sons, though in different degrees, and, perhaps, different ways, of enlarged and cultivated minds.

"But such writers as Burns"-Such writers as Burns confirm my argument. That story would be poorly, indeed falsely, told, that left Burns gasping for inspiration at the ploughtail. Such a character would not have existed, but for that love of general nature and strength of feeling, which in part lead to, and in part constitute, mental improvement. Writers much inferior to Burns prove no less; such as Taylor the Water Poet, and Stephen Duck the Thresher: they considered mental improvement so essential to their pretensions, as to be even ostentatious of the little they knew; and whoever chooses to dip into their poems, will find that the extent of their reading was commensurate, at least, with the reach of their poetry.

But not to seem presumptuous, and to claim for the poets more than their due, let us, in closing, make all reasonable concessions.

Though poetry, then, is thus linked, as we have seen, with philosophy, yet it must be allowed to be the nature of an ingenious mind to find resources in its own stores, and to dispose of what it collects elsewhere to the greatest advantage. Hence, while dull writers appear to know little or nothing, those of lively associations appear to know more than they really do; like collectors of curiosities and antiquities, who, without any deep research or much knowledge, may lodge the various productions of nature, and the choice remains of different nations, in their museums; or like gold-beaters, who spread a little gold over a great length and breadth of surface. We must add, too, what is often said, that a poetic genius possesses an elasticity which is wont to fly off from pursuits which appear in the rigid form of system, and require a certain intenseness of application. Hence, they say, poets are rarely mathematicians; and hence we find Swift, and Johnson, and Gray, abusing, ignorantly enough, yet, as it were, in their poetical characters, the dry, unbending mathematics. We may concede even all this, and yet hold to our conclusion, -one that the ancients were so fond of establishing, and which no modern has disproved, -that poetry is naturally allied to the arts and sciences, and that the same propensities which incline to this exquisite pursuit, give a proneness to original observation, a fondness for useful or agreeable reading, a feeling which attaches to general truth, and inspires a love of nature.

Is it, after all, said, that fable, which has sometimes been called the offspring of poetry, furnishes an objection against poetry in this its supposed alliance with truth and philosophy? That would be a hasty objection which is, indeed, a very strong confirmation of the claim. For what was fable, ancient fable, I mean? Here we need not call in Alexander Ross's assistance, whose Muse's Interpreter is a thread spun too finely, and carried out to a length too extravagant, for the purposes of reasonable men: but Sallust was as grave a man, though of another school, a Platonist: and if he did not find truth, he travelled a long way to very little purpose; for Photius says,

he travelled over the whole world without sandals, to find it. Sallust says "fables were divine: he connects them with the profoundest metaphysics and theogonies. The world itself he calls a fable, and for this reason, -because while bodies and things are seen in it, souls and minds are hid; that truth is concealed under fables, to prevent the unthinking from despising it, and to compel the studious to become philosophers." Lord Bacon, too, whose searching intellect appréhended so well all the connecting links of science, places poetry very high, and bestows on it the proudest appellations, in his Advancement of Learning, and has written a treatise professedly to show, in reference to their fables, "the Wisdom of the Ancients."

But the world are too fond of wonders, and are therefore liable to be imposed on by crudities: such are the ideas of a poet comprehending all knowledge, and a poet entirely ignorant. Our knowledge is derived from the association of ideas; and each man's will be in proportion to his number of ideas: and as a mind truly poetical must possess those perceptions and feelings which form natural, lively, and strong associations, it is of little consequence whence those ideas are derived, whether from books or his own feelings, from actual observation or social intercourse. But no human excellence was ever formed out of nothing. "What can be more absurd," said Erasmus to a great prince, "than that he who commands the world should not know what the world is *?"

See Erasmus's Dedication to Pliny's Natural History.

VOL. 111.

C

In language somewhat resembling this might be addressed the person who, in the name of the poets, (for I am confident no poet would act thus himself), should treat science with contempt, in honour, as it were, of the paramount claims of genius.

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CHAPTER II.

ON POETICAL GENIUS, AND ITS SUBJECTION TO RULES.

It is observed by Cicero, "that of all men engaged in the study of the liberal arts, the number of excellent poets is least considerable *." This he makes only as a cursory remark; but the reflections of that great man on the difficulties attending oratory, extend also to poetic compositions; and, without going into nice inquiries, we may venture, from the observations much approved and long established of the best critics, to draw these conclusions, that true poetry is possessed of excellence, which lies not within the reach of every genius; which cannot be carried to perfection but under the most favourable circumstances; and that the poet must be peculiarly gifted by Nature. The writer, therefore, who undertakes to deliver rules for the exercise of poetry, must be prepared for mortification, and will be more fortunate than his predecessors, if he is not supposed to take too much liberty for a critic, and to possess too little genius for a poet.

That some critics have set themselves up for arbitrary