothing but present fashions, and by them no longer than the present fashions lasted; and to all the rest of the world would appear awkward, unsatisfying, and perhaps ridiculous. But Achilles and Sarpedon, Diomede and Hector, Nestor and Ulysses, as drawn by Homer, must in all ages, independently on fashion, command the attention and admiration of mankind. These have the qualities that are universally known to belong to human nature; whereas the modern fine gentleman is distinguished by qualities that belong only to a particular age, society, and corner of the world. We speak not of moral or intellectual virtues, which are objects of admiration to every character; but of those outward accomplishments, and that particular temperature of the passions, which form the most perceptible part of a human character.—As, therefore, the politician, in discussing the rights of mankind, most often allude to an imaginary state of nature; so the poet who intends to raise admiration, pity, terror, and other important emotions, in the generality of mankind, especially in those readers whose minds are most improved, must take his pictures of life and manners, rather from the heroic period we now speak of, than from the ages of refinement; and must therefore (to repeat the maxim of Aristotle) "exhibit things, not as they are, but as they might be."

Sect. IV. Of Poetical Characters.

Horace seems to think, that a competent knowledge of moral philosophy will fit an author for assigning the suitable qualities and duties to each poetical personage: (Art. Poet. v. 309.—316.). The maxim poetical may be true, as far as mere morality is the aim of the character; but cannot be understood to refer to the delineation of poetical characters in general: for a thorough acquaintance with all the moral philosophy in the world would not have enabled Blackmore to paint such a personage as Homer's Achilles, Shakespeare's Othello, or the Satan of Paradise Lost. To a competency of moral science, there must be added an extensive knowledge of mankind, a warm and elevated imagination, and the greatest sensibility of heart, before a genius can be formed equal to so difficult a task. Horace is indeed so sensible of the danger of introducing a new character in poetry, that he even discourages the attempt, and advises the poet rather to take his persons from the ancient authors, or from tradition: Ibid. v. 119.—130.

To conceive the idea of a good man, and to invent and support a great poetical character, are two very different things, however they may seem to have been confounded by some late critics. The first is easy to any person sufficiently instructed in the duties of life: the last is, perhaps of all the efforts of human genius the most difficult; so very difficult, that, though attempted by many, Homer, Shakespeare, and Milton, are almost the only authors who have succeeded in it. But characters of perfect virtue are not the most proper for poetry. It seems to be agreed, that the Deity should not be introduced in the machinery of a poetical fable. To ascribe to him words and actions of our own invention, seems very unbecoming; nor can a poetical description, that is known to be, and must of necessity be, infinitely inadequate, ever satisfy the human mind. Poetry, according to the best critics, is an imitation of human action; and therefore poetical characters, though elevated, should still partake of the passions and frailties of humanity. If it were not so, the vices of some principal personages, the Iliad take of the would not be either so interesting or so moral: the frailties of most moving and most eventful parts of the Aeneid are those that describe the effects of unlawful passion— the most instructive tragedy in the world, we mean Macbeth, is founded in crimes of dreadful enormity: and if Milton had not taken into his plan the fall of our first parents, as well as their state of innocence, Of poetical his divine poem must have wanted much of its pathos, characters and could not have been (what it now is) such a treasure of important knowledge, as no other uninspired writer ever comprehended in so small a compass.—Virtue, like truth, is uniform and unchangeable. We may anticipate the part a good man will act in any given circumstances; and therefore the events that depend on such a man must be less surprising than those which proceed from passion; the vicissitudes whereof it is frequently impossible to foresee. From the violent temper of Achilles, in the Iliad, spring many great incidents; which could not have taken place, if he had been calm and prudent like Ulysses, or pious and patriotic like Enos; his rejection of Agamemnon's offers, in the ninth book, arises from the violence of his resentment;—his yielding to the request of Patroclus, in the 16th, from the violence of his friendship (if we may so speak) counteracting his resentment; and his restoring to Priam the dead body of Hector, in the 24th, from the violence of his affection to his own aged father, and his regard to the command of Jupiter, counteracting, in some measure, both his sorrow for his friend, and his thirst for vengeance.—Besides, except where there is some degree of vice, it pains us too exquisitely to see misfortune; and therefore poetry would cease to have a pleasurable influence over our tender passions, if it were to exhibit virtuous characters only. And as in life, evil is necessary to our moral probation, and the possibility of error to our intellectual improvement; so bad or mixed characters are useful in poetry, to give to the good such opposition, as puts them upon displaying and exercising their virtue.

All those personages, however, in whose fortune the poet means that we should be interested, must have agreeable and admirable qualities to recommend them to our regard. And perhaps the greatest difficulty in the art lies in suitably blending those faults which the poet finds it expedient to give to any particular hero, with such moral, intellectual, or corporeal accomplishments, as may engage our esteem, pity, or admiration, without weakening our hatred of vice, or love of virtue. In most of our novels, and in many of our plays, it happens unluckily, that the hero of the piece is so captivating, as to incline us to be indulgent to every part of his character, the bad as well as the good. But a great master knows how to give the proper direction to human sensibility; and, without any perversion of our faculties, or any confusion of right and wrong, to make the same person the object of very different emotions, of pity and hatred, of admiration and horror. Who does not esteem and admire Macbeth for his courage and generosity? who does not pity him when beset with all the terrors of a pregnant imagination, superstitious temper, and awakened conscience? who does not abhor him as a monster of cruelty, treachery, and ingratitude? His good qualities, by drawing us near to him, make us, as it were, eye-witnesses of his crime, and give us a fellow-feeling of his remorse; and therefore, his example cannot fail to have a powerful effect in cherishing our love of virtue, and fortifying our minds against criminal impressions; whereas, had he wanted these good qualities, we should have kept aloof from his concerns, or viewed them with a superficial attention; in which case his example would have had little more weight than that of the robber, of whom we know nothing, but that he was tried, condemned, and executed.—Satan, in Paradise Lost, is a character drawn and supported with the most consummate judgment. The old furies and demons, Hecate, Tisiphone, Alecto, Megara, are objects of unmixed and unmitigated abhorrence; Tytus, Encelades, and their brethren, are remarkable for nothing but impiety, deformity, and vastness of size; Pluto is, at best, an insipid personage; Mars, a brainless ruffian; Tasso's infernal tyrant, an ugly and overgrown monster;—but in the Miltonic Satan, we are forced to admire the majesty of the ruined archangel, at the same time that we detest the unconquerable depravity of the fiend. "But, of all poetical characters, (says the elegant critic from whom we are extracting), the Achilles of Homer (d) seems to me the most exquisite of invention, and the most highly finished. The utility of this character in a moral view is obvious; for it may be considered as the source of all the morality of the Iliad. Had not the generous and violent temper of Achilles determined him to patronize the anger Calchas in defiance of Agamemnon, and afterwards on being affronted by that vindictive commander, to abandon for a time the common cause of Greece—the fatal effects of dissension among confederates, and of capricious and tyrannical behaviour in a sovereign, would not have been the leading moral of Homer's poetry; nor could Hector, Sarpedon, Enocas, Ulysses, and the other amiable heroes, have been brought forward to signalize their virtues, and to recommend themselves to the esteem and imitation of mankind.

"Their who form their judgment of Achilles from the imperfect sketch given of him by Horace in the Art of Poetry, (v. 121, 122.) and consider him only as a hateful composition of anger, revenge, fierceness, obstinacy and pride, can never enter into the views of Homer, nor be suitably affected with his narration. All these vices are no doubt, in some degree, combined in Achilles; but they are tempered with qualities of a different sort, which render him a most interesting character, and of course make the Iliad a most interesting poem. Every reader abhors the faults of this hero; and yet, to an attentive reader of Homer, this hero must be the object of esteem, admiration, and pity; for he has many good as well as bad affections, and is equally violent.

(d) "I say the Achilles of Homer. Later authors have degraded the character of this hero, by supposing every part of his body invulnerable except the heel. I know not how often I have heard this urged as one of Homer's absurdities; and indeed the whole Iliad is one continued absurdity, on this supposition. But Homer all along makes his hero equally liable to wounds and death with other men. Nay, to prevent all mistakes in regard to this matter, (if those who cavil at the poet would but read his work,) he actually wounds him in the right arm by the lance of Asteropoeus, in the battle near the river Scamander." See Iliad xxii. verse 161—168. Of Poetical violent in all:—Nor is he possessed of a single vice or Characters' virtue, which the wonderful art of the poet has not made subservient to the design of the poem, and to the progress and catastrophe of the action; so that the hero of the Iliad, considered as a poetical personage, is just what he should be, neither greater nor less, neither worse nor better.—He is everywhere distinguished by an abhorrence of oppression, by a liberal and elevated mind, by a passion for glory, and by a love of truth, freedom, and sincerity. He is for the most part attentive to the duties of religion; and, except to those who have injured him, courteous and kind: he is affectionate to his tutor Phoenix; and not only pities the misfortunes of his enemy Priam, but in the most soothing manner administers to him the best consolation that Homer's poor theology could furnish. Though no admirer of the cause in which his evil destiny compels him to engage, he is warmly attached to his native land; and, ardent as he is in vengeance, he is equally so in love to his aged father Peleus, and to his friend Patroclus. He is not luxurious like Paris, or clownish like Ajax; his accomplishments are princely, and his amusements worthy of a hero. Add to this, as an apology for the vehemence of his anger, that the affront he had received was (according to the manners of that age) of the most atrocious nature; and not only unprovoked, but such as, on the part of Agamemnon, betrayed a brutal insensibility to merit, as well as a proud, selfish, ungrateful, and tyrannical disposition. And though he is often inexcessibly furious; yet it is but justice to remark, that he was not naturally cruel (x); and that his wildest outrages were such as in those rude times might be expected from a violent man of invincible strength and valour, when exasperated by injury, and frantic with sorrow. Our hero's claim to the admiration of mankind is indisputable. Every part of his character is sublime and astonishing. In his person, he is the strongest, the swiftest, the most beautiful of men:—this last circumstance, however, occurs not to his own observation, being too trivial to attract the notice of so great a mind. The Fates had put it in his power, either to return home before the end of the war, or to remain at Troy:—if he chose the former, he would enjoy tranquillity and happiness in his own country to a good old age; if the latter, he must perish in the bloom of his youth:—his affection to his father and native country, and his hatred to Agamemnon, strongly urged him to the first; but a desire to avenge the death of his friend determines him to accept the last with all its consequences. This at once displays the greatness of his fortitude, the warmth of his friendship, and the violence of his sanguinary passions: and it is this that so often and so powerfully recommends him to the pity, as well as admiration, of the attentive reader."

It is equally a proof of rich invention and exact judgment in Homer, that he mixes some good qualities in all his bad characters, and some degree of imperfection in almost all his good ones.—Agamemnon, notwithstanding his pride, is an able general, and a valiant man, and highly esteemed as such by the greater part of the army.—Paris, though effeminate, and vain of his dress and person, is, however, good-natured, patient of reproach, not destitute of courage, and eminently skilled in music and other fine arts.—Ajax is a huge giant; fearless rather from insensibility to danger, and confidence in his massy arms, than from any nobler principle; boastful and rough; regardless of the gods, though not downright impious: yet there is in his manner something of frankness and blunt sincerity, which entitle him to a share in our esteem; and he is ever ready to assist his countrymen, to whom he renders good service on many a perilous emergency.—The character of Helen, in spite of her faults, and of the many calamities whereof she is the guilty cause, Homer has found means to recommend to our pity, and almost to our love; and this he does, without seeking to extenuate the crime of Paris, of which the most respectable personages in the poem are made to speak with becoming abhorrence. She is so full of remorse, so ready on every occasion to condemn her past conduct, so affectionate to her friends, so willing to do justice to every body's merit, and wish'd so finely accomplished, that she extorts our admiration, as well as that of the Trojan senators.—Menelaus, though sufficiently sensible of the injury he had received, is yet a man of moderation, clemency, and good-nature, a valiant soldier, and a most affectionate brother: but there is a dash of vanity in his composition, and he entertains rather too high an opinion of his own abilities, yet never overlooks nor undervalues the merit of others.—Priam would claim unreserved esteem, as well as pity, if it were not for his inexcusable weakness, in gratifying the humour, and by indulgence abetting the crimes, of the most worthless of all his children, to the utter ruin of his people, family, and kingdom. Madame Dacier supposes, that he had lost his authority, and was obliged to fall in with the politics of the times: but of this there appears no evidence; on the contrary, he and his unworthy favourite Paris seem to have been the only persons of distinction in Troy who were averse to the restoring of Helen. Priam's foible (if it can be called by so soft a name), however faulty, is not uncommon, and has often produced calamity both in private and public life. The Scripture gives a memorable instance in the history of the good old Eli.—Sarpedon comes nearer a perfect character than any other of Homer's heroes; but the part he has to act is short. It is a character which one could hardly have expected in those rude times: a sovereign prince, who considers himself as a magistrate set up by the people for the public good, and therefore bound in honour and gratitude to be himself their example, and study to excel as much in virtue as in rank and authority.—Hector is the favourite of every reader, and with good reason. To the truest valour he joins the most generous patriotism. He abominates the crime of Paris: but not being able to prevent the war, he thinks it his duty to defend his country, and his father and sovereign, to the last. He too, as well as Achilles, foresees

(f) See Iliad xxii. 100. and xxiv. 485—673.—In the first of these passages, Achilles himself declares, that before Patroclus was slain, he often spared the lives of his enemies, and took pleasure in doing it. It is strange, as Dr Beattie observes, that this should be left out in Pope's Translation. Of Poetical his own death; which heightens our compassion, and characters raises our idea of his magnanimity. In all the relations of private life, as a son, a father, a husband, a brother, he is amiable in the highest degree; and he is distinguished among all the heroes for tenderness of affection, gentleness of manners, and a pious regard to the duties of religion. One circumstance of his character, strongly expressive of a great and delicate mind, we learn from Helen's lamentation over his dead body, that he was almost the only person in Troy who had always treated her with kindness, and never uttered one reproachful word to give her pain, nor heard others reproach her without blaming them for it. Some tendency to ostentation (which however may be pardonable in a commander in chief), and temporary fits of timidity, are the only blemishes discoverable in this hero; whose portrait Homer appears to have drawn with an affectionate and peculiar attention.

By ascribing so many amiable qualities to Hector and some others of the Trojans, the poet interests us in the fate of that people, notwithstanding our being continually kept in mind that they are the injurious party. And by thus blending good and evil, virtue and frailty, in the composition of his characters, he makes them the more conformable to the real appearances of human nature, and more useful as examples for our improvement; and at the same time, without hurting verisimilitude, gives every necessary embellishment to particular parts of his poem, and variety, coherence, and animation, to the whole fable. And it may also be observed, that though several of his characters are complex, not one of them is made up of incompatible parts: all are natural and probable, and such as we think we have met with, or might have met with, in our intercourse with mankind.

From the same extensive views of good and evil in all their forms and combinations, Homer has been enabled to make each of his characters perfectly distinct in itself, and different from all the rest; insomuch that before we come to the end of the Iliad, we are as well acquainted with his heroes, as with the faces and tempers of our most familiar friends. Virgil, by confining himself to a few general ideas of fidelity and fortitude, has made his subordinate heroes a very good sort of people; but they are all the same, and we have no clear knowledge of any one of them. Achates is faithful, and Gyas is brave, and Cloanthus is brave; and this is all we can say of the matter. We see these heroes at a distance, and have some notion of their shape and size; but are not near enough to distinguish their features; and every face seems to exhibit the same faint and ambiguous appearance. But of Homer's heroes we know every particular that can be known. We eat, and drink, and talk, and fight, with them: we see them in action and out of it; in the field and in their tents and houses; the very face of the country about Troy we seem to be as well acquainted with as if we had been there. Similar characters there are among these heroes, as there are similar faces in every society; but we never mistake one for another. Nestor and Ulysses are both wise and both eloquent: but the wisdom of the former seems to be the effect of experience; that of the latter of genius: the eloquence of the one is sweet and copious, but not always to the purpose, and apt to degenerate into story-telling; that of the other is close, emphatical, and persuasive, and accompanied with a peculiar modesty and or Poetical simplicity of manner. Homer's heroes are all valiant; yet each displays a modification of valour peculiar to himself; one is valiant from principle, another from constitution; one is rash, another cautious; one is impetuous and headstrong, another impetuous, but tractable; one is cruel, another merciful; one is insolent and ostentatious, another gentle and unassuming; one is vain of his person, another of his strength, and a third of his family.—It would be tedious to give a complete enumeration. Almost every species of the heroic character is to be found in Homer.

Of the agents in Paradise Lost, it has been observed*, *Johnson's Life of Milton. that "the weakest are the highest and noblest of human beings, the original parents of mankind; with whose actions the elements consented; on whose rectitude or deviation of will depended the state of terrestrial nature, and the condition of all the future inhabitants of the globe. Of the other agents in the poem, the chief are such as it is irreverence to name on slight occasions: the rest are lower powers;

—Of which the least could wield

These elements, and arm him with the force

Of all their regions: