Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

of learning, and judge of it by that comparison ; many parts, and those the most fublime and perfect, as being the production of the trueft genius under the conduct of the matureft judgment, will be acknowledged to be downright falsehood. Poets enjoy the privilege, with the consent of their father-critic, to be egregious falfifiers: * and their images are called, by one who was himself the first of poets, 'airy nothings.' But however false and unsubstantial the art may be confidered in its descriptions, fictions, and allufions, it may be true in its imitations; and if the Imitation be true and the Refemblances which it exhibits juft, it will produce a CERTAIN and UNIFORM Effect (for it cannot be called Conviction) on the human mind.

When descriptive Poetry is a verbal expreffion of external objects, or of internal emotions, either as they are immediately felt, or in their fenfible effects, it is a reprefentation of things as they really are; and is but a very little remove from hiftorical truth:

* Κατὰ τὴν παροιμιαν, πολλὰ ΨΕΥΔΟΝΤΑΙ ἀοιδοι. Ariftot. Metaph. lib. i, cap. 2.

and

and we know that hiftorians frequently enliven the narrative of real facts with all the embellishments of poetical defcription. But poetry asan art neglects, in its higher exercise, the reality of its representations; considering the effect they are able to produce on the Imagination, and not the conviction they work on the Understanding. It, therefore, exhibits things as they might be, and not as they really are, and evermore delights in Fiction. It feigns characters, circumstances, fituations, and actions, and sometimes heightens the fiction by Perfonification; and it improves the whole picture by exhibiting it under the veil of a picturesque and metaphorical Diction. If the characters are fuch as were ever capable of a real exiftence; if the fentiments would naturally rife in the circumstances described; if the actions are those that might be expected in real life, and the language attributed to the characters be fuch as if they had really exifted; the whole may

* Οὐ τὸ τὰ γινόμενα λέγειν, τέτο ποιητῇ ἔργον ἐςὶν, ἀλλ ̓ οἷα ἂν γένοιτο, καὶ τὰ δυνατὰ κατὰ τὸ εἰκὸς, ἢ τὸ avaynalov. Ariftot. De Poet. cap. ix.

be

be a grand and interesting Iye, as it is, indeed, an impofition upon the understanding, but fuch an impofition as the mind willingly indulges for the fake of the effect: in which effect confifts that POETICAL TRUTH, which it delights to entertain.

I

POETRY is first, DESCRIPTIVE, or a picturesque reprefentation of material and mental objects; fecondly, NARRATIVE OF EPIC, which is a representation of Facts and Actions in hiftorical fucceffion: thirdly, DRAMATIC, which gives to portions of feigned History the addition of perfonal Representation: and, fourthly PARABOLICAL, which couches mental objects under types, emblems, and actions; and, through the most elegant ve

* Partitio poefeos veriffima, atque maxime ex proprietate, præter illas divifiones, quæ funt ei cum hiftoria communes, (funt enim ficta chronica, vitæ fictæ, fictæ etiam relationes) ea eft, ut fit aut narrativa; aut dramatica; aut parabolica. Narrativa prorfus hiftoriam imitatur, ut fere fallat, nifi quod res extollat fæpius fupra fidem. Dramatica eft veluti hiftoria spectabilis ; nam conftituit imaginem rerum tanquam præfentium; hiftoria autem tanquam præteritarum. Parabolica vero est historia cum typo, quæ intellectualia deducit ad fenfum, Baconus De Aug. lib. ii, cap. 13.

hicle of instruction, conveys natural, moral,

and religious, truths.*

:

MIND, the univerfal Caufe of all things, exerted in the creation of the various and ftupendous works material and mental, which replenish and adorn the universe, is the energy of God and MIND operating in Poetic Art, and imitating, in its fublimer acts, all those material productions and mental operations, and giving them a more general, a more perfect, and instructive form, is the energy of Whilst other parts of learning are ufefully and honourably employed in exploring the Works, and in searching into the Will, of God, it is the high previlege of POETRY to emulate his Acts, in order to raise and to fublime the affections to the imitation of his Goodness, to the adoration of his Wisdom, and to the admiration of his Power. The end is not merely to delight and to entertain the imagination, but to enlarge the under

man.

• Alter eft ufus poefeos parabolicæ, priori quafi contrarius, qui facit (ut diximus) ad involucrum; earum nempe rerum, quarum dignitas tanquam velo quodam difcreta effe mereatur : hoc eft, cum occulta et myfteria religionis, politicæ, et philofophiæ, fabulis et parabolis veftiuntur. Ibid. lib. ii. cap. 13,

standing,

ftanding, to raise the genius, and to mend the heart. And it may be truly faid, as its votaries have often fuppofed, to partake in some measure of divinity; because it raises the mind above its natural condition, by accom modating its images to its defires; and, not like philofophy and hiftory, by fubmitting the mind to the nature of things." Ansent

[ocr errors]

If I were to pursue this subject any farther, I might enlarge upon the various and interefting EFFECTS of Poetry, and relieve the dryness, which is infeparable from philofophical difcuffion, by a more pleasing and popular mode of writing. But the plan I have proposed to execute calls my attention to other fubjects. Let none, however, from the 'viciousand profane example of fome who pervert the best of things to the worst of uses,

⚫ Adeo ut poefis, non folum ad delectionem, fed etiam ad animi magnitudinem et ad mores conferat. Quare et merito etiam divinitatis cujufpiam particeps videri poffit; quia animum erigit et in fublime rapit; rerum fimulachra ad animi defideria accommodando, non animum rebus (quod ratio facit et hiftoria) fubmittendo. Ibid. lib. ii. cap. 13.

• vilify

« FöregåendeFortsätt »