metrical language depends. Among the chief of these causes is to be reckoned a principle

which must be well known to those who have made any of the Arts the object of accurate

reflection; namely, the pleasure which the mind derives from the perception of similitude

in dissimilitude. This principle is the great spring of the activity of our minds, and their

chief feeder. From this principle the direction of the sexual appetite, and all the passions

connected with it, take their origin: it is the life of our ordinary conversation; and upon

the accuracy with which similitude in dissimilitude, and dissimilitude in similitude are

perceived, depend our taste and our moral feelings. It would not be a useless employment

to apply this principle to the consideration of metre, and to show that metre is hence

enabled to afford much pleasure, and to point out in what manner that pleasure is

produced. But my limits will not permit me to enter upon this subject, and I must content

myself with a general summary.

I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its

origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity: the emotion is contemplated till, by a

species of reaction, the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that

which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself

actually exist in the mind. In this mood successful composition generally begins, and in a

mood similar to this it is carried on; but the emotion, of whatever kind, and in whatever

degree, from various causes, is qualified by various pleasures, so that in describing any

passions whatsoever, which are voluntarily described, the mind will, upon the whole, be

in a state of enjoyment. If Nature be thus cautious to preserve in a state of enjoyment a

being so employed, the Poet ought to profit by the lesson held forth to him, and ought

especially to take care, that, whatever passions he communicates to his Reader, those

passions, ifhis Reader's mind be sound and vigorous, should always be accompanied

with an overbalance of pleasure. Now the music of harmonious metrical language, the

sense of difficulty overcome, and the blind association of pleasure which has been

previously received from works of rhyme or metre of the same or similar construction, an

indistinct perception perpetually renewed of language closely resembling that of real life,

and yet, in the circumstance of metre, differing from it so widely-all these

imperceptibly make up a complex feeling of delight, which is of the most important use

in tempering the painful feeling always found intermingled with powerful descriptions of

the deeper passions. This effect is always produced in pathetic and impassioned poetry;

while, in lighter compositions, the ease and gracefulness with which the Poet manages

his numbers are themselves confessedly a principal source of the gratification of the

Reader. All that it is necessary to say, however, upon this subject, may be effected by

affirming, what few persons will deny, that, of two descriptions, either of passions,

manners, or characters, each of them equally well executed, the one in prose and the

other in verse, the verse will be read a hundred times where the prose is read once.

Having thus explained a few of my reasons for writing in verse, and why I have chosen

subjects from common life, and endeavoured to bring my language near to the real

language of men, if I have been too minute in pleading my own cause, I have at the same

time been treating a subject of general interest; and for this reason a few words shall be

added with reference solely to these particular poems, and to some defects which will

probably be found in them. I am sensible that my associations must have sometimes been

particular instead of general, and that, consequently, giving to things a false importance, I

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