Poftum. its prefent ftate. It is, fays he, of an oblong figure, about two miles and a half in circumference. It has four gates, which are oppofite to each other. On the key-ftone of the arch of the north gate, on the outfide, is the figure of Neptune in basso relievo, and within a bippocampus. The walls which still remain are compofed of very large cubical ftones, and are extremely thick, in fome parts 18 feet. That the walls have remained unto this time is owing to the very exact manner in which the stones are fitted to one another (a circumftance obferved univerfally in the masonry of the ancients), and perhaps in fome measure to a ftalactical coneretion which has grown over them. On the walls here and there are placed towers of different heights; those near the gates being much higher and larger than the others, and evidently of modern workmanship. He obferves, that, from its fituation among marshes, bituminous and fulphurcous fprings, Poestum must have been whole fome; a circumftance mentioned by Strabo, Norbofam eam facit fluvius in paludes diffufus. In fuch a fituation the water must have been bad. Hence the inhabitants were obliged to convey that neceffary of life from purer springs by means of aqueducts, of which many veftiges ftill remain. Origin The principal monuments of antiquity are a theatre, an amphitheatre, and three temples. The theatre and amphitheatre are much ruined. The firft temple is hexaftylos, and amphiproftylos. At one end, the pilafters and two columns which divided the cella from the pronaos are still remaining. Within the cella are two rows of fmaller columns, with an architrave, which support the fecond order. This temple our author takes to be A Poet. of that kind called by Vitruvius hyphathros, and supports Poestum, POET, the author of a poem. See the article Provencal POETS. See TROUBADOURS. POETRY. MIDST thofe thick clouds which envelope the feized with a facred delirium. The immortal fwans first ages of the world, reafon and history throw floated on its waves. Apollo was accompanied by the fome lights on the origin and primitive employment of Mufesthofe nine learned fifters-the daughters of: this divine art. Reafon fuggefts, that before the inven- Memory: and he was conftantly attended by the Graces. tion of letters, all the people of the earth had no other Pegafus, his winged courfer, transported him with a ramethod of tranfmitting to their defcendants the prin- pid flight into all the regions of the universe. Happy ciples of their worship, their religious ceremonies, their emblems! by which we at this day embellish our poe-laws, and the renowned actions of their fages and heroes, try, as no one has ever yet been able to invent more than by poetry; which included all thefe objects in a brilliant images. kind of hymns that fathers fung to their children, in order to engrave them with indelible ftrokes in their hearts. History not only informs us, that Mofes and Miriam, the first authors that are known to mankind, fung, on the borders of the Red Sea, a fong of divine praife, to celebrate the deliverance which the Almighty had vouchfafed to the people of Ifrael, by opening a paffage to them through the waters; but it has also tranfmitted to us the fong itself, which is at once the most ancient monument and a mafter-piece of poetic compofition. The Greeks, a people the moft ingenious, the moft animated, and in every fense the most accomplished, that the world ever produced-ftrove to ravish from the Hebrews the precious gift of poetry, which was vouchfafed them by the Supreme Author of all nature, that they might afcribe it to their false deities. According to their ingenious fictions, Apollo became the god of poetry, and dwelt on the hills of Phocis, Parnaffus, and Helicon, whofe feet were washed by the waters of Hyppocrene, of which each mortal that ever drank was The literary annals of all nations afford veftiges of poetry from the remoteft ages. They are found among the moft favage of the ancient barbarians, and the most defolate of all the Americans. Nature afferts her rights in every country and every age. Tacitus mentions the verfes and the hymns of the Germans, at the time when that rough people yet inhabited the woods, and while their manners were ftill favage. The first inhabitants of Runnia, and the other northern countries, thofe of Gaul, Albion, Iberia, Aufonia, and other nations of Europe, had their poetry, as well as the ancient people of Afia, and of the known borders of Africa. But the fimple productions of nature have conftantly fomething unformed, rough, and favage. The Divine Wisdom appears to have placed the ingenious and polished part of mankind on the earth, in order to refine that which comes from her bofom rude and imperfect : and thus art has polished poetry, which iffued quite naked and favage from the brains of the first of mankind. But what is Poetry? It would be to abridge the 6 limits Univ. Erud. limits of the poetic empire, to contract the sphere of Definition this divine art, fhould we fay, in imitation of all the of poetry. dictionaries and other treatifes on verfification, That poetry is the art of making verses, of lines or periods that are in rhyme or metre. This is rather a grammatical explanation of the word, than a real definition of the thing, and it would be to degrade poetry thus to define it. The father of criticifm has denominated poetry Texy keμnlixn, an imitative art: but this, though juft in itself, is too general for a definition, as it does not discriminate poetry from other arts which depend equally on imitation. The jufteft definition feems to be that given by Baron Bielfield, That poetry is the art of expreffing our thoughts by fiction. In fact, it is after this manner (if we reflect with attention) that all the metaphors and allegories, all the various kinds of fiction, form the firft materials of a poetic edifice: it is thus that all images, all comparisons, allufions, and figures, especially those which personify moral subjects, as virtues and vices, concur to the decorating of fuch a ftructure. A work, therefore, that is filled with invention, that inceffantly prefents images which render the reader attentive and affected, where the author gives interefting fentiments to every thing that he makes fpeak, and where he makes fpeak by fenfible figures all thofe objects which would affect the mind but weakly when clothed in a fimple profaic ftyle, such a work is a poem. While that, though it be in verfe, which is of a didactic, dogmatic, or moral nature, and where the objects are prefented in a manner quite fimple, with out fiction, without images or ornaments, cannot be called poetry, but merely a work in verfe; for the art of reducing thoughts, maxims, and periods, into rhyme or metre, is very different from the art of poetry. poetry. An ingenious fable, a lively and interefting romance, a comedy, the fublime narrative of the actions of a hero, fuch as the Telemachus of M. Fenelon, though written in profe, but in measured profe, is therefore a work of poetry: because the foundation and the fuperftructure are the productions of genius, as the whole proceeds from fiction; and truth itself appears to have employed an innocent and agreeable deception to inftruct with efficacy. This is fo true, that the pencil also, in order to pleafe and affect, has recourfe to fiction; and this part of painting is called the poetic compofition of a picture. It is therefore by the aid of fiction that poetry, fo to speak, paints its expreffions, that it gives a body and a mind to its thoughts, that it animates and exalts that which would otherwife have remained arid and infenfible. It is the peculiar privilege of poetry to exalt inanimate things into animals, and abstract ideas into perfons. The former licence is fo common, that it is now confidered as nothing more than a characteristical dialect appropriated by the poets to diftinguish themselves from the writers of profe; and it is at the fame time fo effential, that we queftion much if this fpecies of compofition could fubfift without it: for it will perhaps, upon examination, be found, that in every poetical defcription fome of the qualities of Animal Nature are ascribed to things not having life. Every work, therefore, where the thoughts are expreffed by fictions or images, is poetic; and every work where they are expreffed naturally, fimply, and without ornament, although it be in verfe, is profaic. cffential to poetry, ona Verfe, however, is not to be regarded as foreign or fuperfluous to poetry. To reduce thofe images, thofe fictions, into verfe, is one of the greatest difficulties in poetry, and one of the greatest merits in a poem: and for these reasons, the cadence, the harmony of founds, particularly that of rhyme, delight the ear to a high degree, and the mind infenfibly repeats them while the eye reads them. There refults therefore a pleasure to the mind, and a strong attachment to these ornaments: but this pleasure would be frivolous, and even childish, 3 if it were not attended by a real utility. Verfes were Verfe, invented in the firft ages of the world, merely to though not aid and to ftrengthen the memory: for cadence, harmony, and especially rhyme, afford the greatest affiftance of its ex to the memory that art can invent; and the images, cellencies. or poetic fictions, that strike our fenfes, affift in graving them with fuch deep traces in our minds, as even time itself frequently cannot efface. How many excellent apophthegms, fentences, maxims, and precepts, would have been buried in the abyss of oblivion, if poetry had not preferved them by its harmony? To give more efficacy to this lively impreffion, the first poets fung their verfes, and the words and phrases muft neceffarily have been reduced, at leaft to cadence, or they could not have been fufceptible of mufical expreffion. One of the great excellencies, therefore, though not a neceffary conftitucnt, of poetry, confifts in its being expreffed in verfe. See Part III. PART I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE ART. SECT.I. Of the Effence and End of Poetry. THE HE fence of Polite ARTS in general, and confequently of poetry in particular, confifts in expreffion; and we think that, to be poetic, the expreffion muft necefrily arise from fiction, or invention. (See the arEffence of ticle ART, particularly from n° 12. to the end.) This invention, which is the fruit of happy genius alone, arifes, L. From the subject itself of which we undertake to treat: 2. From the manner in which we treat that fubject, or the fpecies of writing of which we make ufe: 3. From the plan that we propofe to follow in conformity to this manner; and, 4. From the method of executing this plan in its full detail.! Our firft guides, the ancients, afford us no lights that can elucidate all thefe objects in general. The precepts which Ariftotle lays down, relate to epic and dramatic poetry only: and which, by the way, confirms our idea, that antiquity itfelf made the effence of poetry to confift in fiction, and not in that species of verfe which is deftitute of it, or in that which is not capable of it. But fince this art has arrived to a great degree of perfection; and as poetry, like electricity, communicates its fire to every thing it touches, and animates and embellishes whatever it treats; there feems to be no subject in the univerfe to which poetry cannot be applied, and which it cannot render equally brilliant and pleafing. From this univerfality of poetry, from its peculiar property of expreffion by fiction, which is applicable to all fubjects, have arifen its different fpecies, of which a particular defcription will be given in the second part. Horace, in a well-known verfe, has been fuppofed tò Y 2 declare of declare the end of poetry to be twofold, to please, or to make out his couplet, infinuates, that the gladnels of instruct: Invention. 5 End of poetry. Aut prodeffe volunt, aut delectare poeta. But Dr Beattie maintains, that the ultimate end of Fays on this art is to please; inftruction being only one of the Poetry and means (and not always a neceflary one) by which that Music, ultimate end is to be accomplished. The paffage rightly Part'. chap. i. understood, he obferves, will not appear to contain any thing inconfiftent with this doctrine. The author is there stating a comparifon between the Greek and Ro man writers, with a view to the poetry of the stage; and, after commending the former for their correctnefs, and for the liberal fpirit wherewith they conducted their literary labours, and blaming his countrymen for their inaccuracy and avarice, he proceeds thus: "The ends propofed by our dramatic poets (or by poets in general) are, to please, to inftruct, or to do both. When inftruction is your aim, let your moral fentences be expreffed with brevity, that they may be readily understood, and long remembered: where you mean to pleafe, let your fictions be conformable to truth, or probability. The elder part of your audience (or readers) have no relish for poems that give pleasure only without inftruction; nor the younger for fuch writings as give inftruction without pleasure. He only can fecure the univerfal fuffrage in his favour, who blends the useful with the agreeable, and delights at the fame time that he instructs the reader. Such are the works that bring money to the bookfeller, that pafs into foreign countries, and perpetuate the author's name Her. Ar. through a long fucceffion of ages t."-Now, what is Poet. 333--the meaning of all this? What, but that to the perfection of dramatic poetry (or, if you please, of poetry in general) both found morals and beautiful fiction are re. quifite? But Horace never meant to fay, that inftruetion, as well as pleafure, is neceffary to give to any compolition the poetical character; or he would not in another place have celebrated with fo much affection and rapture the melting strains of Sappho, and the Hor. Carm playful genius of Anacreon ‡,-two authors tranfcen lib 4. ode 9. dently fweet, but not remarkably inftructive. We are fure, that pathos, and harmony, and elevated language, Hor. Sat. were, in Horace's opinion, effential to poetry ; and lib. 1. fat. 4 of thefe decorations nobody will affirm that instruction is the end, who confiders that the most inftructive books in the world are written in plain profe. 347. ver.40. Poctical Jared In fhort, our author has endeavoured by many ingenious arguments and illuftrations to establish it as a truth in criticifm, that the end of poetry is to pleafe. Verfes, if pleafing, may be poetical, though they conlittle or no instruction; but verses, whofe fole me vey rit it is that they convey inftruction, are not poetical. Inftruction, however, he admits, especially in poems of length, is neceffary to their perfection, becaufe they would not be perfedly agreeable without it. SECT. II. Of the Standard of Poetical Invention. HOMER'S beautiful defcription of the heavens and invention earth, as they appear in a calm evening by the light of to be regu- the moon and stars, concludes with this circumftance, Iliad, b. 8." And the heart of the fhepherd is glad q." Madame Dacier, from the turn fhe gives to the paffage in her verfion, feems to think, and Pope, in order perhaps to V.555. of the fhepherd is owing to his fenfe of the utility of thofe Invention. luminaries. And this may in part be the cafe: but this is not in Homer; nor is it a neceffary confideration. It is true, that, in contemplating the material univerfe, they who difcern the causes and effects of things must be more rapturoufly entertained than those who perceive Beattie's nothing but fhape and fize, colour and motion. Yet, s, in the mere outfide of Nature's work, there is a fplendor chap. i and a magnificence to which even untutored minds cannot attend without great delight. Not that all peafants or all philofophers are equally fufceptible of thefe charming impreffions. It is ftrange to obferve the callousness of fome men, before whom all the glories of heaven and earth pafs in daily fucceffion, without touching their hearts, elevating their fancy, or leaving any durable remembrance. Even of those who pretend to fenfibility, how many are there to whom the luftre of the rifing or fetting fun; the sparkling concave of the midnight-fky; the mountain-foret toffing and roaring to the ftorm, or warbling with all the melodies of a fummer-evening; the fweet interchange of hill and dale, fhade and sunshine, grove, lawn, and water, which an extenfive landscape offers to the view; the scenery of the ocean, fo lovely, fo majeftic, and so tremendous and the many pleafing varieties of the animal and vege table kingdoms, could never afford fo much real fatisfaction, as the steams and noife of a ball-room, the infipid fiddling and fqueaking of an opera, or the vexations and wranglings of a card-table! But fome minds there are of a different make; who, even in the early part of life, receive from the contem plation of Nature a fpecies of delight which they would hardly exchange for any other, and who, as avarice and ambition are not the infirmities of that period, would, with equal fincerity and rapture, exclaim, I care not, Fortune, what you me deny; Part I. Cafle of Indolence. Such minds have always in them the feeds of true taste, and frequently of imitative genius. At least, though their enthufiaftic or vifionary turn of mind (as the man of the world would call it) should not always incline them to practise poetry or painting, we need not fcruple to affirm, that without fome portion of this enthusiasm who would imitate the works of nature, muft first acno perfon ever became a true poet or painter. For he eurately obferve them; and accurate obfervation is to be expected from thofe only who take great pleasure in it. To a mind thus difpofed no part of creation is indifferent. In the crowded city and howling wildernefs; in the cultivated province and folitary ifle; in the flowery lawn and craggy mountain; in the murmur of the rivulet and in the uproar of the ocean; in the radiance of fummer and gloom of winter; in the thunder of heaven and in the whifper of the breeze; he ftill finds fomething to rouze or to foothe his imagination, to draw forth his affections, or to employ his underftanding. And from every mental energy that is not attended Part I. Of Invention. nature. POETR This happy fenfibility to the beauties of nature should over. But not to infift longer on those ardent emotions that By the ftandard of are peculiar to the enthufiaftic difciple of nature, may it not be affirmed of all men, without exception, or at leaft of all the enlightened part of mankind, that they are gratified by the contemplation of things natural, as opposed to unnatural? Monftrous fights pleafe but for a moment, if they please at all; for they derive their charm from the beholder's amazement, which is quickly We read indeed of a man of rank in Sicily *, *Brydone's who chooses to adorn his villa with pictures and ftatues sily, let. 24. in of moft unnatural deformity: but it is a fingular inftance; and one would not be much more surprised to hear of a perfon living without food, or growing fat by the use of poison. To fay of any thing, that it is contrary to nature, denotes cenfure and difguft on the part of the speaker; as the epithet natural intimates an agreeable quality, and feems for the most part to imply, that a thing is as it ought to be, fuitable to our own tafte, and congenial with our own conftitution. Think with what fentiments we should perufe a poem, in which nature was totally mifreprefented, and principles of thought, and of operation fupposed to take place, repugnant to every thing we had feen or heard of:-in which, for example, avarice and coldness were ascribed to youth, and prodigality and paffionate attachment to the old; in which men were made to act at random, fometimes according to character, and fometimes contrary to it; in which cruelty and envy were productive of love, and beneficence and kind affection of hatred; in which beauty was invariably the object of dislike, and nglinefs of defire; in which fociety was rendered happy by atheism and the promifcuous perpetration of crimes, and juftice and fortitude were held in univerfal contempt. Or think, how we fhould relish a painting, where no regard was had to the proportions, colours, or any of the phyfical laws, of Nature:-where the ears and eyes of animals were placed in their fhoulders; where the fky was green and the grafs crimfon; where trees grew with their branches in the earth and their roots in the air; where men were feen fighting after their heads were cut off, fhips failing on the land, lions entangled in cob Y. 173 Of webs, fheep preying on dead carcafes, fifhes fporting in Let it be remarked, too, that though we distinguish Be Poetry, therefore, and indeed every art whose end is to please, must be natural; and if so, muft exhibit real matter of fact, or fomething like it; that is, in other words, muft be either according to truth or according to verifimilitude. 4 And tho' every part of the material universe abounds < in objects of pleafurable contemplation, yet nothing in nature fo powerfully touches our hearts, or gives so great Human affairs and human feelings are variety of exercise to our moral and intellectual faculties, as man. univerfally interesting. There are many who have no great relish for the poetry that delineates only irrational or inanimate beings; but to that which exhibits the fortunes, the characters, and the conduct of men, there is hardly any person who does not liften with fympathy and delight. And hence, to imitate human action, is confidered by Ariftotle as effential to this art; and must be allowed to be effential to the most pleasing and moit inftructive part of it, Epic and Dramatic compofition. Mere deferiptions, however beautiful, and moral reflections, however juft, become tiresome, where our paffions are not occafionally awakened by fome event that con-cerns our fellow-men. Do not all readers of taste receive peculiar pleasure from those little tales or episodes with which Thomson's descriptive poem on the Seafons is here and there enlivened? and are they 'not fenfible, that the thunder-ftorm would not have been half fo interefting without the tale of the two lovers (Summ. v. 1171); nor the harvest-fcene, without that of Palemon and Lavinia (Aut. v. 177.); nor the driving fnows, without that exquifite picture of a man perishing among them (Winter, v. 276.)? It is much to be regretted, that Young did not employ the fame artifice to animate his Night-Thoughts. Sentiments and defcriptions may be regarded as the pilafters, carvings, gildings, and other decorations of the poetical fabric: but human actions are the columns and the rafters that give it ftability and elevation. Or, changing the metaphor, we may confider thefe as the foul which informs the lovely frame; while those are little more than the ornaments of the body. Whether the pleasure we take in things natural, and 5 Invention 8 Habit has great inover fenti Auence ment and upon poetry. 9 No necef fity that Of Of our diflike to what is the reverfe, be the effect of habit quiefces in them, or at least yields them that degree of or of conftitution, is not a material inquiry. There is credit which is neceffary to render them pleafing: hence Invention. nothing abfurd in fuppofing, that between the foul, in the fairies, ghofs, and witches of Shakespeare, are adits first formation, and the rest of nature, a mutual harmitted as probable beings; and angels obtain a place in mony and fympathy may have been established, which religious pictures though we know that they do not experience may indeed confirm, but no perverfe habits now appear in the scenery of real life. A poet who could entirely fubdue. As no fort of education could fhould at this day make the whole action of his tragedy make man believe the contrary of a felf-evident axiom, depend upon enchantment, and produce the chief events or reconcile him to a life of perfect folitude; fo we by the affiftance of fupernatural agents, would indeed be should imagine, that our love of nature and regularity cenfured as tranfgreffing the bounds of probability, be feeling, and might still remain with us in fome degree, though we banished from the theatre to the nursery, and conof course had been born and bred in the Sicilian villa above- demned to write fairy tales inftead of tragedies. But mentioned, and never heard any thing applauded but Shakespeare was in no danger of fuch cenfures: In his what deferved cenfure, nor cenfured but what merited days the doctrine of witchcraft was established both by applaufe. Yet habit must be allowed to have a power- law and by the fafhion; and it was not only unpolite, ful influence over the fentiments and feelings of man- but criminal, to doubt it. Now indeed it is admitted kind: for objects to which we have been long accuf- only by the vulgar; but it does not therefore follow tomed, we are apt to contract a fondnefs: we conceive that an old poem built upon it fhould not be acceptable them readily, and contemplate them with pleafure; nor to the learned themselves. When a popular opinion has do we quit our old tracts of fpeculation or practice with- long been exploded, and has become repugnant to phi out reluctance and pain. Hence in part arifes our at- lofophical belief, the fictions built upon it are ftill adtachment to our own profeffions, our old acquaintance, mitted as natural, both because we all remember to have our native foil, our homes, and to the very hills, ftreams, liftened to them in childhood with some degree of creand rocks in our neighbourhood. It would therefore dit, and because we know that they were accounted nabe ftrange, if man, accustomed as he is from his earliest tural by the people to whom they were first addreffed ; days to the regularity of nature, did not contract a liking whose sentiments and views of things we are willing to to her productions and principles of operation. adopt, when, by the power of pleafing defcription, we are introduced into their scenes, and made acquainted with their manners, Hence we admit the theology of the ancient poets, their Elyfium and Tartarus, Scylla and Charybdis, Cyclops and Circe, and the reft of those "beautiful wonders" (as Horace calls them) which were believed in the heroic ages; as well as the demons and enchantments of Taffo, which may be fuppofed to have obtained no fmall degree of credit among the Italians of the 16th century, and are suitable enough to the notions that prevailed univerfally in Europe not long before (A). In fact, when poetry is in other respects true, when it gives an accurate difplay of those parts of nature about which we know that men in all ages muft have entertained the fame opinion, namely, thofe appear ançes in the visible creation, and those feelings and workings of the human mind, which are obvious to all mankind;-when poetry is thus far according to nature, we are very willing to be indulgent to what is fictitious in it, and to grant a temporary allowance to any system of fable which the author pleases to adopt ; provided that he lay the scene in a diftant country, or fix the date to a remote period. This is no unreasonable piece of complaifance; we owe it both to the poet and to ourselves; for without it we should neither form a right estimate of his genius, nor receive from his works that pleafure which they were intended to impart. Let him, how ever, take care, that his system of fable be fuch as his countrymen and cotemporaries (to whom his work is immediately addreffed) might be fuppofed capable of yielding their affent to; for otherwife we fhould not believe him to be in earnest: and let him connect it as much the poet 'fhould exactly copy nature. ΤΟ Fiction fufficiently conform able to nature when it accords with received opinions, Yet we neither expect nor defire, that every human invention, where the end is only to please, should be an exact tranfcript of real exiftence. It is enough, that the mind acquiefce in it as probable or plaufible, or fuch as we think might happen without any direct oppofition to the laws of nature;-Or, to speak more accurately, it is enough that it be confiftent, either, firft, with general experience; or, fecondly, with popular opinion; or, thirdly, that it be confiftent with itself, and connected with probable circumstances. First: If a human invention be confiftent with general experience, we acquiefce in it as fufficiently probable. Particular experiences, however, there may be, fo uncommon, and fo little expected, that we fhould not admit their probability, if we did not know them to be true. No man of fenfe believes, that he has any likeli hood of being enriched by the discovery of hidden treafure; or thinks it probable, on purchafing a lotteryticket, that he fhall gain the first prize: and yet great wealth has actually been acquired by fuch good fortune. But we should look upon these as poor expedients in a play or romance for bringing about a happy catastrophe. We expect that fiction fhould be more confonant to the general tenor of human affairs; in a word, that not poffibility, but probability, should be the standard of poetical invention. : Secondly Fiction is admitted as conformable to this standard, when it accords with received opinions. Thefe may be erroneous, but are not often apparently repugnant to nature. On this account, and because they are familiar to us from our infancy, the mind readily ac (4) In the 14th century, the common people of Italy believed, that the poet Dante went down to hell; that the Inferno was a true account of what he saw there; and that his fallow complexion, and ftunted beard (which feemed by its growth and colour to have been too near the fire), were the confequence of his paffing so much of his time in that hot and fmoky region. See Vicende della Literatura del Sig. C. Denina, cap. 4. |