SECT. II.

The Poetical Principle.

HE source from which the imitative arts

TH

originally derive their energy is imagination-that internal feeling or sensibility, which by a spontaneous operation recognises a wonderful variety of different sentiments, emotions, passions, and affections, according to all the modes and diversities of pleasure and pain, excited in the mind by the different objects, actions, passions, and events which occur in all the various scenes and circumstances of human life.

This native sensibility is therefore the first principle of poetic art, without which, genius could neither have the power to imitate in order to produce the effect designed, nor would the mind be enabled to recognise that effect, when it was produced.

vol. i. chap. 7; Du Bos on Poetry, Painting, and Music; Knight and Alison on Taste; Burke on the Sublime and Beautiful; Tyrwhitt on Aristotle's Poetic, &c.-Editor.

However different from the external and moral senses these internal sensibilities may be, we can observe a general analogy subsisting between them. As the different kinds of good and evil, when distinguished by the moral principle, form all the different classes and varieties of moral action; so the different modes of pleasure and pain, as recognised by the poetical principle, give all their distinctive colours and varieties to the elegant arts. Nay, such is the general consistency and uniformity of things, that as we observe the external senses more perfect and the moral more acute, from their natural formation in some persons, than in others; so we remark this other principle to prevail in different minds with greater or less degrees of delicacy and refinement. And as the former are liable to be injured in their exercise and perverted in their use by habit or accident, and capable of being corrected by an act of reason; so is this poetical sense subject to be corrupted by habit, and corrected by good taste and sound criticism.

The higher degrees of this poetic feeling

are the rare and peculiar gift of nature; when signalized with the highest imitative talent, the happy combination is distinguished by the name of genius; and, when conducted by sound judgment, the result is taste. These endowments are more partially and capriciously bestowed than the other mental faculties. It is necessary there should be many moralists and philosophers, whilst a few poets will suffice for all the life, provided they are the best.

purposes of

SECT. III.

Poetical Reasoning.

UT what has reasoning, it may be asked,

BUT

to do with the productions of genius and taste? What has a dry and sombrous logic to do in the wild and luxuriant fields of imagination ?—An able philosopher and philologist shall give the answer: Every thing really elegant or sublime in composition is ultimately referable to the principles of sound logic; those principles, when readers little

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think of them, have still a latent force, and may be traced, if sought after, even in the politest of writers. By reasoning of this kind, an important union is established, the union between taste and truth. This is that splendid union which produced the classics of pure antiquity; which produced, in times less remote, the classics of modern days; and which those who now write, ought to cultivate with attention, if they wish to survive in the estimation of posterity. Taste is in fact but a species of inferior truth. It is the truth of elegance, of decoration, and of grace; which, as all truth is similar and congenial, coincides as it were spontaneously with the more severe and logical; but which, whenever destitute of that more solid support, resembles some fair but languid body; a body, specious in feature, but deficient in nerve; a body, where we seek in vain for that natural and just perfection, which arises from the pleasing harmony of strength and beauty associated1." Though the power of imagination by which the imitative or elegant

Harris's Philosophical Arrangements, p. 458.

arts are produced, called poetic genius, is the gift of nature, and falls to the lot of few, it is governed by general principles and laws which are founded also in nature, and are common to the whole species; and though delicacy of feeling, called taste, which perceives and relishes these beauties, is also in its highest degrees confined to few, it is corrected and improved by reasoning on such general laws or principles. The fine arts, as well as the sciences, are founded on general principles, and it is this which constitutes their truth. The poet who invents, or the critic who judges of these arts, can only carry them to perfection, by conforming to those fundamental principles. Thus the logic of poetry, as well as of philosophy, is of nice and difficult investigation, and they who succeed in it must be possessed of taste and genius as well as of learning. On these subjects both Plato and Aristotle laboured, and the sculptors, and statuaries, and painters of antiquity were doubtless guided by such general rules, though we have not many of such critical works of the ancients. But amongst the moderns we have abundance.—