PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1815. THE powers requisite for the production of poetry are: first, those of Observation and Description,-i.e. the ability to observe with accuracy things as they are in themselves, and with fidelity to describe them, unmodified by any passion or feeling existing in the mind of the describer; whether the things depicted be actually present to the senses, or have a place only in the memory. This power, though indispensable to a Poet, is one which he employs only in submission to necessity, and never for a continuance of time: as its exercise supposes all the higher qualities of the mind to be passive, and in a state of subjection to external objects, much in the same way as a translator or engraver ought to be to his original. 2ndly, Sensibility, which, the more exquisite it is, the wider will be the range of a poet's perceptions; and the more wil he be incited to observe objects, both as they exist in themselves and as re-acted upon by his own mind. (The distinction between poetic and human sensibility has been marked in the character of the Poet delineated in the original preface.) 3rdly, Reflection,-which makes the Poet acquainted with the value of actions, images, thoughts, and feelings; and assists the sensibility in perceiving their connection with each other. 4thly, Imagination and Fancy, to modify, to create, and to associate. 5thly, Invention, by which characters are composed out of materials supplied by observation; whether of the Poet's own heart and mind, or of external life and nature; and such incidents and situations produced as are most impressive to the imagination, and most fitted to do justice to the characters, sentiments, and passions, which the Poet undertakes to illustrate. And, lastly, Judgment, to decide how and where, and in what degree, each of these faculties ought to be exerted; so that the less shall not be sacrificed to the greater; nor the greater, slighting the less, arrogate, to its own injury, more than its due. By judgment, also, is determined what are the laws and appropriate graces of every species of composition. The materials of Poetry, by these powers collected and produced, are cast, by means of various moulds, into divers forms. The moulds may be enumerated, and the forms specified, in the following order. 1st, The Narrative, including the Epopeia, the Historic Poem, the Tale, the Ro⚫mance, the Mock-heroic, and, if the spirit of Homer will tolerate such neighbourhood, that dear production of our days, the metrical Novel. Of this Class, the distinguishing mark is, that the Narrator, however liberally his speaking agents be introduced, is himself the source from which everything primarily flows. Epic Poets, in order 1 As sensibility to harmony of numbers, and the power of producing it, are invariably attendants upon the faculties above specified, nothing has been said upon those requisites. that their mode of composition may accord with the elevation of their subject, represent the selves as singing from the inspiration of 20 Muse, "Arma virumque cano; but this is a fiction, in modern times, of slight value: the "Iliad" or the "Paradise Lost" would gain lite in our estimation by being chanted. The out poets who belong to this class are commoy content to tell their tale;-so that of the wh it may be affirmed that they neither require pr reject the accompaniment of music. 2ndly, The Dramatic,-consisting of Tracey Historic Drama, Comedy, and Masque, in wh the Poet does not appear at all in his er person, and where the whole action is carri on by speech and dialogue of the agents; musti being admitted only incidentally and rarely. Tej Opera may be placed here, inasmuch as it 1: ceeds by dialogue; though depending, to th degree that it does, upon music, it has a claim to be ranked with the lyrical. The char teristic and impassioned Epistle, of which en and Pope have given examples, considered a species of monodrama, may, without impre priety, be placed in this class. 3rdly, The Lyrical,-containing the Hymn, the Ode, the Elegy, the Song, and the Ballad; which, for the production of their full effect, 1 accompaniment of music is indispensable. 4thly, The Idyllium,-descriptive chiedy eth of the processes and appearances of exter nature, as the "Seasons of Thomson; or characters, manners, and sentiments, a Shenstone's "Schoolmistress," The Cotter's Sa day Night" of Burns, "The Twa Dogs" of th same Author; or of these in conjunction the appearances of Nature, as most of the pi of Theocritus, the "Allegro" and Pensers Milton, Beattie's "Minstrel," Goldsmith's serted Village." The Epitaph, the Inscript the Sonnet, most of the epistles of poets writ in their own persons, and all loco-descrip poetry, belong to this class. 5thly, Didactic,-the principal object of is direct instruction; as the Poem of Late the "Georgics" of Virgil, "The Fleece of D Mason's "English Garden," &c. And, lastly, philosophical Satire, like the Horace and Juvenal; personal and occas Satire rarely comprehending sufficient d general in the individual to be dignified with name of poetry. Out of the three last has been constructed composite order, of which Young's Thoughts," and Cowper's "Task," are exce examples. It is deducible from the above, that pot apparently miscellaneous, may with propriety arranged either with reference to the pow mind predominant in the production of or to the mould in which they are cas lastly, to the subjects to which they relate. F each of these considerations, the following with, the true Poet does not therefore abandon his privilege distinct from that of the mere Proseman; "He murmurs near the running brooks A music sweeter than their own." Let us come now to the consideration of the words Fancy and Imagination, as employed in the classification of the following Poems. “A man," says an intelligent author, "has imagination in proportion as he can distinctly copy in iden the impressions of sense: it is the faculty which images within the mind the phenomena of sensation. A man has fancy in proportion as he can call up, connect, or associate, at pleasure, those internal images (barragew is to cause to appear) so as to complete ideal representations of absent objects. Imagination is the power of depicting, and fancy of evoking and combining. The imagination is formed by patient observation; the fancy by a voluntary activity in shifting the scenery of the mind. The more accurate the imagination, the more safely may a painter, or a poet, undertake a delineation, or a description, without the presence of the objects to be characterised. The more versatile the fancy, the more original and striking will be the decorations produced."-British Synonyms discriminated, by W. Taylor. Is not this as if a man should undertake to зve been divided into classes; which, that the ork may more obviously correspond with the urse of human life, and for the sake of exhibitg in it the three requisites of a legitimate hole, a beginning, a middle, and an end, have en also arranged, as far as it was possible, cording to an order of time, commencing with hildhood, and terminating with Old Age, Death, ad Immortality. My guiding wish was, that e small pieces of which these volumes consist, us discriminated, might be regarded under two-fold view; as composing an entire work thin themselves, and as adjuncts to the philophical Poem, "The Recluse." This arrangeent has long presented itself habitually to my in mind. Nevertheless, I should have prered to scatter the contents of these volumes random, if I had been persuaded that, by the an adopted, anything material would be taken om the natural effect of the pieces, individually, the mind of the unreflecting Reader. I trust ere is a sufficient variety in each class to prent this; while, for him who reads with reflecin, the arrangement will serve as a commentary Jostentatiously directing his attention to my rposes, both particular and general. But, as wish to guard against the possibility of misading by this classification, it is proper first to hind the Reader, that certain poems are aced according to the powers of mind, in the athor's conception, predominant in the proction of them; predominant, which implies e exertion of other faculties in less degree. here there is more imagination than fancy in poem, it is placed under the head of imaginaand vice versa. Both the above classes ight without impropriety have been enlarged m that consisting of "Poems founded on the Tections;" as might this latter from those, and m the class "proceeding from Sentiment and eflection." The most striking characteristics each piece, mutual illustration, variety, and oportion, have governed me throughout. None of the other Classes, except those of cy and Imagination, require any particular tice. But a remark of general application may made. All Poets, except the dramatic, have en in the practice of feigning that their works th what degree of affectation this has been done re composed to the music of the harp or lyre: modern times, I leave to the judicious to termine. For my own part, I have not been posed to violate probability so far, or to make activity?-Imagination, in the sense of the word ch a large demand upon the Reader's charity. me of these pieces are essentially lyrical; and, erefore, cannot have their due force without supposed musical accompaniment; but, in ach the greatest part, as a substitute for the ssic lyre or romantic harp, I require nothing ore than an animated or impassioned recitan, adapted to the subject. Poems, however mble in their kind, if they be good in that cannot read themselves; the law of long lable and short must not be so inflexible,-the ter of metre must not be so impassive to the rit of versification,-as to deprive the Reader all voluntary power to modulate, in subordinan to the ne manner as his mind is left at liberty, and En summoned, to act upon its thoughts and ages. But, though the accompaniment of musical instrument be frequently dispensed supply an account of a building, and be so intent upon what he had discovered of the foundation, as to conclude his task without once looking up at the superstructure? Here, as in other instances throughout the volume, the judicious Author's mind is enthralled by Etymology; he takes up the original word as his guide and escort, and too often does not perceive how soon he becomes its prisoner, without liberty to tread in any path but that to which it confines him. It is not easy to find out how imagination, thus explained, differs from distinct remembrance of images; or fancy from quick and vivid recollection of them: each is nothing more than a mode of memory. If the two words bear the above meaning, and no other, what term is left to designate that faculty of which the Poet is "all compact;" he whose eye glances from earth to heaven, whose spiritual attributes body forth what his pen is prompt in turning to shape; or what is left to characterise Fancy, as insinuating herself into the heart of objects with creative as giving title to a class of the following Poems, has no reference to images that are merely a faithful copy, existing in the mind, of absent external objects; but is a word of higher import, denoting operations of the mind upon those objects, and processes of creation or of composition, governed by certain fixed laws. I proceed to illustrate my meaning by instances. A parrot hangs from the wires of his cage by his beak or by his claws; or a monkey from the bough of a tree by his paws or his tail. Each creature does so literally and actually. In the first Eclogue of Virgil, the shepherd, thinking of the time when he is to take leave of his farm, thus addresses his goats: "Non ego vos posthac viridi projectus in antro Dumosa pendere procul de rupe videbo." is the well-known expression of Shakespeare, delineating an ordinary image upon the cliffs of Dover. In these two instances is a slight exertion of the faculty which I denominate imagination, in the use of one word: neither the goats nor the samphire-gatherer do literally hang, as does the parrot or the monkey; but, presenting to the senses something of such an appearance, the mind in its activity, for its own gratification, contemplates them as hanging. "As when far off at sea a fleet descried Ply, stemming nightly toward the Pole: so seemed Here is the full strength of the imagination involved in the word hangs, and exerted upon the whole image: First, the fleet, an aggregate of many ships, is represented as one mighty person, whose track, we know and feel, is upon the waters; but, taking advantage of its appearance to the senses, the Poet dares to represent it as hanging in the clouds, both for the gratification of the mind in contemplating the image itself, and in reference to the motion and appearance of the sublime objects to which it is compared. From impressions of sight we will pass to those of sound; which, as they must necessarily be of a less definite character, shall be selected from these volumes: "Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods;" of the same bird, "His voice was buried among trees, The stock-dove is said to coo, a sound well imitating the note of the bird; but, by the intervention of the metaphor broods, the affections are called in by the imagination to assist in marking the manner in which the bird reiterates and prolongs her soft note, as if herself delighting to listen to it, and participating of a still and quiet satisfaction, like that which may be supposed inseparable from the continuous process of incubation. "His voice was buried among trees," a metaphor expressing the love of seclusion by which this Bird is marked; and characterising its note as not partaking of the shrill and the piercing, and therefore more easily deadened by the intervening shade; yet a note so peculiar and withal so pleasing, that the breeze, gifted with that love of the sound which the Poet feels, penetrates the shades in which it is entombed, and conveys it to the ear of the listener. "Shall I call thee Bird, This concise interrogation characterises the seeming ubiquity of the voice of the cuckoo, and dispossesses the creature almost of a corporeal existence; the Imagination being tempted to this exertion of her power by a consciousness in the memory that the cuckoo is almost perpetually heard throughout the season of spring, but seldom becomes an object of sight. Thus far of images independent of each othe and immediately endowed by the mind with pr perties that do not inhere in them, up u incitement from properties and qualities existence of which is inherent and obica These processes of imagination are carried re either by conferring additional properties up an object, or abstracting from it some of the which it actually possesses, and thus enabling to re-act upon the mind which hath performed the process, like a new existence. I pass from the Imagination acting up a individual image to a consideration of the ne faculty employed upon images in a conjunct by which they modify each other. The Rain has already had a fine instance before hi the passage quoted from Virgil, where the parently perilous situation of the goat, basc upon the shaggy precipice, is contrasted that of the shepherd contemplating it from seclusion of the cavern in which he lies stretch at case and in security. Take these images separ rately, and how unaffecting the picture compan with that produced by their being thus conne with, and opposed to, each other! "As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie Such seemed this Man; not all alive or dead Motionless as a cloud the old Man stood, That heareth not the loud winds when they call And moveth altogether if it move at all." In these images, the conferring, the abstra and the modifying powers of the Imagina immediately and mediately acting, are all bro} into conjunction. The stone is endowed w something of the power of life to approximate to the sea-beast; and the sea-beast stripped t some of its vital qualities to assimilate is to stone; which intermediate image is thus tree for the purpose of bringing the original ins that of the stone, to a nearer resemblance to a figure and condition of the aged Man: divested of so much of the indications of life a motion as to bring him to the point where two objects unite and coalesce in just compar After what has been said, the image of the d need not be commented upon. Thus far of an endowing or modifying post but the Imagination also shapes and cre and how? By innumerable processes: 1 none does it inore delight than in that of c solidating numbers into unity, and disser and separating unity into number,-alternat proceeding from, and governed by, a s consciousness of the soul in her own mighty almost divine powers. Recur to the res already cited from Milton. When the cor Fleet, as one Person, has been introduced "41) from Bengala," "They," ie. the "mercha representing the fleet resolved into a multi of ships, "ply" their voyage towards the tremities of the earth: "So," (referring to word "As" in the commencement) seemned flying Fiend;" the image of his Person acting combine the multitude of ships into one body,- "Modo me Thebis, modo ponit Athenis." ear again this mighty Poet,-speaking of the essiah going forth to expel from heaven the bellious angels, "Attended by ten thousand thousand Saints He onward came: far off his coming shone,” e retinue of Saints, and the Person of the Mesth himself, lost almost and merged in the lendour of that indefinite abstraction "His ming!" As I do not mean here to treat this subject rther than to throw some light upon the esent Volumes, and especially upon one divion of them, I shall spare myself and the Reader e trouble of considering the Imagination as it als with thoughts and sentiments, as it regutes the composition of characters, and deterines the course of actions: I will not consider (more than I have already done by implication) that power which, in the language of one of y most esteemed Friends, "draws all things to e; which makes things animate or inanimate, ings with their attributes, subjects with their cessories, take one colour and serve to one 'ect1." The grand store-houses of enthusiastic d meditative Imagination, of poetical, as ntra-distinguished from human and dramatic agination, are the prophetic and lyrical parts the Holy Scriptures, and the works of Milton; which I cannot forbear to add those of enser. I select these writers in preference to ose of ancient Greece and Rome, because the thropomorphitism of the Pagan religion subted the minds of the greatest poets in those untries too much to the bondage of definite em; from which the Hebrews were preserved their abhorrence of idolatry. This abhorrence is almost as strong in our great epic Poet, both >m circumstances of his life, and from the nstitution of his mind. However imbued the rface might be with classical literature, he was Hebrew in soul; and all things tended in him wards the sublime. Spenser, of a gentler nare, maintained his freedom by aid of his allerical spirit, at one time inciting him to create rsons out of abstractions; and, at another, by superior effort of genius, to give the universality d permanence of abstractions to his human ngs, by means of attributes and emblems that ong to the highest moral truths and the rest sensations,-of which his character of Una a glorious example. Of the human and amatic Imagination the works of Shakspeare an inexhaustible source. I tax not you, ye Elements, with unkindness, never gave you kingdoms, call'd you Daughters!" And if, bearing in mind the many Poets distinshed by this prime quality, whose names I 1 Charles Lamb upon the genius of Hogarth. omit to mention; yet justified by recollection of the insults which the ignorant, the incapable, and the presumptuous, have heaped upon these and my other writings, I may be permitted to anticipate the judgment of posterity upon myself, I shall declare (censurable, I grant, if the notoriety of the fact above stated does not justify me) that I have given in these unfavourable times, evidence of exertions of this faculty upon its worthiest objects, the external universe, the moral and religious sentiments of Man, his natural affections, and his acquired passions; which have the same ennobling tendency as the productions of men, in this kind, worthy to be holden in undying remembrance. To the mode in which Fancy has already been characterised as the power of evoking and combining, or, as my friend Mr. Coleridge has styled it, "the aggregative and 'associative power," my objection is only that the definition is too general. To aggregate and to associate, to evoke and to combine, belong as well to the Imagination as to the Fancy; but either the materials evoked and combined are different; or they are brought together under a different law, and for a different purpose. Fancy does not require that the materials which she makes use of should be susceptible of change in their constitution, from her touch; and, where they admit of modification, it is enough for her purpose if it be slight, limited, and evanescent. Directly the reverse of these, are the desires and demands of the Imagination. She recoils from everything but the plastic, the pliant, and the indefinite. She leaves it to Fancy to describe Queen Mab as coming, "In shape no bigger than an agate-stone On the fore-finger of an alderman." Having to speak of stature, she does not tell you that her gigantic Angel was as tall as Pompey's Pillar; much less that he was twelve cubits, or twelve hundred cubits high; or that his dimensions equalled those of Teneriffe or Atlas;because these, and if they were a million times as high it would be the same, are bounded: The expression is, "His stature reached the sky!" the illimitable firmament!-When the Imagination frames a comparison, if it does not strike on the first presentation, a sense of the truth of the likeness, from the moment that it is perceived, grows and continues to grow-upon the mind; the resemblance depending less upon outline of form and feature, than upon expression and effect; less upon casual and outstanding, than upon inherent and internal, properties: moreover, the images invariably modify each other.The law under which the processes of Fancy are carried on is as capricious as the accidents of things, and the effects are surprising, playful, ludicrous, amusing, tender, or pathetic, as the objects happen to be appositely produced or fortunately combined. Fancy depends upon the rapidity and profusion with which she scatters her thoughts and images; trusting that their number, and the felicity with which they are linked together, will make amends for the want of individual value: or she prides herself upon the curious subtilty and the successful elaboration with which she can detect their lurking affinities. If she can win you over to her purpose, and impart to you her feelings, she cares not how unstable or transitory may be her influence, knowing that it will not be out of her power to resume it upon an apt occasion. But the Imagination is conscious of an indestructible dominion; the Soul may fall away from it, not being able to sustain its grandeur; but, if once felt and acknowledged, by no act of any other faculty of the mind can it be relaxed, impaired, or diminished.--Fancy is given to quicken and to beguile the temporal part of our nature, Imagination to incite and to support the eternal. Yet is it not the less true that Fancy, as she is an active, is also, under her own laws and in her own spirit, a creative faculty. In what manner Fancy ambitiously aims at a rivalship with Imagination, and Imagination stoops to work with the materials of Fancy, might be illustrated from the compositions of all eloquent writers, whether in prose or verse; and chiefly from those of our own Country. Scarcely a page of the impassioned parts of Bishop Taylor's Works can be opened that shall not afford examples.-Referring the Reader to those inestimable volumes, I will content myself with placing a conceit (ascribed to Lord Chesterfield) in contrast with a passage from the "Paradise Lost": "The dews of the evening most carefully shun, They are the tears of the sky for the loss of the sun." After the transgression of Adam, Milton, with other appearances of sympathising Nature, thus marks the immediate consequence, "Sky lowered, and, muttering thunder, some sad drops Wept at completion of the mortal sin." The associating link is the same in each instance: Dew and rain, not distinguishable from the liquid substance of tears, are employed as indications of sorrow. A flash of surprise is the effect in the former case; a flash of surprise, and nothing more; for the nature of things does not sustain the combination. In the latter, the effects from the act, of which there is this immediate consequence and visible sign, are so momentous, that the mind acknowledges the justice and reasonableness of the sympathy in nature so manifested; and the sky weeps drops of water as if with human eyes, as "Earth had before trembled from her entrails, and Nature given a second groan." Finally, I will refer to Cotton's "Ode upon Winter," an admirable composition, though stained with some peculiarities of the age in which he lived, for a general illustration of the characteristics of Fancy. The middle part of this ode contains a most lively description of the entrance of Winter, with his retinue, as "A palsied king," and yet a military monarch,-advancing for conquest with his army; the several bodies of which, and their arms and equipments, are described with a rapidity of detail, and a profusion of fanciful comparisons, which indicate on the part of the poet extreme activity intellect, and a correspondent hurry of delight feeling. Winter retires from the fee into fortress, where -“a magazine Of sovereign juice is cellared in: Liquor that will the siege maintain Should Phoebus ne'er return again." Though myself a water-drinker, I cannot resiste the pleasure of transcribing what follows, as instance still more happy of Fancy employed the treatment of feeling than, in its preved passages, the Poem supplies of her manage of forms. ""Tis that, that gives the poet rage, "It lays the careful head to rest, "Then let the chill Sirocco blow, "Whilst we together jovial sit "We'll drink the wanting into wealth, "The worthy in disgrace shall find "The brave shall triumph in success "Thus shall our healths do others good, When I sate down to write this Preface, t my intention to have made it more compr hensive; but, thinking that I ought rather apologise for detaining the reader so long, Iva here conclude. 3 |