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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