which only the control of Omnipotence restrains from laying creation waste, and filling the vast cavity of expanse of space with ruin and confusion. To display the motives and actions of beings thus superior, so far as human reason can examine, or human imagination represent them, is the task which Milton undertook and performed. The characters in the Paradise Lost, which raise Lost. admit of examination, are those of angels and of men; of angels good and evil; of man in his innocent and sinful state.
"Among the angels, the virtue of Raphael is mild and placid, of easy condescension, and free communication: that of Michael is regal and lofty, attentive to the dignity of his own nature. Abdiel and Gabriel appear occasionally, and act as every incident requires: the solitary fidelity of Abdiel is very amably painted.
"Of the evil angels, the characters are more diversified. To Satan such sentiments are given as suit the most exalted and most depraved being. Milton has been censured for the impiety which sometimes breaks from Satan's mouth; for there are thoughts, it is justly remarked, which no observation of character can justify; because no good man would willingly permit them to pass, however transiently, through his mind. This censure has been shown to be groundless by the great critic from whom we quote. To make Satan speak as a rebel, says he, without any such expressions as might taint the reader's imagination, was indeed one of the great difficulties in Milton's undertaking; and I cannot but think that he has extricated himself with great happiness. There is in Satan's speeches little that can give pain to a pious ear. The language of rebellion cannot be the same with that of obedience: the malignity of Satan foams in haughtiness and obstinacy; but his expressions are commonly general, and no otherwise offensive than taking, as they are wicked.—The other chiefs of the celestial rebellion are very judiciously discriminated; and the ferocious character of Moloch appears, both in the battle and in the council, with exact consistency." "To Adam and to Eve are given, during their innocence, such sentiments as innocence can generate and utter. Their love is pure benevolence and mutual veneration; their repasts are without luxury, and their diligence without toil. Their addresses to their Maker have little more than the voice of admiration and gratitude: fruition left them nothing to ask, and innocence left them nothing to fear. But with guilt enter distrust and discord, mutual accusation and stubborn self-defence: they regard each other with alienated minds, and dread their Creator as the avenger of their transgression; at last, they seek shelter in his mercy, soften to repentance, and melt in supplication. Both before and after the fall, the different sentiments arising from difference of sex are traced out with inimitable delicacy and philosophical propriety. Adam has always that pre-eminence in dignity, and Eve in loveliness, which we should naturally look for in the father and mother of mankind.
From what has been said, it seems abundantly evident,—That the end of poetry is to please; and therefore that the most perfect poetry must be the most pleasing;—that what is unnatural cannot give pleasure; and therefore that poetry must be according to nature;—that it must be either according to real nature, or according to nature somewhat different from the reality;—that, if according to real nature, it would give no greater pleasure than history, which is a transcript of real nature;—that greater pleasure is, however, to be expected from it, because we grant it superior indulgence, in regard to fiction, and the choice of words;—and, consequently, that poetry must be, not according to real nature, but according to nature improved to that degree which is consistent with probability and suitable to the poet's purpose.—And hence it is that we call poetry, An imitation of nature.—For that which is properly termed imitation has always in it something which is not in the original. If the prototype and transcript be exactly alike; if there be nothing in the one which is not in the other; we may call the latter a representation, a copy, a draught, or a picture, of the former; but we never call it an imitation.
Sect. V. Of Arrangement, Unity, Diggession.—Further remarks on Nature in Poetry.
I. The origin of nations, and the beginnings of great events, are little known, and seldom interesting; whence the first part of every history, compared with the sequel, is somewhat dry and tedious. But a poet must, even in the beginning of his work, interest the readers, and raise high expectation; not by an affected pomp of style, far less by ample promises or bold professions; but by setting immediately before them some incident, striking enough to raise curiosity, in regard both to its causes and to its consequences. He must therefore take up his story, not at the beginning, but in the middle; or rather, to prevent the work from being too long, as near the end as possible; and afterwards take some proper opportunity to inform us of the preceding events, in the way of narrative, or by conversation of the persons introduced, or by short and natural digressions.
The action of both the Iliad and Odyssey begins about six weeks before its conclusion; although the principal events of the war of Troy are to be found in the former; or poetical and the adventures of a ten years voyage, followed by the suppression of a dangerous domestic enemy, in the latter. One of the first things mentioned by Homer in the Iliad, is a plague, which Apollo in anger sent into the Grecian army commanded by Agamemnon and now encamped before Troy. Who this Agamemnon was, and who the Grecians were; for what reason they had come hither; how long the siege had lasted; what memorable actions had been already performed; and in what condition both parties now were;—all this, and much more, we soon learn from occasional hints and conversations interspersed through the poem.
In the Æneid, which, though it comprehends the transactions of seven years, opens within a few months of the concluding event, we are first presented with a view of the Trojan fleet at sea, and no less a person than Juno interesting herself to raise a storm for their destruction. This excites a curiosity to know something further:—who these Trojans were, whence they had come, and whither they were bound; why they had left their own country, and what had befallen them since they left it. On all these points, the poet, without quitting the track of his narrative, soon gives the fullest information:—The storm rises; the Trojans are driven to Africa, and hospitably received by the queen of the country; at whose desire their commander relates his adventures.
The action of Paradise Lost commences not many days before Adam and Eve are expelled from the garden of Eden, which is the concluding event. This poem, as its plan is incomparably more sublime and more important than that of either the Iliad or Æneid, opens with a far more interesting scene: a multitude of angels and archangels shut up in a region of torment and darkness, and rolling on a lake of unquenchable fire. Who these angels are, and what brought them into this miserable condition, we naturally wish to know; and the poet in due time informs us; partly from the conversation of the fiends themselves; and more particularly by the mouth of a happy spirit, sent from heaven to caution the father and mother of mankind against temptation, and confirm their good resolutions by unfolding the dreadful effects of impiety and disobedience.
This poetical arrangement of events, so different from Beattie's historical, has other advantages besides those arising from brevity and compactness of detail: it is obviously more affecting to the fancy, and more alarming to the passions; and, being more suitable to the order and the manner in which the actions of other men strike our senses, is a more exact imitation of human affairs. I hear a sudden noise in the street, and run to see what is the matter. An insurrection has happened, a great multitude is brought together, and something very important is going forward. The scene before me is the first thing that engages my attention; and is in itself so interesting, that for a moment or two I look at it in silence and wonder. By and by, when I get time for reflection, I begin to inquire into the cause of all this tumult, and what it is the people would be at; and one who is better informed than I, explains the affair from the beginning; or perhaps I make this out for myself, from the words and actions of the persons principally concerned. This is a sort of picture of poetical arrangement, both in epic and dramatic composition; and this Of poetical plan has been followed in narrative odes and ballads both ancient and modern.—The historian pursues a different method. He begins perhaps with an account of the manners of a certain age, and of the political constitution of a certain country; then introduces a particular person, gives the story of his birth, connections, private character, pursuits, disappointments, and of the events that promoted his views, and brought him acquainted with other turbulent spirits like himself; and so proceeds, unfolding, according to the order of time, the causes, principles, and progress of the conspiracy, if that be the subject which he undertakes to illustrate. It cannot be denied, that this latter method is more favourable to calm information: but the former, compared with it, will be found to have all the advantages already specified, and to be more effectually productive of that mental pleasure which depends on the passions and imagination.
II. If a work have no determinate end, it has no meaning; and if it have many ends, it will distract by its multiplicity. Unity of design, therefore, belongs in some measure, to all compositions, whether in verse or prose. But to some it is more essential than to others; and to none so much as in the higher poetry. In certain kinds of history, there is unity sufficient if all the events recorded be referred to one person; in others, if to one period of time, or to one people, or even to the inhabitants of one and the same planet. But it is not enough that the subject of a poetical fable be the exploits of one person; for there may be of various and even of opposite sorts and tendencies, and take up longer time than the nature of poetry can admit:—far less can a regular poem comprehend the affairs of one period or of one people:—it must be limited to one great action or event, to the illustration of which all the subordinate events must contribute; and these must be so connected with one another, as well as with the poet's general purpose, that one cannot be changed, transposed, or taken away, without affecting the consistence and stability of the whole. In itself an incident may be interesting, a character well drawn, a description beautiful; and yet, if it disfigure the general plan, or if it obstruct or encumber the main action, instead of helping it forward, a correct artist would consider it but as a gaudy superfluity or splendid deformity; like a piece of scarlet cloth sewed upon a garment of a different colour.
Not that all the parts of the fable either are, or can be, equally essential. Many descriptions and thoughts, of little consequence to the plan, may be admitted for the sake of variety: and the poet may, as well as the historian and philosopher, drop his subject for a time, in order to take up an affecting or instructive digression.
III. The doctrine of poetical digressions and episodes has been largely treated by the critics. We shall here only remark, that, in estimating their propriety, three things are to be attended to:—their connection with the fable or subject; their own peculiar excellence; and their subserviency to the poet's design.
(1.) Those digressions that both arise from and terminate in the subject, like the episode of the angel Raphael in Paradise Lost, and the transition to the death of Caesar and the civil wars in the first book of the Georgic, are the most artful, and if suitably executed, claim the highest praise:—those that arise from, but do not terminate in, the subject, are perhaps second in the order of merit; like the story of Dido in the Æneid, or Poetical and the encomium on a country life in the second book of the Georgic: those come next that terminate in, but do not rise from, the fable; of which there are several in the third book of the Æneid and in the Odyssey:—and those that neither terminate in the fable nor rise from it are the least artful; and if they be long, cannot escape censure, unless their beauty be very great.
But (2.) we are willing to excuse a beautiful episode at whatever expense to the subject it may be introduced, peculiar to them who can blame Virgil for obtruding upon them, the charming tale of Orpheus and Euridice in the fourth and Georgic, or Milton for the apostrophe to light in the beginning of this third book, ought to forfeit all title to the perusal of good poetry; for of such divine strains one would rather be the author than of all the books of criticism in the world. Yet still it is better that an episode possess the beauty of connection, together with its own intrinsic elegance, than this without the other.
Moreover, in judging of the propriety of episodes and other similar contrivances, it may be expedient to attend to the design of the poet, as distinguished from the fable or subject of the poem. The great design, for example, of Virgil, was to interest his countrymen in a poem written with a view to reconcile them to the person and government of Augustus. Whatever, therefore, in the poem tends to promote this design, even though it should in some degree hurt the contexture of the fable, is really a proof of the poet's judgment; and may be not only allowed, but applauded.—The progress of the action of the Æneid may seem to be too long obstructed in one place by the story of Dido, which, though it rises from the preceding part of the poem, has no influence upon the sequel: and, in another, by the episode of Cacus, which, without injury to the fable, might have been omitted altogether. Yet these episodes, interesting as they are to us and all mankind because of the transcendant merit of the poetry, must have been still more interesting to the Romans because of their connection with the Roman affairs; for the one accounts poetically for their wars with Carthage; and the other not only explains some of their religious ceremonies, but also gives a most charming rural picture of those hills and valleys in the neighbourhood of the Tiber, on which, in after times, their majestic city was fated to stand.—And if we consider, that the design of Homer's Iliad was not only to show the fatal effects of dissension among confederates, but also to immortalize his country, and celebrate the most distinguished families in it, we shall be inclined to think more favourably than critics generally do of some of his long speeches and digressions; which, though to us they may seem trivial, must have been very interesting to his countrymen on account of the genealogies and private history recorded in them.—Shakespeare's historical plays, considered as dramatic fables, and tried by the laws of tragedy and comedy, appear very rude compositions; but if we attend to the poet's design (as the elegant critic has with equal truth and beauty explained it), we shall be forced to admire his judgment in the general conduct of those pieces, as well as unequalled success in the execution of particular parts.
There is yet another point of view in which these digressions may be considered. If they tend to elucidate any important character, or to introduce any interesting event not otherwise within the compass of the poem, or Of Poetical to give an amiable display of any particular virtue, they may be intitled, not to our pardon only, but even to our admiration, however loosely they may hang upon the fable. All these three ends are effected by that most beautiful episode of Hector and Andromache in the sixth book of the Iliad; and the two last, by the no less beautiful one of Euryalus and Nissus in the ninth book of the Æneid.
IV. And now, from the position formerly established, that the end of this divine art is to give pleasure, it has been endeavoured to prove, that, whether in displaying the appearances of the material universe, or in imitating the workings of the human mind, and the varieties of human character, or in arranging and combining into one whole the several incidents and parts whereof his fable consists,—the aim of the poet must be to copy nature, not as it is, but in that state of perfection in which, consistently with the particular genius of the work, and the laws of verisimilitude, it may be supposed to be.
Such, in general, is the nature of that poetry which is intended to raise admiration, pity, and other serious emotions. But in this art, as in all others, there are different degrees of excellence; and we have hitherto directed our view chiefly to the highest. All serious poets are not equally solicitous to improve nature. Euripides is said to have represented men as they were; Sophocles, more poetically, as they should or might be. Theocritus in his Idyls, and Spenser in his Shepherd's Calendar, give us language and sentiments more nearly approaching those of the Rus verum et barbarum, than what we meet with in the Pastorals of Virgil and Pope. In the historical drama, human characters and events must be according to historical truth, or at least not so remote from it as to lead into any important misapprehension of fact. And in the historical epic poem, such as the Pharsalia of Lucan, and the Campaign of Addison, the historical arrangement is preferred to the poetical, as being nearer the truth. Yet nature is a little improved even in these poems. The persons in Shakespeare's historical plays, and the heroes of the Pharsalia, talk in verse, and suitably to their characters, and with a readiness, beauty, and harmony of expression, not to be met with in real life, nor even in history: speeches are invented, and, to heighten the description, circumstances added, with great latitude; real events are rendered more compact and more strictly dependent upon one another; and fictitious ones brought in, to elucidate human characters and diversify the narration.
The more poetry improves nature, by copying after general ideas collected from extensive observation, the more it partakes (according to Aristotle) of the nature of philosophy; the greater stretch of fancy and of observation it requires in the artist, the better chance it has to be universally agreeable.
Yet poetry, when it falls short of this perfection, may have great merit as an instrument of both instruction and pleasure. To most men, simple unadorned nature is, at certain times, and in certain compositions, more agreeable than the most elaborate improvements of art; as a plain short period, without modulation, gives a pleasing variety to a discourse. Many such portraits of simple nature there are in the subordinate parts both of Homer's and of Virgil's poetry: and an excellent effect they have in giving probability to the fiction, as well as language in gratifying the reader's fancy with images distinct and lively, and easily comprehended. The historical plays of Shakespeare raise not our pity and terror to such a height as Lear, Macbeth, or Othello; but they interest and instruct us greatly notwithstanding. The rudest of the eclogues of Theocritus, or even of Spenser, have by some authors been extolled above those of Virgil, because more like real life. Nay, Corneille is known to have preferred the Pharsalia to the Æntid, perhaps from its being nearer the truth, or perhaps from the sublime sentiments of stoical morality so forcibly and so ostentatiously displayed in it.
Poets may refine upon nature too much as well as too little; for affectation and rusticity are equally remote from true elegance. The style and sentiments of comedy should no doubt be more correct and more pointed than those of the most polite conversation: but to make every footman a wit, and every gentleman and lady an epigrammatist, as Congreve has done, is an excessive and faulty refinement. The proper medium has been hit by Menander and Terence, by Shakespeare in his happier scenes, and by Garrick, Cumberland, and some others of late renown. To describe the passion of love with as little delicacy as some men speak of it would be unpardonable; but to transform it into mere Platonic adoration is to run into another extreme, less criminal indeed, but too remote from universal truth to be universally interesting. To the former extreme Ovid inclines, and Petrarch and his imitators to the latter. Virgil has happily avoided both: but Milton has painted this passion as distinct from all others, with such peculiar truth and beauty, that we cannot think Voltaire's encomium too high, when he says, that love in all other poetry seems a weakness, but in Paradise Lost a virtue. There are many good strokes of nature in Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd; but the author's passion for the rus verum betrays him into some indecencies: a censure that falls with greater weight upon Theocritus, who is often absolutely indecent. The Italian pastoral of Tasso and Guarini, and the French of Fontenelle, run into the opposite extreme (though in some parts beautifully simple), and display a system of rural manners so quaint and affected as to outrage all probability. In fine, though mediocrity of execution in poetry be allowed to deserve the doom pronounced upon it by Horace; yet it is true, notwithstanding, that in this art, as in many other good things, the point of excellence lies in a middle between two extremes; and has been reached by those only who sought to improve nature as far as the genius of their work would permit, keeping at an equal distance from rusticity on the one hand and affected elegance on the other.
Sect. VI. Of Poetical Language.
Words in poetry are chosen, first, for their sense; and, secondly, for their sound. That the first of these poetry should be grounds of choice is the more excellent nobody can deny. He who in literary matters prefers sound to sense is a fool. Yet sound is to be attended to even in prose, and in verse demands particular attention. We shall consider poetical language, first, as significant; and, secondly, as susceptible of harmony. If, as it has been endeavoured to prove, poetry be imitative of nature, poetical fictions of real events, poetical images of real appearances in the visible creation, and poetical personages of real human characters; it would seem to follow, that the language of poetry must be an imitation of the language of nature.
According to Dr Beattie, that language is natural which is suited to the speaker's condition, character, and circumstances. And as, for the most part, the images and sentiments of serious poetry are copied from the images and sentiments, not of real, but of improved, nature; so the language of serious poetry must (as hinted already) be a transcript, not of the real language of nature, which is often dissonant and rude, but of natural language improved as far as may be consistent with probability, and with the supposed character of the speaker.
If this be not the case, if the language of poetry be such only as we hear in conversation or read in history, it will, instead of delight, bring disappointment: because it will fall short of what we expect from an art which is recommended rather by its pleasurable qualities than by its intrinsic utility; and to which, in order to render it pleasing, we grant higher privileges than to any other kind of literary composition, or any other mode of human language.
The next inquiry must therefore be, "What are those improvements that peculiarly belong to the language of poetry?" And these may be comprehended under two heads; poetical words, and tropes and figures.
Art. I. Of Poetical Words.
One mode of improvement peculiar to poetical diction results from the use of those words and phrases which, because they rarely occur in prose, and frequently in verse, are by the grammarian and lexicographer termed poetical. In these some languages abound more than others: but no language perhaps is altogether without them, and perhaps no language can be so in which any number of good poems have been written: for poetry is better remembered than prose, especially by poetical authors, who will always be apt to imitate the phraseology of those they have been accustomed to read and admire; and thus, in the works of poets down through successive generations, certain phrases may have been conveyed, which, though originally perhaps in common use, are now confined to poetical composition. Prose writers are not so apt to imitate one another, at least in words and phrases, both because they do not so well remember one another's phraseology, and also because their language is less artificial, and must not, if they would make it easy and flowing (without which it cannot be elegant), depart essentially from the style of correct conversation.
Poets, too, on account of the greater difficulty of their numbers, have, both in the choice and in the arrangement of words, a better claim to indulgence, and stand more in need of a discretionary power.
The language of Homer differs materially from what was written and spoken in Greece in the days of Socrates. It differs in the mode of inflection, it differs in the syntax, it differs even in the words: so that one might read Homer with ease who could not read Xenophon; or Xenophon, without being able to read Hom-
VOL. XVI. Part II. Of Poetical ming unnatural, may admit of, and which the genius Words. of poetry, as an art subservient to pleasure, may be thought to require.
The French poetry in general is distinguished from