possessed extraordinary fecundity. Science was its great ambition, and, in Athens more particularly, its staple commodity. Its productions in the imitative arts, statuary, painting, and music, have excited the wonder of all ages; and in poetry it stands without a rival. What was there so greatly admired would be generally cultivated; and here poetry was interwoven in the laws, nor less called forth by the national institutions and public games. More than this, it was inspired by their religion; their philosophy harmonized with it, and their government fostered it. And if, as it is said, it reached perfection in this country, it must have been after innumerable trials. Perfection is not the effect of a few attempts, nor of a single age: both in nations and individuals it is the produce of successive efforts, the growth of many centuries. What Hesiod says of their gods, was probably true of their poets;

– Τρις γαρ χίλιαι εισι τανυσφυροι Ωκεανίναι

It is absurd to suppose Homer the first poet in point of antiquity; and should any one advance the absurdity, it may immediately be confuted by his own writings. Nature must have had many births before she produced Homer.

Observations not unlike these will apply equally to the Roman poets. Though it was late before the Romans devoted themselves seriously to literature, yet a country that could have produced Ennius, Lucretius, and Virgil,

must have produced more, and those not defective in genius, nor inconsiderable for numbers: and let Horace and Juvenal be vouchers for their contemporaries, that they were numerous enough, if not redundant and overflowing.

- Scribimus indocti doctique poemata.

Hor.

I am indeed much disposed to suspect, contrary to what some seem to suppose, that poetry is apt to appear not as a single star so much as a constellation, where one or two only are apt to appear as being of the brightest, of the first order. Our own country will illustrate this remark. Shakspeare, though he outshone all his contemporaries, yet did not shine alone: besides Milton, and some authors unknown, Poetry brought forth in his age, and exhibited to public notice, nearly forty writers entirely dramatic *; this too amidst a numerous poetical progeny of another class.

As to her numerous poetical progeny of another class, Ritson has given an account of them of the twelfth, thir teenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries †:" he calls it only a Catalogue of Engleish Poets, and yet it extends to a volume of 400 pages:-though it contains indeed a short account of their works; and prior to the twelfth century our Saxon ancestors wrote much in Saxon, but more in Latin ; and their poets were not few.

* Specimens of English Dramatic Poets, who lived about the time of Shakspeare. by Charles Lamb.

↑ See his Bibliographia Poetica.

# See Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons, book xii. ch. i. ii. iii.

We need pursue the subject no further; for in this respect we find the history of one country is, with the proper allowances, the history of all. As to modern Europe, every country produces its race of poets, every district its race of imitators; and every imitator finds a favourer, who, if not brought to admire, is at least well prepared to give him a hearing. And so much for the number of poets.

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CHAPTER IV.

FEW EXCELLENT POETS.

Bur though makars, minstrels, rimers, versifiers, or whatever they may be called, have been, and still may be, numerous, yet poets, good poets, are very few, and excellent poetry is very rare.

May not then this seem at first strange? What is more generally attempted than poetry? what pursuit more intimately allied to our feelings, more expressive of our natural passions? more conversant in common life, and general manners? What more immediately addresses those natural passions? What more excites those smaller and larger vibrations which make all mankind feel? What, therefore, at first sight, so easy to common apprehension? Let it be added, too, that nothing is more remote from the technicisms of art, the scholastic jargon of language, the subtilties and scepticism of disquisition, the logomachy, the obscurity of learning, than poetry. And, with respect to what is properly called its mechanical part, -I mean the business of versification, - it is considered by many so easy of structure, that in this the most ordinary genius may without much difficulty become a ready-handed builder, a professional adept. Yet critics and poets all agree,

that the number of those who can attain eminence in this divine art is, after all, very inconsiderable. How are we then to account for this, at first sight, mysterious

fact?

Let us take a glance at this subject, and revert first to the Orientals: -for to the East we look as the cradle of the arts and sciences:-there we are told they were first cradled, if not brought to maturity; and the Orientals being allowed to have been the inventors of that species of fiction called the Romance,--to them we may as well look as the inventors of poetry as to any other people. As to the ancient Ægyptians, nothing even of their language is known * except a few letters and hieroglyphical characters, which amuse or puzzle without instructing antiquaries. Of their poetry we know nothing, except by inferences from their hieroglyphics, and the testimony of ancient authors.

To what already has been said of the Arabian poets, we should add what Mons. Huett observes from Erpenius, who was well acquainted with their writings; that all the world put together have not produced so many poets as Arabia; that they can count sixty Princes of Poetry, who have under them great troops of poets. Yet Huet adds elsewhere, " consult their books, and you will find nothing but metaphors, similitudes, and fictions, drawn

* I am alluding to the ancient Ægyptian language in use before the Greek Empire. The Coptic is a different language. Vid. Montfaucon Palæograph. Græc. p. 315.

† Treatise on Romance.