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the sentiments and feelings of mankind; for objects to Invention. which we have been long accustomed, we are apt to contract a fondness: we conceive them readily, and contemplate them with pleasure; nor do we quit our old tracts of speculation or practice without reluctance and pain. Hence in part arises our attachment to our own professions, our old acquaintance, our native soil, our homes, and to the very hills, streams, and rocks in our neighbourhood. It would therefore be strange, if man, accustomed as he is from his earliest days to the regularity of nature, did not contract a liking to her productions and principles of operation.

No neces

the poet should exactly copy

nature.

Yet we neither expect nor desire, that every human sity that invention, where the end is only to please, should be an exact transcript of real existence. It is enough, that the mind acquiesce in it as probable or plausible, or such as we think might happen without any direct opposition to the laws of nature:-Or, to speak more accurately, it is enough that it be consistent, either, first, with general experience; or, secondly, with popular opinion; or thirdly, that it be consistent with itself, and connected with probable circumstances.

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Fiction sufficiently conform

able to nature

First: If a human invention be consistent with general experience, we acquiesce in it as sufficiently probable. Particular experiences, however, there may be, so uncommon, and so little expected, that we should not admit their probability, if we did not know them to be true. No man of sense believes, that he has any likelihood of being enriched by the discovery of hidden treasure; or thinks it probable, on purchasing a lotteryticket, that he shall gain the first prize; and yet great wealth has actually been acquired by such 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 should be more consonant to the general tenor of human affairs; in a word, that not possibility, but probability, should be the standard of poetical invention.

Secondly Fiction is admitted as conformable to this standard, when it accords with received opinions. These may be erroneous, but are not often apparently repugnant to nature. On this account, and because they are when it ac- familiar to us from our infancy, the mind readily accords with quiesces in them, or at least yields them that degree of received credit which is necessary to render them pleasing: hence opinions, the fairies, ghosts, and witches of Shakespeare, are admitted as probable beings; and angels obtain a place in religious pictures, though we know that they do not now appear in the scenery of real life. A poet who should at this day make the whole action of his tragedy depend upon enchantment, and produce the chief events by the assistance of supernatural agents, would indeed be censured as transgressing the bounds of probability, be banished from the theatre to the nursery, and condemned to write fairy tales instead of tragedies. But Shakespeare was in no danger of such censures: In his days the doctrine of witchcraft was established both by law and by the fashion; and it was not only unpolite, but criminal, to

Of

doubt it. Now indeed it is admitted only by the vulgar; but it does not therefore follow that an old poem Invention, built upon it should not be acceptable to the learned themselves. When a popular opinion has long been exploded, and has become repugnant to philosophical belief, the fictions built upon it are still admitted as natural, both because we all remember to have listened to them in childhood with some degree of credit, and because we know that they were accounted natural by the people to whom they were first addressed; whose sentiments and views of things we are willing to adopt, when, by the power of pleasing description, we are introduced into their scenes, and made acquainted with their manners. Hence we admit the theology of the ancient poets, their Elysium and Tartarus, Scylla and Charybdis, Cyclops and Circe, and the rest of those "beautiful wonders" (as Horace calls them) which were believed in the heroic ages; as well as the demons and enchantments of Tasso, which may be supposed to have obtained no small degree of credit among the Italians of the 16th century, and are suitable enough to the notions that prevailed universally in Europe not long before (A). In fact, when poetry is in other respects true, when it gives an accurate display of those parts of nature about which we know that men in all ages must have entertained the same opinion, namely, those appearances 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 distant country, or fix the date to a remote period. This is no unreasonable piece of complaisance; 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 pleasure which they were intended to impart. Let him, however, take care, that his system of fable be such as his countrymen and cotemporaries (to whom his work is immediately addressed) might be supposed capable of yielding their assent to; for otherwise we should not believe him to be in earnest : and let him connect it as much as he can with probable circumstances, and make it appear in a series of events consistent with itself.

For (thirdly) if this be the case, we shall admit his stóry as probable, or at least as natural, and consequently be interested in it, even though it be not warranted by general experience, and derive but slender authority from popular opinion. Calyban, in the Tempest, would have shocked the mind as an improbability, if we had not been made acquainted with his origin, and seen his character displayed in a series of consistent behaviour. But when we are told that he sprung from a witch and a demon, a connection not contrary to the laws of nature, as they were understood in Shakespeare's time, and find his manners conformable to his descent, we are easily reconciled to the fiction. In the same sense, the Lilliputians

of

(A) 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 sallow complexion, and stunted beard (which seemed by its growth and colour to have been too near the fire), were the consequence of his passing so much of his time in that hot and smoky region. See Vicende della Literatura del Sig. C. Denina, cap. 4.

II and is

Beattie's Essays

ut supra

Of

tiny of any outward sense, and because it conveys information in regard both to the highest human charac. Invention ters, and the most important and wonderful events, and also to the affairs of unseen worlds and superior beings. Nor would it be improper to observe, that the several species of comic, of tragic, of epic composition, are not confined to the same degree of probability for that farce may be allowed to be less probable than the regular comedy; the masque than the regular tragedy; and the mixed epic, such as the Fairy Queen, and Orlando Furioso, than the pure epopee of Homer, Virgil, and Milton. But this part of the subject seems not to require further illustration. Enough has been said to show, that nothing unnatural can please; and that therefore poetry, whose end is to please, must be according

to nature.

And if so, it must be either according to real nature, or according to nature somewhat different from the reality.

Of of Swift may pass for probable beings; not so much beInvention. cause we know that a belief in pigmies was once current in the world (for the true ancient pigmy was at least thrice as tall as those whom Gulliver visited), but beconsistent cause we find that every circumstance relating to them with itself. accords with itself, and with their supposed character. It is not the size of the people only that is diminutive; their country, seas, ships, and towns, are all in exact proportion; their theological and political principles, their passions, manners, customs, and all the parts of their conduct, betray a levity and littleness perfectly suitable and so simple is the whole narration, and apparently so artless and sincere, that we should not much wonder if it had imposed (as we have been told it has) upon some persons of no contemptible understanding. The same degree of credit may perhaps for the same reasons be due to his giants. But when he grounds his narrative upon a contradiction to nature; when he presents us with rational brutes, and irrational men; when he tells us of horses building houses for habitation, milking cows for food, riding in earriages, and holding conversations on the laws and politics of Europe: not all his genius (and he there exerts it to the utmost) is able to reconcile us to so monstrous a fiction: we may smile at some of his absurd exaggerations; we may be pleased with the energy of style, and accuracy of description, in particular places; and a malevolent heart may triumph in the satire; but we can never relish it as a fable, because it is at once unnatural and self-contradictory. Swift's judgment seems to have forsaken him on this occasion: he wallows in nastiness and brutality: and the general run of his satire is downright defamation. Lucian's True History, is a heap of extravagancies put together without order or unity, or any other apparent design than to ridicule the language and manner of grave authors. His ravings, which have no better right to the name of fable, than a hill of rubbish has to that of palace, are destitute of every colour of plausibility. Animal trees, ships sailing in the sky, armies of monstrous things travelling between the sun and moon on a pavement of cobwebs, rival nations of men inhabiting woods and mountains in a whale's belly,-are liker the dreams of a bedlamite than the inventions of a rational being. A stricter If we were to prosecute this subject any farther, it probability would be proper to remark, that in some kinds of poerequisite in tical invention a stricter probability is required than in some kinds others:-that, for instance, Comedy, whether dramatic

I 2

of poetry

than in others.

or narrative (B), must seldom deviate from the ordinary course of human affairs, because it exhibits the manners of real and even of familiar life:—that the tragic poet, because he imitates characters more exalted, and generally refers to events little known, or long since past, may be allowed a wider range; but must never attempt the marvellous fictions of the epic muse, because he addresses his work, not only to the passions and imagination of mankind, but also to their eyes and ears, which are not easily imposed on, and refuse to be gratified with any representation that does not come very near the truth-that the epic poem may claim still ampler privileges, because its fictions are not subject to the scru

by fiction,

SECT. III. Of the System of Nature exhibited by Poetry. To exhibit real nature is the business of the bistorian; who, if he were strictly to confine himself to his own sphere, would never record even the minutest circumstance of any speech, event, or description, which was 13 not warranted by sufficient authority. It has been the Historians language of critics in every age, that the historian ought embellish to relate nothing as true which is false or dubious, and their works to conceal nothing material which he knows to be true. and make But it is to be doubted whether any writer of profane them history has ever been so scrupulous. Thucydides himself, who began his history when that war began which he records, and who set down every event soon after it happened, according to the most authentic information, seems, however, to have indulged his fancy not a little in his harangues and descriptions, particularly that of the plague of Athens and the same thing has been practised, with greater latitude, by Livy and Tacitus, and more or less by all the best historians both ancient and modern. Nor are they to be blamed for it. By these improved or invented speeches, and by the heightenings thus given to their descriptions, their work becomes more interesting, and more useful; nobody is deceived, and historical truth is not materially affected. A medium is, however, to be observed in this, as in other things. When the historian lengthens a description into a detail of fictitious events, as Voltaire has done in his account of the battle of Fontenoy, he loses his credit with us, by raising a suspicion that he is more intent upon a pretty story than upon the truth. And we are disgusted with his insincerity, when, in defiance even of verisimilitude, he puts long elaborate orations in the mouth of those, of whom we know, either from the circumstances that they could not, or from more authentic records that they did not, make any such orations; as Dionysius of Halicarnassus has done in the case of Volumnia haranguing her son Coriolanus, and Flavius Josephus in that of Judah addressing his brother as viceroy of Egypt. From what these historians relate, one would

conjecture

(B) Fielding's Tom Jones, Amelia, and Joseph Andrews, are examples of what may be called the Epic or Narrative Comedy, or more properly perhaps the Comic Epopee.

Of Nature conjecture that the Roman matron had studied at Athens in Poetry. under some long-winded rhetorician, and that the Jewish patriarch must have been one of the most flowery orators of antiquity. But the fictitious part of history, or of story-telling, ought never to take up much room; and must be highly blameable when it leads into any mistake either of facts or of characters.

tical.

14

in some de- Now why do historians take the liberty to embellish gree poe- their works in this manner? One reason, no doubt, is, that they may display their talents in oratory and narration but the chief reason, as hinted already, is, to render their composition more agreeable. It would seem, then, that something more pleasing than real nature, or something which shall add to the pleasing qualities of real nature, may be devised by human fancy. And this may certainly be done. And this it is the poet's business to do. And when this is in any degree done by the historian, his narrative becomes in that degree poetical.

Beattie's Essays, chap. ii.

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bellish na

The possibility of thus improving upon nature must be obvious to every one. When we look at a landscape, we can fancy a thousand additional embellishments. Mountains loftier and more picturesque; rivers more copious, more limpid, and more beautifully winding; smoother and wider lawns; valleys more richly diversified; caverns and rocks more gloomy and more stupendous; ruins more majestic; buildings more magnificent; oceans more varied with islands, more splendid with shipping, or more agitated by storm, than any we have ever seen-it is easy for human imagination to conceive. Many things in art and nature exceed expectation; but nothing sensible transcends or equals the capacity of thought:-a striking evidence of the dignity of the human soul! The finest woman in the world appears to every eye susceptible of improvement, except perhaps to that of her lover. No wonder, then, if in poetry events can be exhibited more compact, and of more pleasing variety, than those delineated by the hiPoets em- storian, and scenes of inanimate nature more dreadful or ture itself. more lovely, and human characters more sublime and more exquisite, both in good and evil. Yet still let nature supply the ground-work and materials, as well as the standard, of poetical fiction. The most expert The most expert painters use a layman, or other visible figure, to direct their hand and regulate their fancy. Homer himself founds his two poems on authentic tradition; and tragic as well epic poets have followed the example. The writers of romance, too, are ambitious to interweave true adventure with their fables; and when it can be conveniently done, to take the outlines of their plan from real life. Thus the tale of Robinson Crusoe is founded on an incident that actually befel one Alexander Selkirk, a seafaring man, who lived several years alone in the island of Juan Fernandes: Smollet is thought to have given us several of his own adventures in the history of Roderic Random; and the chief characters in Tom Jones, Joseph Andrews, and Pamela, are said to have been copied from real originals. Dramatic comedy, indeed, is for the most part purely fictitious; for if it were to exhibit real events as well as present man*Compare Hor. lib. i. ners, it would become too personal to be endured by a sat. 4 vers well-bred audience, and degenerate into downright 1.— with abuse; which appears to have been the case with the Ar. Poet. old comedy of the Greeks. But in general, hints tavers, 281. ken from real existence will be found to give no little -285.

grace and stability to fiction, even in the most fanciful Of Nature poem. These hints, however, may be improved by the in Poetry. poet's imagination, and set off with every probable ornament that can be devised, consistently with the design and genius of the work; or in other words, with the sympathies that the poet means to awaken in the mind of his reader. For mere poetical ornament, when it fails to interest the affections, is not only useless, but inproper; all true poetry being directed to the heart, and intended to give pleasure by raising or soothing the passions ;-the only effectual way of pleasing a rational and moral creature. And therefore we would take Horace's maxim to be universal in poetry: "Non satis est, pulchra esse poemata; dulcia sunto:" "It is not enough that poems be beautiful; let them also be affecting :". For that this is the meaning of the word dulcia in this Hor. Ar. place, is admitted by the best interpreters, and is indeed evident from the context †.

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Poet. vers.

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That the sentiments and feelings of percipient beings and dewhen expressed in poetry, should call forth our affec-scribe tions, is natural enough; but can descriptions of inani- inanimate even things mate things also be made affecting? Certainly they can: so as to and the more they affect, the more they please us, and make them the more poetical we allow them to be. Virgil's Geor-affecting. gic is a noble specimen (and indeed the noblest in the world) of this sort of poetry. His admiration of external nature gains upon a reader of taste, till it rise to perfect enthusiasm. The following observations will perhaps explain this matter.

Every thing in nature is complex in itself, and bears innumerable relations to other things; and may therefore he viewed in an endless variety of lights, and consequently described in an endless variety of ways. Some descriptions are good, and others bad. An historical description, that enumerates all the qualities of any object, is certainly good because it is true; but may be as unaffecting as a logical definition. In poetry, no unaffecting description is good, however conformable to truth for here we expect not a complete enumeration of qualities (the chief end of the art being to please), but only such an enumeration as may give a lively and interesting idea. It is not memory, or the knowledge of rules, that can qualify a poet for this sort of description; but a peculiar liveliness of fancy and sensibility of heart, the nature whereof we may explain by its effects, but we cannot lay down rules for the attainment of it.

When our mind is occupied by any emotion, we naturally use words and meditate on things that are suitable to it and tend to encourage it. If a man were to write a letter when he is very angry, there would probably be something of vehemence or bitterness in the style, even though the person to whom he wrote were not the object of his anger. The same thing holds true of every other strong passion or emotion:—while it predominates in the mind, it gives a peculiarity to our thoughts, as well as to our voice, gesture, and countenance and hence we expect, that every personage in- Every pertroduced in poetry should see things through the me- duced in dium of his ruling passion, and that his thoughts and poetry language should be tinctured accordingly. A melan- should see choly man walking in a grove, attends to those things things that suit and encourage his melancholy; the sighing of through the the wind in the trees, the murmuring of waters, the his ruling darkness and solitude of the shades: A cheerful man in passion.

the

17

son intro

medium of

Of Nature the same place, finds many subjects of cheerful meditain Poetry. tions, in the singing of birds, the brisk motions of the babbling stream, and the liveliness and variety of the verdure. Persons of different characters, contemplating the same thing, a Roman triumph, for instance, feel different emotions, and turn their view to different objects. One is filled with wonder at such a display of wealth and power; another exults in the idea of conquest, and pants for military renown; a third, stunned with clamour, and harassed with confusion, wishes for silence, security, and Beattie's solitude; one melts with pity to the vanquished, and Essays, makes many a sad reflection upon the insignificance of ut supra. worldly grandeur, and the uncertainty of human things; while the buffoon, and perhaps the philosopher, considers the whole as a vain piece of pageantry, which, by its solemn procedure, and by the admiration of so many people, is only rendered the more ridiculous:-and each of these persons would describe it in a way suitable to his own feelings, and tending to raise the same in others. We see in Milton's Allegro and Penseroso, how a different cast of mind produces a variety in the manner of conceiving and contemplating the same rural scenery. In the former of these excellent poems, the author personates a cheerful man, and takes notice of those things in external nature that are suitable to cheerful thoughts, and tend to encourage them: in the latter, every object described is serious and solemn, and productive of calm reflection and tender melancholy; and we should not be easily persuaded, that Milton wrote the first under the influence of sorrow, or the second under that of gladness. We often see an author's character in his works; and if every author were in earnest when he writes, we should oftener see it. Thomson was a man of piety and benevolence, and a warm admirer of the beauties of nature; and every description in his delightful poem on the Seasons tends to raise the same laudable affections in his reader. The parts of nature that attract his notice are those which an impious or hardhearted man would neither attend to, nor be affected with, at least in the same manner. In Swift we see a turn of mind very different from that of the amiable Thomson; little relish for the sublime or beautiful, and a perpetual succession of violent emotions. All his pictures of human life seem to show, that deformity and meanness were the favourite objects of his attention, and that his soul was a constant prey to indignation (c), disgust, and other gloomy passions, arising from such a view of things. And it is the tendency of almost all his writings (though it was not always the author's design), to communicate the same passions to his reader: insomuch, that notwithstanding his erudition and knowledge of the world, his abilities as a popular orator and man of business, the energy of his style, the elegance of some of his verses, and his extraordinary talents in wit and humour, there is reason to doubt, whether by studying his works any person was very much improved in piety or benevolence.

And thus we see, how the compositions of an ingenious author may operate upon the heart, whatever be

15 It is thus

the subject. The affections that prevail in the author of Neture himself, direct his attention to objects congenial, and in Poetry. give a peculiar bias to his inventive powers, and a peculiar colour to his language. Hence his work, as well as face, if nature is permitted to exert herself freely in that poetry it, will exhibit a picture of his mind, and awaken cor- affects the respondent sympathies in the reader. When these are heart what favourable to virtue, which they always ought to be,) the work will have that sweet pathos to which Horace subject. alludes in the passage above mentioned; and which we so highly admire, and so warmly approve, even in those parts of the Georgic that describe inanimate nature.

This

ever be its

III.

Horace's account of the matter in question differs not from what is here given. "It is not enough (says he*) * Ar. Poct. that poems be beautiful; let them be affecting, and 99 agitate the mind with whatever passions the port wishes to impart. The human countenance, as it smiles on those who smile, accompanies also with sympathetic tears those who mourn. If you would have me weep, you must first weep yourself; then, and not before, shall I be touched with your misfortunes. For nature first makes the emotions of our mind correspond with our circumstances, infusing real joy, sorrow, or resentment, according to the occasion; and afterwards gives the true pathetic utterance to the voice and language.” doctrine, which concerns the orator and the player no less than the poet, is strictly philosophical, and equally applicable to dramatic, to descriptive, and indeed to every species of interesting poetry. The poet's sensibility must first of all engage him warmly in his subject, and in every part of it; otherwise he will labour in vain to interest the reader. If he would paint external nature, as Virgil and Thomson have done, so as to make her amiable to others, he must first be enamoured of her himself; if he would have his heroes and heroines speak the language of love or sorrow, devotion or courage, ambition or anger, benevolence or pity, his heart must be susceptible of these emotions, and in some degree feel them, as long at least as he employs himself in framing words for them; being assured, that

He best shall paint them who can feel them most.
POFE's Elvisa, v. 366.

19

The true poet, therefore, must not only study nature, The tre and know the reality of things, but must also possess poet most fancy, to invent additional decorations; judgment, to possess fatdirect him in the choice of such as accord with verisi-ey to inmilitude; and sensibility, to enter with ardent emotions Vent deco into every part of his subject, so as to transfuse into every part of his work a pathos and energy sufficient to raise corresponding emotions in the reader.

rations to

nature.

"The historian and the poet (says Aristotle *) dif- Pectic fer in this, that the former exhibits things as they are, sect. 9. the latter as they might be ;"-i. e. in that state of perfection which is consistent with probability, and in which, for the sake of our own gratification, we wish to find them. If the poet, after all the liberties he is allowed to take with the truth, can produce nothing more exquisite than is commonly to be met with in history, his reader

(c) For part of this remark we have his own authority, often in his letters, and very explicitly in the Latin epitaph which he composed for himself:-" ubi sæva indignatio ulterius cor lacerare nequit." See his last will and testament.

found to exist in several individuals of a species, and Of Nature thence forming an assemblage more or less perfect in in Poetry, its kind, according to the purpose to which he means to apply it.

21

Hence it would appear, that the ideas of poetry are poetical rather general than singular; rather collected from the conceptions examination of a species or class of things, than copied must be general, from an individual. And this, according to Aristotle, is in fact the case, at least for the most part; whence that critic determines, that poetry is something more exquisite and more philosophical than history *. The hi- * Postic. storian may describe Bucephalus, but the poet delineates § 9. a war-horse; the former must have seen the animal he speaks of, or received authentic information concerning it, if he mean to describe it historically; for the latter, it is enough that he has seen several animals of that sort. The former tells us, what Achilles actually did and said; the latter, what such a species of human character as that which bears the name of Achil les would probably do or say in certain given circum

Of Nature reader will be disappointed and dissatisfied. Poetical rein Poetry, presentations must therefore be framed after a pattern of the highest probable perfection that the genius of the work will admit:-external nature must in them be more picturesque than in reality; action more animated; sentiments more expressive of the feelings and character, and more suitable to the circumstances of the speaker; personages better accomplished in those qualities that raise admiration, pity, terror, and other ardent emotions; and events more compact, more clearly connected with causes and consequences, and unfolded in an order more flattering to the fancy, and more interesting to the passions. But where, it may be said, is this pattern of perfection to be found? Not in real nature; otherwise history, which delineates real nature, would also delineate this pattern of perfection. It is to be found only in the mind of the poet; and it is imagination, regulated by knowledge, that enables him to form it. In the beginning of life, and while experience is confined to a small circle, we admire every thing, and are pleased with very moderate excellence. A peasant thinks the hall of his landlord the finest apartment in the universe, listens with rapture to the strolling ballad-singer, and wonders at the rude wooden cuts that adorn his ruder compositions. A child looks upon his native village as a town; upon the brook that runs by as a river; and upon the meadows and hills in the neighbourhood as the most spacious and beautiful that can be. But when, after long absence, he returns in his declining years, to visit, once before he die, the dear spot that gave him birth, and those scenes whereof he remembers rather the original charms than the exact proportions; how is he disappointed to find every thing so

20

tion of many things of

debased and so diminished! The hills seem to have sunk into the ground, the brook to be dried up, and the vil lage to be forsaken of its people; the parish-church, stripped of all its fancied magnificence, is become low, gloomy, and narrow; and the fields are now only the miniature of what they were. Had he never left this spot, his notions might have remained the same as at first; and had he travelled but a little way from it, they Observa- would not perhaps have received any material enlargement. It seems then to be from observation of many things of the same or similar kinds, that we acquire the the same talent of forming ideas more perfect than the real obkind a great jects that lie immediately around us: and these ideas we help to poe- may improve gradually more and more, according to the tical fancy, vivacity of our mind, and extent of our experience, till at because last we come to raise them to a degree of perfection superior to any thing to be found in real life. There cannot sure be any mystery in this doctrine; for we think and speak to the same purpose every day. Thus nothing is more common than to say, that such an artist excels all we have ever known in his profession, and yet that we can still conceive a superior performance. A moralist, by bringing together into one view the separate virtues of many persons, is enabled to lay down a system of duty more perfect than any he has ever seen exemplified in human conduct. Whatever be the emotion the poet intends to raise in his reader, whether admiration or terror, joy or sorrow; and whatever be the object he would exhibit, whether Venus or Tisiphone, Achilles or Thersites, a palace or a pile of ruins, a dance or a battle; he generally copies an idea of his own imagination; considering each quality as it is VOL. XVI. Part II,

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stances.

It is indeed true, that the poet may, and often does, copy after individual objects. Homer, no doubt, took his characters from the life; or at least, in forming them, was careful to follow tradition as far as the nature of his plan would allow. But he probably took the freedom to add or heighten some qualities, and take away others; to make Achilles, for example, stronger, perhaps, and more impetuous, and more eminent for filial affection, and Hector more patriotic and more amiable than he really was. If he had not done this, or something like it, his work would have been rather a history than a poem; would have exhibited men and things as they were, and not as they might have been; and Achilles and Hector would have been the names of individual and real heroes; whereas, according to Aristotle, they are rather to be considered as two distinct modifications or species of the heroic character. Shakespeare's account of the cliffs of Dover comes so near the truth, that we cannot doubt of its having been written by one who had seen them: but he who takes it for an exact historical description, will be surprised when he comes to the place, and finds those cliffs not half so lofty as the poet had made him believe. An historian would be to blame for such amplification; because, being to describe an individual precipice, he ought to tell us just what it is; which if he did, the description would suit that place and perhaps no other in the whole world. But the poet means only to give an idea of what such a precipice may be: and therefore his description may perhaps be equally applicable to many such chalky precipices on the sea-shore.

This method of copying after general ideas formed by the artist from observation of many individuals, distinguishes the Italian and all the sublime painters, from the Dutch and their imitators. These give us bare nature, with the imperfections and peculiarities of individual things or persons; but those give nature improved as far as probability and the design of the piece will admit. Teniers and Hogarth draw faces, and figures, and dresses, from real life, and present manners; and therefore their pieces must in some degree lose the effect, and become awkward, when the present fashions become obsoleteRaphael and Reynolds take their models from general nature; avoiding, as 5 D

far

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