phy; though the former may take different modes of representing it from the latter.

It would open too wide a field to enter here into abstruse psychological discussions : What is fancy; whence it is supplied; or how far it represents, or is intended to represent, with exactness, material objects, are even yet in some degree questions of doubt and darkness (1). A conclusion of the Understanding, drawn from memory; and separated from the mental presence of the image, or the sentiment, that gave birth to it, is not poetry.

But if poetry be the result of the highest riches of the mind, composed from internal, as well as external sources, augmented by its own labour and activity, how could any Critic even dream that an image drawn from the combined effects of natural materials and human genius, is in every case inferior to a simple image of external nature? Lord Byron has asked with as much truth as wit, « is not the image of a large ship under sail more poetical than an hog sailing in an high wind? » If the latter were deemed superior, it might as well be said, that the image of a man in a barbarous state is more poetical, than of a man cultivated by education; and refined by politeness. Providence has left to human Beings to do much for themselves; and by their own exertions to train and expand into excellence the powers bestowed on them!

To contend that poetry is excellent in proportion as it is an exact representation of an external image, even though it should be added that this image must be magnificent or beautiful, is to lower poetry far below Painting; and absolutely to lay aside its primary quality, its intel

(1) See Bonstetten's Recherches sur la nature et les lois de l'Imagination and his latest publication, Etudes de l'homme, ou Recherches sur les facultés de sentir et de penser. Genève 1821; 2 vol. 8.

lectuality! — How often do we hear it said

of a modern poem : « How exquisite !

of a specimen

It is quite a

picture! » Again of some of the noblest passages of our

« O these are

elder poets. no poetry! They want imagery, and description! « Take a passage, at hazard

from the x1th Book of Paradise Lost

one of Adam's

answers to the Angel Michael revealing the future to him:

« O visions ill foreseen! Better had I

Lived ignorant of future! So had borne
My part of evil only, each day's lot

Enough to bear; those now, that were dispensed

The burden of many ages, on me light

At once, by my foreknowlege gaining birth
Abortive, to torment me ere their being,

With thought that they must be. Let no man seek
Henceforth to be foretold, what shall befall
Him, or his children; evil he may be sure
Which neither his foreknowing can prevent;
And he the future evil shall no less

In apprehension than in substance feel,
Grievous to bear; but that care now is past;
Man is not whom to warn those few escaped,
Famine and anguish will at last consume,

Wandering that watery desert; I had hope
When violence was ceased; and war on earth,
All would have then gone well; peace would have crown'd
With length of happy days the race of man;

But I was far deceived; for now I see

Peace to corrupt no less than war to waste.
How comes it thus? Unfold, celestial guide,
And whether here the race of man will end. »

It is, no doubt, the business of poetry to carry us into the fields of Imagination but not into the fields of childish,

tawdry, and factitious Imagination! It is our business to imagine Beings consistent with the probability of their supposed natures we are however to imagine, or invent, not only their material forms; but also their intellectual structure; their thoughts, and feelings!

We are taught to survey this beautiful globe of inanimate objects with a Poet's eyes, when he enables us to associate with it those sentiments and those visions, which his tremulous heart and plastic fancy furnish. In the temple of his mind is built up a spiritual world, which if it draws something from external matter, draws more from its own inward fountains. It delights to give vent to the fullness of this splendor by communicating to others portions of this magic imminglement ! But these associations must always be in sympathy with the feelings and perceptions of our general nature. If they arise from peculiar habits; or from extravagant or forced trains of thought they will find no echo but in the few and sophisticated bosoms, which seek after novelty at the expence of truth.

It ought to excite no wonder, that a true Poet is a very rare Being, when we reflect on all the various and high qualities of nature, and also the cultivation, toil, and opportunity, which it requires, to make one! Of those in whom all these singular gifts and circumstances unite, probably at least two thirds are silenced by cold and cruel discouragement. The calamities of Life, to which this class are from their temperaments and habits extraordinarily exposed, extinguish the fire and debilitate the genius of others !

But another cause has been in operation for a frightful length of time, which perhaps has not been less destructive to the fruits of the real poet than these! It is false criticism; and a vicious taste in the public, which deems absurdity a proof of genius; and what is original because

it is monstrous, excellent because it is new! The sensitive disposition of him, whose endowments fit him for a Poet, often makes him in youth timid and self-diffident. He is turned from his natural ambitions; and attempts to enter a path, where he finds a loathing at every step. He can do nothing in the line of supposed excellence pointed out to him: he begins to doubt his powers; and sinks into despondence.

ore,

How little is there of solid excellence, of the genuine in most of the English Poets of fame (at least of temporary fame,) who have died in the last thirty years. They have as little applicable to the illustration of high morals, as they have of powerful and extended invention! I put Beattie and Cowper among the first but Beattie was perhaps too much cried up in his day; and has been too much neglected since. His Minstrel already flags sadly in the second Book and yet it is a Poem less than half finished; leaving all the main part, in which the trial of genius would have been placed, undeveloped. It is the religious Sect to which Cowper belonged, that has given him an extraneous popularity. Yet he had much of the ore of a true poet; though he was sometimes flat and insipid; and sometimes sickly. The seclusion caused by his morbid health had been a bar to those diversified mental riches, which give full vigour to genius. In the last forty years he had neither read enough; nor knew enough of what was passing in the world.

What shall we find in the most modern poetry of England, either to exemplify great moral truths, or to develop those magnificent or beautiful visions, which are the continual visitants of high fancies? How is our knowlege of the secret movements of the human heart improved by it?

It is the pursuit of false beauties, which is the bane of these productions. Their inventions, are not fictions to

illustrate Truth; but to set up Falsehood! This is the species of originality, which they seek; and in which they succeed. They are unlike, therefore, those who have preceded them, ex necessitate rei; for diversity, not propriety or probability, is their aim. The readers then, who contract a habit of admiring them, must, by obvious consequence, believe that they for the first time have discovered the genuine fountain of Poetry!

It is the wrong meaning attached to the word Fiction, which perpetually misleads the poetical theorist, and the Public who follow his dogmas. It is assumed, that Fiction means something different from what exists in the material or intellectual world: - - indeed for the most part the latter is forgot; and it is supposed that it can only refer to the former. What is it? Not a copy of an individual archetype; but invented as an illustration of the genus! If it illustrates no genus ; combinations of the author's head; wherein is its value? It wants one of the primary ingredients of poetical excellence, Truth!

but solely the capricious

It is easy to invent in this way, when the inventor is bound by no rules; nor is constrained to pay attention to any likeness. These are not lusus Naturæ; but lusus Artis; of which the pleasure ceases with the cessation of the Novelty! The same observations apply to language as to matter for every one knows there are poets of language, as well as poets of matter. Improbable and unnatural ornaments are as objectionable, as improbable and unnatural matter. Yet each catch the depraved taste of the multitude; and are practised by writers of minor genius, for the same reasons.

It is not surprising, that as long as Poetry resorts to these tricks, men of solid understanding reject it as a trifling Art. It thus deals in a factitious splendor; a glare