THOUGHTS ON POETRY.

(CONCLUDED.)

THIS is what is called the infpiration of Poetry, and what can never be either conveyed by precept, or obtained by ftudy. It is fomething of too fine a nature to come within the power of definition; and all the rules and differtations of all the critics in the world, can never fupply the place of genius, or brighten an imagination that is obfcure by nature. Receipts for Poetical compofitions, like the Pope's anathemas, begin to lose their virtue, and be univerfally defpifed. The truth is, they touch only on the externals or form of the thing, without entering into the fpirit of it; they play about the furface of Poetry; but never dive into its depth. The fecret, the foul of good writing is not to be come at through fuch mechanic laws: the main graces, and the cardinal beauties, as they are fomewhere ftyled, of this charming art, are too retired within the bofom of nature, and are of too fine and fubtile an effence, to fall under the difcuffion of pedants and commentators. Thefe beauties, in fhort, are rather to be felt than described. By what precepts fhall a writer be taught only to think poetically, or to trace out, among the various powers of thought, that particalar vein or feature of it which poetry loves; and to diftinguish between the good fenfe which may have its weight and juftnefs in profe, and that which is of the nature of verfe? What inftruction shall convey to him that flame which can alone animate a work, and give it the glow of Poetry? And how, and by what induflry fhall be learned, among a thoufand other charms, that delicate contexture in writing, by which the colours, as in the rainbow, grow out of one another, and every beauty owes its luftre to a former, and gives being to a fucceeding one? Could certain methods be laid down for obtaining thefe excellencies, every one that pleafed might be a poet, as every one that pleases may be a geometrician, if he will have but due patience and attention. Many of the graces in Poetry may be talked of in very inVOL. LVI.

telligible language, but intelligible only to those who have a natural taste for it, or are bore with a talent of judging. To have what we call Tafte, is having, one may fay, a new sense or faculty fuperadded to the ordinary ones of the foul, the prerogative of fine fpirits! and to go about to pedagogue a man into this fort of knowledge, who has not the feeds of it in himself, is the fame thing as if one fhould teach an art of fecing without eyes. True conceptions of Poetry can no more be communicated to one born without tafte, than adequate ideas of colours can be given to one born without fight; all which is faying no more than it would be to fay, that to judge finely of mufic, it is requifite to have naturally a good ear for it. Those celestial bodies, which, through their distance, cannot appear to us but by the help of glaffes, do yet as truly exist as if they could be feen by the naked eye: fo are the graces of Poetry, though they come with n the reach but of few, as real as if they were perceptible alike to all. The difference is, the telescope, which brings the one to our view, is artificial; that which fhews us the other is natural: In fhort, the fame arguments that will convince a fightlefs man of the reality of light, and another who has no idea but of noife, of the reality of harmony, will as conclufively prove to one wholly void of tafte, the existence of poetical excellencies. Some of thefe, it is allowed, may be difcourfed of with accuracy and clearness enough; that is to fay, fo as to be understood by thofe who understand them already; but there are others of that exquifite nicety, that they will not fall under any description, nor yield to the torture of explanation. We are irresistibly captivated by them wherever we find them in good authors, without being able to fay precisely what that power is that captivates us; as when one views a very beautiful woman, one is immediately affected with her beauty, though we cannot mechanically explain the cause which has that force over us; we feel the enchantment, and the eye ftrikes it into the heart, but are at a lofs for the folutions and reafons of it; we know

we are filently ftruck by the power of a certain proportion of fymmetry, but do not ftrictly know the meafure of that fymmetry, and the pofitive laws by which it is governed. Poetry, in this particular view of it, as Dryden obferves, may be faid to flow from a fource, which, like the Nile, it conceals; the ftream is rich and tranfparent, while the fountain is hid. Here then, at leaft, rules are impracticable; but it muft not be underftood by this affertion, that the talent of writing in verfe is a lawless myftery, a wild ungoverned province, where reafon has nothing to do.

It is certain that every thing depends on reason, and must be guided by it; but it is certain, that reafon operates differently when it has different things for its object. Poetical reafon is not the fame as mathematical reafon; there is in good poetry as rigid truth as there is in a queftion of algebra, but that truth is not to be proved by the fame procefs or way of working. Poetry depends much more on imagination than other arts, but is not, on that account, lefs reasonable than they; for imagination is as much a part of reafon, as memory or judgment is, or rather a more bright emanation from it, as to paint and throw light upon ideas is a finer act of the underftanding than fimply to feparate or compare them. The plays, indeed, and the flights of fancy, do not fubmit to that fort of difcuffion which moral or phyfical propofitions are capable of, but muft, nevertheless to pleafe, have juftnefs and natural truth. The care to be had in judging of things of this nature, is to try them by thofe tefts that are proper to themselves, and not by fuch as are proper only to other points of knowledge. Thus, Poetry is not an irrational art, but as clofely linked with reafon, exerted in a right way, as any other knowledge; what it differs in, as a fcience of reafon, from other fciences, is, that it does not, equally with them, lie open to all capacities; that a man, rightly to perceive the reafon and truth of it must be born with tafte, or a faculty of judging; and that it cannot be reduced to a formal fcience, or taught

by any determined precepts. In most other arts, care and application are chiefly required, which is not fufficient in Poetry. A poet often owes more to his good fortune than to his industry, and this is what is ufually called the felicity of a writer; that is, when in the warmth of his imagination he lights upon any conception, an image, or way of turning a thought or phrafe with a beauty which he could not have attained by any study, and which no rules could have led him to; and this happiness it is, which, in honour to great poets, is called, or believed to be infpiration. But the mind requires to be wonderfully filled and elevated with the contemplation of its fubject, before it hits upon those sublimities of thought, and felicities of expreffion, and to be entirely undisturbed by all foreign paffions that might either call up unpleafant fenfations, or divert it from its object. Nothing requires fo much chearfulness and ferenity of fpirit: It must not be either overwhelmed, fays Cowley, fpeaking on the fame fubject, with the cares of life, or overcast with the clouds of melancholy and forrow, or fhaken and disturbed with the storms of injurious fortune; it must like the halcyon, have fair weather to breed in. The foul must be filled with bright and beautiful ideas, when it undertakes to communicate delight to others, which is the principal end of all poefy. One may fee through the ftile of Ovid de Trift. the humble and dejected condition of Ipirit with which he wrote it; there Icarce remain any footsteps of that genius,

Quem nec Jovis ira, nec ignes, &c. The cold of the country had penetrated all his faculties, and benunibed the very feet of his verfes. He is himself, methinks, like one of the ftories of his own Metamorphofes; and though there remain fome weak refemblance of Ovid at Rome, it is but, as he fays of Niobe, In vultu color eft fine fanguine, lumina mæftis Stant immota genis; nihil eft in imagine vi

vum,

Flet tamen.

The truth is, for a man to write well it is neccffary to be in a good humour;

will not be neceffary to refute those who delight in declaiming on the felicity of barbarifm, if it be confidered with what difficulty favages provide for their fuftenance, what ceafelefs hoftility they exercife against each other, and what languor clouds, and frequently fhortens their monotonous lives.

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Taught to depend no longer for fubfiftence on the deftruction of animals, or on the fpontaneous productions of the earth, but obliged to cultivate the ground, mankind fixed on a determinate fpot, though not without danger of being expelled by invaders more powerful than themfeives. Such a fituation the dawn of fociety prefents to our view; but how gloomy is yet the profpect! Turning the eyes from ftates deftroyed in their infancy; from nations, either long fince buried in their ruins, or ftill groaning under oppreffion, let us, excluding circumftances merely cafual, and attending to general caufes, contemplate fome of thofe people who have paffed through all the feveral ftages from barbarifm to refinement.

"After the means of fubfiftence are provided, the next defire of man is for perfonal liberty. Difdaining the bonds, which prevent mankind from employing their faculties for the promotion of their happines, liberty does not defift from her claims, till all unneceffary reftraints are removed. Property, once fecured, produces inequality of circumftances; inequality affording a fcope to man's natural propenfity to eafe, engenders luxury, a fubject productive of much contention among philofophers and politicians.

"This natural progrefs of fociety, is frequently retarded or acceleraced by accidental caufes. These caufes exhibit a people ftruggling under internal or foreign restraint, regaining loft freedom, again finking under fuperior force, until at length human nature becomes impatient of bondage, and every thing recovers its ftated courfe. Amidst these different fituations, national manners, depending on the different degrees of civilization, will undergo material changes. At first, rude and barbarous, then fimple

and unpolished, afterwards enlightened, laftly arriving at the highest pitch of politenefs, mankind become prudent in their conduct, delicate in their converfation, and refined in their fentiments,

"From this ordinary progrefs, there will, however, be deviations. A people exerting all their force to defend or enlarge their territory, difplay actions wonderful, laudable, and frequently honoured with the name of heroifm. But this enthufiafin foon fubfides. At other times, happy or untoward circumftances have an extraordinary effect. To fuch a degree of corruption the morals of men may arrive, the human mind may become fo debased and effeminate, fo willing to fubmit to the firft yoke which fhall be impofed, as to allow defpotifm to annihilate every idea of public virtue.

"Hence it appears, that the changes, which take place in fociety, are of two kinds: either proceeding from accidental caufes, or inevitably derived from the very nature of civil communities.

"If the former be productive of greater inconveniencies than advantages, they may properly be arraigned as requiring redrefs. The latter, no wife man will cenfure, nor attempt to place barriers against the uniform and irrefiftible courfe of nature. Thofe countries which poffefs the largeft fhare of freedom and fecurity, the fage will confider as the moft happy, as the leaft imperfect; that fyftem of laws which imposes the fmalleft contraint upon the human paflions. Without dwelling on defects and inconveniencies which flow from the very fource of virtue, he is perfuaded, that, in all ages, mankind, bearing a ftrong refemblance to each other, are ever actuated by the fame motives; ambition, envy, and felf intereft. The predominance of certain virtues or vices, occafions a diverfity of manners. The moft eftimable virtues, however, refult from that flate of fociety, in which mankind have obtained the valuable right of fecking happinefs without injuring each other, and have fecured this important right by established laws.

"Thefe obfervations are fufficient to difprove the answer to the cenfure, which

has

has been thrown on modern times and

modern manners.

"If we have clearer ideas of the rights of human nature, of the origin and alm of fociety; if, already influencing the conduct of fovereigns, and the laws of nations, thefe ideas procure a more tranquil enjoyment of advantages natural or acquired: furely we have no reafon to look back with an eye of envy on former times. If more humane and reafonable, more benevolent and focial, our manners flow from the natural progrefs of civil fociety; then is every complaint against them as unfounded as it is infignifcant. We are evidently, therefore, advanced to that degree of civilization, at which it was expedient that we fhould arrive; nor could its attended inconveniencies be removed, without introducing fill greater evils. How little the ancient ftates are calculated to become examples to the modern, has already been demonstrated.

"Having thus endeavoured to anfwer objections, by which this fubject has been obfcured, I may now be permitted to investigate the nature of Polite Literature, and its peculiar influence upon fociety. This perhaps ought to have been my first object. But prejudice oppofed by truth, refembles a citadel, affaulted by a fuperior force: when its outworks, the principal strength, are once broken down, its entire deftruction is easily accomplished.

"The firft idea, fuggefted by the Belles Lettres, demonftrates them to be rather the confequence than the caufe of the manners of mankind. By civil fociety, the mind must be prepared to receive their impreffions. Inachus, Cecrops, and Danaus, preceded Amphion, Linus, and Orpheus, who alfo, it is faid, fpoke only to the ear. Before Homer could address the fancy, what further progrefs must not fociety have made! Elegant learning depends on the degree of civilization, po lefs for its gradual advancement, than for its firft rife. Tho' fince the revival of letters, the valuable remains of the ancients engage the attention of modern nations, their tafte is formed effentially by internal caufes.

The character of the people, for whom an author writes, must be ftudied by him, if he wishes to feize the heart. The prevailing fentiments of a nation have a confiderable influence upon individuals. Hence the connections obferved between the genius of a people and their taste. That every material change in the civilization, manners, and fentiments of mankind, has had a proportionate influence on their tafte and literature, I fhall endeavour to evince. Uncommon flights of genius muft, however, be excepted, which foaring beyond the bounds of the prefent age, contribute to form the taste of pofterity.

(To be concluded in our next.)

ACCOUNT OF THE FIRST
NEWS-PAPER.

JULY 9. 1662, a very extraordinary queftion arofe, about preventing the publication of the debates of the Irish parliament in an English news-paper called The Intelligencer; and a letter was written from the Speaker to Sir Edward Nicholas, the English Secretary of state, to prevent thefe publications in thofe Diurnals, as they called them. The London Gazette commenced Nov. 7. 1665. It was at firft called the Oxford Gazette, from its being printed there, during a feflion of parliament held there on account of the laft plague.' Antecedent to this period, Sir R. l'Eftrange published the firft daily news-paper in England.

From the following paffage in Tacitus, it appears that fomewhat like newspapers were circulated in the Roman itate: "Diurna populi Romani, per provincias, per exercitus, curatius leguntur: quam ut non nofcatur, quid Thraica, fecerit."

In a note of Mr Murphy's excellent tranflation of Tacitus, he laments that none of thefe Diurnals, or news-papers, as he calls them, had been preferved, as they would calt great light upon the private life and manners of the Romans.

With the Long Parliament originated appeals to the people, by accounts of their proceedings. Thefe appeared pe riodically,