previous acquaintance with the principles of knowledge, and the means of illustration. Hence it is that Cicero * claims for his orator an acquaintance with all the art and sciences; though he perhaps pushed his claim too far, sheltering himself behind a certain ambiguity in the word complete. Yet Quintilian's claims are no less liberal, and made on the same ground. His Institutions comprehends what he deems necessary for an orator, both in his exercise and formation: and his public performances he represents as a medicine composed of a variety of ingredients, or as the production of bees, extracted from different flowers ↑. Nor will Sir Joshua Reynolds allow his painter to be a mere manufacturer of art. Right performance,-on his system,-requiring a knowledge of principles, correctness of design, and the finishing of taste,-forms a natural alliance with literature. "As our art," says he, " is not a divine gift, so neither is it a mechanical trade. * De Orat. lib. i. Thus admirably expressed by Quintilian :-Nisi forte antidotum atque alia quæ morbis aut vulneribus medentur, ex mul. tis, atque interim contrariis quæque inter se effectibus componi videmus, quorum ex diversis fit illa mixtura una, quæ nulli earum similis est, quibus constat, sed proprias vires ex omnibus sumit; et muta animalia mellis illum inimitabilem humanæ rationi saporem, vario florum ac succorum genere perficiunt; nos mirabimur, si oratio, qua nihil præstantius homini dedit Providentia, pluribus artibus eget; quæ etiam cum se non ostendunt in dicendo nec proferunt, vim tamen occultam suggerunt, et tacite quæque sentiuntur?-Quintiliani Institut. Orat. lib. i. cap. 10. Its foundations are laid in solid science. And practice, though essential to perfection, can never attain that to which it aims, unless it works under the direction of principle." And again :-" He can never be a great artist who is grossly illiterate *.” Poetry also has at least similar claims to make, and for similar reasons. She is drawn, as by some secret power of attraction, into the regions of philosophy; and, in her turn, she attracts philosophy. Who knows not what great things have been advanced concerning Homer, and on the ground, that in his writings there are traces of all the literature of his times? Finding allusions to the works of nature and art, the critics proclaimed him the father of philosophers, no less than the prince of poets. Men of the greatest eminence were content to be taught the most exquisite maxims in their several professions from his writings. Alexander looked to them for the institutes of war; Lycurgus, for laws and political œconomy; and while Aristotle formed his Canons of Criticism from Homer, Strabo appealed to him t as the first author of geographical science. The first book of Strabo, accordingly, is made up of quotations from Homer, illustrative of ancient geography, in the `same manner as Aristotle's Poetics and Longinus's Treatise on the Sublime abound with passages from Homer's *Discourses delivered at the Royal Academy, disc. vii. + Και πρώτον, ότι ορθώς υπειληφαμεν και ημείς, και οι προ ημών, ων έξι και Ιππαρχος, αρχηγέτην είναι της γεωγραφικής εμπειρίας Ομηρον Strabon. Geog. lib. i. poems, illustrative of the laws of their art.-So again, though the science of anatomy, as now understood, was unknown in the age of Homer, yet, in describing the wounds and deaths of his heroes, so critical are his observations, and so correct is his language, that he is considered better authority, for his time, than Hippocrates himself: and accordingly, a very skilful modern anatomist, Mr. Cruickshank, I understand, found it in the way of his lectures to make some remarks on Homer's knowledge of this science; and the profoundest anatomist the world ever knew, Dr. John Hunter, often adopts the very words of Homer.-In short, the critics, when they got on this subject, led on by such authorities, knew not where to stop, and grew extravagant. They considered poetry, at least Homer's, as philosophy has been considered, like a fair island encircled by the boundless ocean; and in Homer they seemed to embrace every thing: Ευρε φυσις, μολις ευρε, τεκουσα δ' επαυσατο μοχθων, But as objects are diminished by distance of place, they are wont to be magnified by distance of time. When men look back on antiquity, they must come to some point of rest there they see literature issue forth, perhaps, copiously, and they too hastily imagine they have reached its source; though the presumption is, that it has coursed about for incalculable years; that it has circulated perhaps over the world: we behold the stream, but the spring-head, like that of the Nile, is lost in impenetrable darkness. Leaving, then, all questions relative to Homer, concerning whom ancient critics have raised so many fancies, and the modern critics, more particularly the Germans, so many doubts, let us, by generalizing our observations, confine them to poetry. The simple truth seems to be this. The same impulse that carries the mind to poetry, inclines it to a love of general excellence, and, by a most natural sympathy, to connect it with art and science. In this point of view, therefore, poetry is not to be considered merely as an art, at least in the sense of an habitual power in man, of becoming the cause of some effect, according to a system of various and well approved precepts *, but as a vigorous feeling, raising the mind to a love of excellence, and connecting it with what is agreeable or useful in the arts and sciences in general: and in this light it is considered by those advocates of poetical enthusiasm, Plato and Proclus in other words, it is an inventive, descriptive, combining power, leading over extensive tracts of nature, attaching itself to a thousand beautiful forms of life, conceiving strongly ideal beauty, and feeling, with the nicest sense, amid the endless variety of relations, the means of a powerful and quick concatenation. For it is the province of INVENTION, the supreme faculty of poetic genius, to discover and to collect; and should it be said that it is to collect mere flowers, yet, while so employed, it is in the way of finding something more substantial and permanent: in the same manner as * See in Harris's Three Treatises, the Treatise concerning Art, a rover at sea, while in falls in with many more. tion, another great faculty of poetry, to give a pleasing, natural flow to narration; and should it be said, this is a mere babble of the stream, yet do streams take a colour and a taste from the several beds over which they flow. It is the province of imagination, the very soul of poetry, to bring near distant objects, to unite them into one form, and to give them a glow, as from a painter's hand. Whoever possesses most of these qualities, possesses the most knowledge; and whoever applies them most ingeniously, according to the laws of imitative art, will be, as Homer was, the best poet. quest of one particular vessel, It is the province of descrip And should we admit that the time of Homer * is too distant, and his history too uncertain for argument; still it must be admitted, by whomsoever and at whatsoever period written, the Iliad embraces a prodigious compass of knowledge, and amply illustrates how intimately science is connected with poetry, and to what a vast extent rendered subservient to her particular interests. And if we look nearer our own time, where all is clear daylight, and among our own poets, whose history is certain, we shall find every thing on the side of our position. Milton we can trace back to his early life, and over his juvenile performances; and we can follow him up to the full vigour of his extraordinary intellect, and the completion of his great work.-How replete was his mind See the German commentators, Wolfius and Heyne, on this curious subject. |