conjuring up in himself passions, which are indeed far from being the same as those

produced by real events, yet (especially in those parts of the general sympathy which are

pleasing and delightful) do more nearly resemble the passions produced by real events,

than anything which, from the motions of their own minds merely, other men are

accustomed to feel in themselves:- whence, and from practice, he has acquired a greater

readiness and power in expressing what he thinks and feels, and especially those

thoughts and feelings which, by his own choice, or from the structure of his own mind,

arise in him without immediate external excitement.

But whatever portion of this faculty we may suppose even the greatest Poet to possess,

there cannot be a doubt that the language which it will suggest to him, must often, in

liveliness and truth, fall short of that which is uttered by men in real life, under the actual

pressure of those passions, certain shadows of which the Poet thus produces, or feels to

be produced, in himself.

However exalted a notion we would wish to cherish of the character of a Poet, it is

obvious, that while he describes and imitates passions, his employment is in some degree

mechanical, compared with the freedom and power of real and substantial action and

suffering. So that it will be the wish of the Poet to bring his feelings near to those of the

persons whose feelings he describes, nay, for short spaces of time, perhaps, to let himself

slip into an entire delusion, and even confound and identify his own feelings with theirs;

modifYing only the language which is thus suggested to him by a consideration that he

describes for a particular purpose, that of giving pleasure. Here, then, he will apply the

principle of selection which has been already insisted upon. He will depend upon this for

removing what would otherwise be painful or disgusting in the passion; he will feel that

there is no necessity to trick out or to elevate nature: and, the more industriously he

applies this principle, the deeper will be his faith that no words, which his fancy or

imagination can suggest, will be to be compared with those which are the emanations of

reality and truth.

But it may be said by those who do not object to the general spirit of these remarks,

that, as it is impossible for the Poet to produce upon all occasions language as exquisitely

fitted for the passion as that which the real passion itself suggests, it is proper that he

should consider himself as in the situation of a translator, who does not scruple to

substitute excellencies of another kind for those which are unattainable by him; and

endeavours occasionally to surpass his original, in order to make some amends for the

general inferiority to which he feels that he must submit. But this would be to encourage

idleness and unmanly despair. Further, it is the language of men who speak of what they

do not understand; who talk of Poetry as of a matter of amusement and idle pleasure;

who will converse with us as gravely about a taste for Poetry, as they express it, as if it

were a thing as indifferent as a taste for rope-dancing, or Frontiniac or Sherry. Aristotle, I

have been told, has said, that Poetry is the most philosophic of all writing: it is so: its

object is truth, not individual and local, but general, and operative; not standing upon

external testimony, but carried alive into the heart by passion; truth which is its own

testimony, which gives competence and confidence to the tribunal to which it appeals,

and receives them from the same tribunal. Poetry is the image of man and nature. The

obstacles which stand in the way of the fidelity of the Biographer and Historian, and of

their consequent utility, are incalculably greater than those which are to be encountered

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