tropes and figures are more necessary to poetry, than to any other mode of writing: which is the second point proposed to be illustrated in this section.

The same point might be proved from other considerations. Language, as shown already, is then natural, when it is suitable to the supposed condition of the poet; because figures are suggested by the fancy; and the fancy of him who composes poetry is more employed, than that of any other author. Of all historical, philosophical, and theological researches, the object is real truth, which is fixed and permanent. The aim of `rhetorical declamation (according to Cicero) is apparent truth; which, being less determinate, leaves the fancy of the speaker more free, gives greater scope to the inventive powers, and supplies the materials of a more figurative phraseology. But the poet is subject to no restraints, but those of verisimilitude; which is still less determinate than rhetorical truth. He seeks not to convince the judgment of his reader by arguments of either real or apparent cogency; he means only to please and interest him, by an appeal to his sensibility and imagination. His own imagination is therefore continually at work, ranging through the whole of real and probable exist

ence, glancing from heaven to earth, from "earth to heaven," in quest of images and ideas suited to the emotions he himself feels, and to the sympathies he would communicate to others. And, consequently, figures of speech, the offspring of excursive fancy, must (if he speak according to what he is supposed to think and feel, that is according to his supposed condition) tincture the language of the poet more than that of any other composer. So that, if figurative diction be unnatural in geometry, because all wanderings of fancy are unsuitable, and even impossible, to the geometrician, while intent upon his argument; it is, upon the same principle, perfectly natural, and even unavoidable in poetry; because the more a poet attends to his subject, and the better qualified he is to do it justice, the more active will his imagination be, and the more diversified the ideas that present themselves to his mind. Besides, the true poet addresses himself to the passions and sympathies of mankind; which, till his own be raised, he cannot hope to do with success. And it is the nature of many passions, though not of all, to increase the activity of imagination; and an active imagination naturally vents itself in figurative language; nay, unless restrained by a correct taste, has a tendency to exceed in it; of

which bishop Taylor, and lord Verulam, two geniuses different in kind, but of the highest order, are memorable examples.

I said, that "the poet seeks not to convince "the judgment of his reader by arguments "of either real or apparent cogency." I do not mean, that in poetry argument has no place. The most legitimate reasoning, the soundest philosophy, and narratives purely historical, may appear in a poem, and contribute greatly to the honour of the author, and to the importance of his work. All this we have in Paradise Lost. I mean, that what distinguishes pure poetry from other writing, is its aptitude, not to sway the judgment by reasoning, but to please the fancy, and move the passions, by a lively imitation of nature. Nor would I exclude poetical embellishment from history, or even from philosophy. Plato's dialogues and Addison's moral essays abound in poetick imagery; and Livy and Tacitus often amuse their readers with poetical description. In like manner, though geometry and physicks be different sciences: though abstract ideas be the subject, and pure demonstration or intuition the evidence, of the former; and though the material universe, and the informations of sense, be the subject and the evidence of the latter;

yet have these sciences, been united by the best philosophers, and very happy effects resulted from the union. In one and the same work, poetry, history, philosophy, and oratory, may doubtless be blended; nay, these arts have all been actually blended in one and the same work, not by Milton only, but also by Homer, Virgil, Lucan, and Shakspeare. Yet still these arts are different: different in their ends, and principles, and in the faculties of the mind to which they are respectively addressed: and it is easy to perceive, when a writer employs one, and when another.

III. A reason why tropes and figures are more necessary in some sorts of poetry, than in others, it is not difficult to assign. This depends on the condition of the supposed speaker, particularly on the state of his imagination and passions. When the soul pines with sorrow, or languishes in love, it keeps its view more steadily fixed on one or a few ideas, than when it is possessed with enthusiasm, or agitated by jealousy, revenge, indignation, anxiety, or any other turbulent emotion. In the former case it is inactive; in the latter, restless;

Magno curarum fluctuat æstu,

Atque animum nunc huc celerem, nunc dividit illuc, In partesque rapit varias, perque omnia versat;

and therefore in the one case it will be occupied by few ideas, and in the other by many. The style, therefore, of the amorous or mournful elegy, in order to be imitative of the language of sorrow or desponding love, must be simpler, and less diversified by figures, than that of the dithyrambick song, or of any other poem in which the speaker is supposed to be greatly agitated.

I have heard the finest ode in the world blamed for the boldness of its figures, and for what the critick was pleased to call obscurity. He had, I suppose, formed his taste upon Anacreon and Waller, whose odes are indeed very simple, and would have been very absurd, if they had not been simple. But let us recollect the circumstances of Anacreon, (considered as the speaker of his own poetry) and of Gray's Welsh Bard. The former warbles his lays, reclining on a bed of flowers, dissolved in tranquillity and indolence, while all his faculties seem to be engrossed by one or a few pleasureable objects. The latter, just escaped from the massacre of his brethren, under the complicated agitations of grief, revenge, and despair; and surrounded with the scenery of rocks, mountains, and torrents, stupendous by nature, and now rendered hideous by desolation, im