POETRY. Dr. Blackwall, in his "Es say on the Life and Writings of Homer," says, on the subject of poetry, that " it is of a nature so delicate, as not to admit of a direct definition ; for if ever the je ne seals quoi was rightly applied, it is to the powers of poetry, and the faculty that produces it. To go about to describe it would be like attempting to define inspi ration, or that glow of fancy, or effitsion of soul, which a poet feels while in his fit ; a sensation so strong, that they express it only by adjurings, exclamations, and rap ture." To the same purpose, but in less inflated language, Dr. Blair has observed, that it is not so easy as might at first be imagined, to ascertain, with minute pre cision, wherein poetry differs from prose. In point of fact, every reflecting reader must be sensible, that as it is difficult to determine the precise line where different shades of colour terminate, or even the boundaries of animal and vegetable na ture, so it is a matter of no small nicety to fix the point where composition rises from the scale of prose to that of poetry.
By a small addition to the ideas of Aristotle, poetry may, however, be de fined an imitative and creative art, whose energies are exerted by means of words metrically arranged, the end and design of which art is to amuse the fancy, and powerfully to excite the feelings.
It is the favourite expression of Aristo tle, that poety is a mimetic or imitative art ; and in most particulars it may be justly so defined. The subjects of the poet's imitation are the scenes of nature, and the transactions of human life. This we shall find to be the case, if we parti cularly examine the productions of those to whom the concurrent voice of ages has given the title of poet. When we open the Iliad of Homer, we behold a lively representation of the actions and speeches of heroes and chiefs. The dramas of .7Eschylus, of Sophocles, of Aristophanes, and of their numerous tribes of successors, are nothing more than imitations of human manners. And when the lover displays his passion in song, what does he but exhibit to view the tablet of his heart, where we may trace his feelings, and view him agitated by doubt or exulting in hope. The chief interest of didactic poetry consists in the vivid and picturesque descriptions, the imitations or representations of nature, which relieve the insipidity of unorna mented precept. This is manifest, when
it is recollected, that the pleasure excited by the Georgic of Virgil is not occasion ed by his agricultural instructions, but by his descriptions of the various pheno mena, which in the course of rural occu patiotis-arrest the attention of the lover of nature.
The word poet, in its original import, signifies creator. And as names are not unfrequently significant of the nature of the ideas which they represent, the name itself of poetry will direct us to one of its most distinguishing characteristics. It is indeed one of the noblest qualities of poetry, that it opens to the mind a new creation.
"The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven ; And as imagination bodies forth 'The form of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name." The 'poet enjoysfthe privilege of ranging through the boundless field of possibili ties, and of selecting his objects accord ing to the impulse of his fancy, as con trouled and corrected by the discretion of his judgment. What is striking and in teresting he may make prominent in his picture ; what is offensive, deformed, or gross, he is at liberty to conceal or to soften. In the realities of life a thousand circumstances intervene to check the en thusiastic interest which our hearts are disposed to take in any specific occur rence. These circumstances the poet has a prescriptive right to exclude from his representations. As all ideas of men are primitively derived from objects of sense, he cannot go beyond the materials which the station and the powers of man supply. But he can, by an endless com bination of these materials, produce ideal beings and fancied situations, which in terest us the more, the better the powers of fiction to which they owe their birth are concealed from us. Like the favoured statuary of Greece, he is surrounded by naked beauties, from each of which he selects its peculiar excellency, and pro duces a whole, which, though strictly na tural, surpasses the realities of nature.