We might here draw a parallel between the inhabitants of Athens and the natives of England, in point of constitution, genius, and disposition. Athens was a free state like England, that piqued itself upon the influence of the democracy. Like England, its wealth and strength depended upon its maritime power, and it generally acted as umpire in the disputes that arose among its neighbours. The people of Athens, like those of England, were remarkably ingenious, and made great progress in the arts and sciences. They excelled in poetry, history, philosophy, mechanics, and manufactures; they were acute, discerning, disputatious, fickle, wavering, rash, and combustible: and, above all other nations in Europe, addicted to ridicule; a character which the English inherit in a very remarkable degree.

If we may judge from the writings of Aristophanes, his chief aim was to gratify the spleen, and excite the mirth of his audience; of an audience too, that would seem to have been uninformed by taste, and altogether ignorant of decorum; for his pieces are replete with the most extravagant absurdities, virulent slander, impiety, impurities, and low buffoonery. The comic muse, not contented with being allowed to make free with the gods and philosophers, applied her scourge so severely to the magistrates of the commonwealth, that it was thought proper to restrain her within bounds by a law, enacting that no person should be stigmatized under his real name; and thus the chorus was silenced. In order to elude the penalty of this law, and gratify the taste of the people, the poets began to substitute fictitious names, under which they exhibited particular characters in such lively colours, that the resemblance could not possibly be mis

taken or overlooked. This practice gave rise to what is called the middle comedy, which was but of short duration: for the legislature, perceiving that the first law had not removed the grievance against which it was provided, issued a second ordinance, forbidding, under severe penalties, any real or family occurrences to be represented. This restriction was the immediate cause of improving comedy into a general mirror, held forth to reflect the various follies and foibles incident to human nature; a species of writing called the new comedy, introduced by Diphilus and Menander, of whose works nothing but a few fragments remain.

ESSAY XV.

POETRY DISTINGUISHED FROM OTHER WRITING.

HAVING Communicated our sentiments touching the origin of poetry, by tracing tragedy and comedy to their common source, we shall now endeavour to point out the criteria, by which poetry is distinguished from every other species of writing. In common with other arts, such as statuary and painting, it comprehends imitation, invention, composition, and enthusiasm. Imitation is indeed the basis of all the liberal arts; invention and enthusiasm constitute genius, in whatever manner it may be displayed. Eloquence of all sorts admits of enthusiasm. Tully says, an orator should be vehemens ut procella, excitatus ut torrens, incensus ut fulmen; tonat, fulgurat, et rapidis eloquentiæ fluctibus cuncta proruit et proturbat. “Violent as a tempest, impetuous as a torrent, and glow.

ing intense like the red bolt of heaven, he thunders,
lightens, overthrows, and bears down all before him, by
the irresistible tide of eloquence." This is the mens di-
vinior atque os magna sonaturum of Horace.
the talent,

-Meum qni pectus inaniter angit,
Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet,

Ut magus.

This is

With passions not my own who fires my heart;
Who with unreal terrors fills my breast,

As with a magic influence possessed.

We are told, that Michael Angelo Buonaroti used to work at his statues in a fit of enthusiasm, during which he made the fragments of the stone fly about him with surprising violence. The celebrated Lully being one day blamed for setting nothing to music but the languid verses of Quinault, was animated with the reproach, and running in a fit of enthusiasm to his harpsichord, sung in recitative and accompanied four pathetic lines from the Iphigenia of Racine, with such expression as filled the hearers with astonishment and horror.

Though versification be one of the criteria that distinguish poetry from prose, yet it is not the sole mark of distinction. Were the histories of Polybius and Livy simply turned into verse, they would not become poems; because they would be destitute of those figures, embel. lishments, and flights of imagination, which display the poet's art and invention. On the other hand, we have many productions that justly lay claim to the title of poetry, without having the advantage of versification; witness the Psalms of David, the Song of Solomon, with many beautiful hymns, descriptions, and rhapsodies, to

be found in different parts of the Old Testament; some of them the immediate production of divine inspiration: witness the Celtic fragments, which have lately appeared in the English language, and are certainly replete with poetical merit. But though good versification alone will not constitute poetry, bad versification alone will certainly degrade and render disgustful the sublimest sentiments and finest flowers of imagination. This humiliating power of bad verse appears in many translations of the ancient poets; in Ogilby's Homer, Trapp's Virgil, and frequently in Creech's Horace. This last indeed is not wholly devoid of spirit, but it seldom rises above mediocrity; and, as Horace says,

Non homines, non Dí, non concessere columnæ.

But God and man and lettered post denies,
That poets ever are of middling size.

How is that beautiful ode, beginning with "Justum et tenacem propositi virum," chilled and tamed by the following translation:

He who by principle is swayed,

In truth and justice still the same,

Is neither of the crowd afraid,

Though civil broils the state inflame;
Nor to a haughty tyrant's frown will stoop,
Nor to a raging storm, when all the winds are up.

Should Nature with convulsions shake,

Struck with the fiery bolts of Jove,
The final doom and dreadful crack

Cannot his constant courage move.

That long Alexandrine-"Nor to a raging storm, when all the winds are up," is drawling, fecble, swoln with a

pleonasm or tautology, as well as deficient in the rhyme; and as for the "dreadful crack" in the next stanza, instead of exciting terror, it conveys a low and ludicrous idea. How much more elegant and energetic is this paraphrase of the same ode, inserted in one of the volumes of Hume's History of England:

The man whose mind, on virtue bent,
Pursues some greatly good intent
With undiverted aim,

Serene beholds the angry crowd;
Nor can their clamours fierce and loud
His stubborn honour tame.

Nor the proud tyrant's fiercest threat,
Nor storms, that from their dark retreat
The lawless surges wake;

Nor Jove's dread bolt, that shakes the pole,
The firmer purpose of his soul

With all its power can shake.

Should Nature's frame in ruins fall,
And Chaos o'er the sinking ball
Resume primeval sway,

His courage Chance and Fate defies,
Nor feels the wreck of earth and skies
Obstruct its destined way.

If poetry exists independent of versification, it will naturally be asked, how then is it to be distinguished? Undoubtedly, by its own peculiar expression: it has a language of its own, which speaks so feelingly to the heart, and so pleasingly to the imagination, that its meaning cannot possibly be misunderstood by any person of delicate sensations. It is a species of painting with words, in which the figures are happily conceived, ingenjously arranged, affectingly expressed, and recommended with all the warmth and harmony of colouring: it con