fraught with feeling and imagination, that the composition, though it loses its merit as a tale, becomes a poem in all but the absence of metrical form.
Reflection is almost the perpetual attitude of the poet. He is full, indeed, of passion; but, instead of conducting to active effort, it lies involved in thought. There have, doubtless, been strains of poetry inspired by the vivid direct impulse of passion; but these must have been few and brief. The natural mood of the poet is that of intense reflection. Even when he pours forth his personal and bitter lamentations, he rather recalls his anguish than immediately suffers under it; his grief is a reminiscence while he writes; it is not the present tyranny of his bosom. Those thoughts
"that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers,"
are not the sudden and violent out-pourings of passion. Melody may be described as the grace of speech, and, like the grace of action, requires self-control, and gains half its charms from the expression of that self-government. And how could the poet, unless his heart were free as it is full, take that wide survey of his knowledge which is necessary to the successful practice of his art? The same temper of mind which is brought to the production, should be brought also in some measure to the perusal of poetry. Nor is this heady and impatient curiosity of the novel, to which we have been alluding, the only interference to the due enjoyment of this intellectual luxury. If the mind, it is worth observing, be already possessed and over-mastered by the very passion the poet would excite, it is no longer fit audience for his higher and more complicated strains. Of what avail to such a one are the delicate touches of his art? They are not felt, they are not appreciated; or rather, whatever he says on the too favoured theme, is felt without measure, and without distinction is applauded. The passion has outrun the poet; it makes superfluous all his moving tropes and fine and subtle associations, and gives equal effect to the coarsest material. It is thus we often find but little merit in national hymns, which yet are responded to by all classes of society, even the highest, and in those revolutionary songs which have had so fearful a celebrity in their day. The enthusiasm of the times makes them poetry. Such strength of passion, like the supernatural force of Samson, disparages all noble arms; it needs not the polished steel of the artificer; the first trivial thing that comes to hand serves it as well.
And here, we apprehend, lies the explanation of whatever there is of truth in the often-quoted and often-disputed remark of Dr Johnson on the inferior nature of devotional poetry—a remark which is sometimes too rashly and too absolutely contradicted. There is no unfitness, we allow, in the theme itself, for the sentiment of Christian piety has inspired some of the most elevated strains of poetry; nor is the writer so peculiarly situated with regard to this sentiment, that he is unable to exercise his mind with freedom upon it, or to surround it with poetic associations. But there is this peculiarity in the case, that strains of a very humble character in respect to human genius, are, in this order of poetry, sustained in existence and reputation by the strength of feeling to which they are addressed, so that an air of mediocrity is given to the entire class. When verse is employed as an instrument to excite devotion, it meets with a feeling too strong for the poet—a feeling too imperative and obligatory, to rise and fall with the scale of literary merit. The humblest verse is raised to the level of the most sublime—nay, above that level. It is with the sacred hymn as it was in olden times with the sacred picture—its character as a work of art is entirely lost sight of in the piety of its subject.
Thus have we attempted, in a very humble manner, to describe the distinguishing characteristics of poetry, and have traced them to a peculiarity in the ostensible end which this species of writing has in view. We have not contrived to raise any thing mysterious about the nature of the poetic, nor have wrapped our meaning, as we easily might have done, in terms which would have given it an air of profundity, by reason of their sheer obscurity. The qualities which distinguish the poet, are such as all writers, and indeed all men, possess, but not in equal measure. Poetry and prose, when the terms are intended to relate to any thing more than the form of com-
