and illustrates but one mode of thought. The work and the intellectual workman, are to be classed according to what is predominant in the composition. Even the poet is not compelled to write all poetry, and to have no other end in view but what is distinctive of his art. He may seek to instruct as well as to please—he may record facts as well as invent fictions—he may urge precept with the moralist, or assist in the exposition of schemes of philosophy; but still, whatever his subject, whatever the class of readers he addresses, his first and prominent design—the end by which he is to fulfil all other ends—is to delight, to move, to animate, and occupy the heart. Unless successful here, it matters not by what name he calls his composition, or in what form he casts it, he is no poet; but this accomplished, the addition of didactic matter, or didactic purpose, will work no forfeiture of his title.
It will not be inferred, because the poet has this object of excitement in view, that therefore his verse, when completed, will answer no purpose but that of temporary excitement. The poet is often the highest of all teachers, and leaves behind the most enduring instruction. How can he deal with great topics—agitate strong passions—provoke to deep reflection—and not be a great teacher? But then, so far as he is a poet, his tuition lies in this, that he places before us events or topics of surpassing interest, of power to rouse the mind, to subdue it or enkindle. He teaches as the painter and the sculptor teach, when they present to us scenes and forms breathing a thousand reflections into the beholder. He teaches us as nature and the world teach. Milton, in his great epic, proposes "to justify the ways of God to man." What graver design?—what purpose more profound? But this purpose is not peculiar to him; he shares it with every divine who either writes or preaches. He is a poet because he performs his lofty task by disclosing to us the very regions of Heaven and Paradise, Chaos and Tartarus—by peopling these regions with beings fitted to the climes in which they are seen to move—by making us thrilling spectators of the eventful history transacted in these regions, and by those beings, so wonderfully portrayed, imagined, created by his genius. When he would teach in any other mode than this—when he would advance his great argument by direct appeals to reason—when a desire to convince the understanding becomes predominant in the composition—even Milton, greatest master of his art as he undoubtedly is, loses for a while the character of poet, and lies exposed to the censure of speaking in the manner of a "school divine."
This, then, is the main distinction of poetry, that its own end is answered in its very beauty, or the vivid interest of some kind which it excites. This is the characteristic of every species—whether it be the lyric, which gives us the very rapture of the hour; or the didactic, wherein a subject not peculiarly exciting, and therefore not peculiarly fitted for the poet, is made to engage us by the apt examples, and felicitous expressions, and collateral topics, with which he illustrates and adorns it; or whether it be the dramatic, in which the artist conceals himself from view, and pushes before us, in complete lineaments, and vivid with speech and action, the various characters of mankind; or whether, finally, the epic, wherein, as from the very chair of poetry, the man endowed with all the learning of his age, and with heart expanded to his theme, rescues some great event with all its burning passions from the lapse of time, and tells it out to the world and to all posterity.
This peculiarity in the end of poetry will be found to lie at the basis of all which distinguishes it as a mode of writing. It is immediately connected with its form of composition; the pleasure-giving writer adds to his language the studied melody of verse—adds the measured cadence of metre, or the recurrence of rhyme. This leads him to the construction of that refined poetic diction, whose character it is, that it presents no debasing or disagreeable association of ideas; and in the selection of language, it induces him to avoid scientific, technical, or merely erudite expressions, and cling in preference to that vernacular dialect which carries with it more pathos, as it is more closely allied to the wants and passions of men. It is this, too, which accounts for his more abundant use, than any other writer, of a figurative style, of imagery, and allusion. All men employ metaphors and simi-
