Emphatically may it be said of the Poet, as Shakespeare hath said of man, 'that he looks

before and after.' He is the rock of defence for human nature; an upholder and preserver,

carrying everywhere with him relationship and love. In spite of difference of soil and

climate, of language and manners, of laws and customs: in spite of things silently gone

out of mind, and things violently destroyed; the Poet binds together by passion and

knowledge the vast empire of human society, as it is spread over the whole earth, and

over all time. The objects of the Poet's thoughts are everywhere; though the eyes and

senses of man are, it is true, his favourite guides, yet he will follow wheresoever he can

find an atmosphere of sensation in which to move his wings. Poetry is the first and last of

all knowledge-it is as immortal as the heart of man. If the labours of Men of science

should ever create any material revolution, direct or indirect, in our condition, and in the

impressions which we habitually receive, the Poet will sleep then no more than at

present; he will be ready to follow the steps of the Man of science, not only in those

general indirect effects, but he will be at his side, carrying sensation into the midst of the

objects of the science itself. The remotest discoveries of the Chemist, the Botanist, or

Mineralogist, will be as proper objects of the Poet's art as any upon which it can be

employed, if the time should ever come when these things shall be familiar to us, and the

relations under which they are contemplated by the followers of these respective sciences

shall be manifestly and palpably material to us as enjoying and suffering beings. If the

time should ever come when what is now called science, thus familiarized to men, shall

be ready to put on, as it were, a form of flesh and blood, the Poet will lend his divine

spirit to aid the transfiguration, and will welcome the Being thus produced, as a dear and

genuine inmate of the household of man.-It is not, then, to be supposed that anyone,

who holds that sublime notion of Poetry which I have attempted to convey, will break in

upon the sanctity and truth of his pictures by transitory and accidental ornaments, and

endeavour to excite admiration of himself by arts, the necessity of which must manifestly

depend upon the assumed meanness of his subject.

What has been thus far said applies to Poetry in general; but especially to those parts of 21

composition where the Poet speaks through the mouths of his characters; and upon this

point it appears to authorize the conclusion that there are few persons of good sense, who

would not allow that the dramatic parts of composition are defective, in proportion as

they deviate from the real language of nature, and are coloured by a diction of the Poet's

own, either peculiar to him as an individual Poet or belonging simply to Poets in general;

to a body of men who, from the circumstance of their compositions being in metre, it is

expected will employ a particular language.

It is not, then, in the dramatic parts of composition that we look for this distinction of

language; but still it may be proper and necessary where the Poet speaks to us in his own

person and character. to this I answer by referring the Reader to the description before

given of a Poet. Among the qualities there enumerated as principally conducing to form a

Poet, is implied nothing differing in kind from other men, but only in degree. The sum of

what was said is, that the Poet is chiefly distinguished from other men by a greater

promptness to think and feel without immediate external excitement, and a greater power

in expressing such thoughts and feelings as are produced in him in that manner. But these

passions and thoughts and feelings are the general passions and thoughts and feelings of

men. and with what are they connected? Undoubtedly with our moral sentiments and

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