Alexander, who drinks without hesitation the potion presented by his
physician, Philip, even after he had received intimation that poison was
contained in the cup; a noble and pathetic scene! which hath acquired
new dignity and expression under the inimitable pencil of La Sueur.
Humanity is melted into tears of tender admiration by the deportment
of Henry IV. of France, while his rebellious subjects compelled him to
form the blockade of his capital. In chastising his enemies, he could
not but remember they were his people; and knowing they were reduced to
the extremity of famine, he generously connived at the methods practised
to supply them with provision. Chancing one day to meet two peasants,
who had been detected in these practices, as they were led to execution
they implored his clemency, declaring in the sight of Heaven, they had
no other way to procure subsistence for their wives and children. He
pardoned them on the spot, and giving them all the money that was in his
purse, “Henry of Bearne is poor (said he); had he more money to afford,
you should have it—go home to your families in peace; and remember your
duty to God, and your allegiance to your sovereign.” Innumerable examples
of the same kind may be selected from history, both ancient and modern,
the study of which we would therefore strenuously recommend.
Historical knowledge indeed becomes necessary on many other accounts,
which in its place we will explain: but as the formation of the heart
is of the first consequence, and should precede the cultivation of the
understanding, such striking instances of superior virtue ought to be
culled for the perusal of the young pupil, who will read them with
eagerness, and revolve them with pleasure. Thus the young mind becomes
enamoured of moral beauty, and the passions are listed on the side of
humanity. Meanwhile knowledge of a different species will go hand in
hand with the advances of morality, and the understanding be gradually
extended. Virtue and sentiment reciprocally assist each other, and both
conduce to the improvement of perception. While the scholar’s chief
attention is employed in learning the Latin and Greek languages, and
this is generally the task of childhood and early youth, it is even then
the business of the preceptor to give his mind a turn for observation,
to direct his powers of discernment, to point out the distinguishing
marks of character, and dwell upon the charms of moral and intellectual
beauty, as they may chance to occur in the classics that are used for his
instruction. In reading Cornelius Nepos and Plutarch’s Lives, even with
a view to grammatical improvement only, he will insensibly imbibe and
learn to compare ideas of greater importance. He will become enamoured
of virtue and patriotism, and acquire a detestation for vice, cruelty,
and corruption. The perusal of the Roman story in the works of Florus,
Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus, will irresistibly engage his attention,
expand his conception, cherish his memory, exercise his judgment, and
warm him with a noble spirit of emulation. He will contemplate with love
and admiration the disinterested candour of Aristides, surnamed the
Just, whom the guilty cabals of his rival Themistocles exiled from his
ungrateful country by a sentence of ostracism. He will be surprised to
learn, that one of his fellow-citizens, an illiterate artisan, bribed
by his enemies, chancing to meet him in the street without knowing his
person, desired he would write Aristides on his shell, (which was the
method those plebeians used to vote against delinquents), when the
innocent patriot wrote his own name without complaint or expostulation.
He will, with equal astonishment, applaud the inflexible integrity of
Fabricius, who preferred the poverty of innocence to all the pomp of
affluence, with which Pyrrhus endeavoured to seduce him from the arms of
his country. He will approve with transport the noble generosity of his
soul in rejecting the proposal of that prince’s physician, who offered
to take him off by poison; and in sending the caitiff bound to his
sovereign, whom he would have so basely and cruelly betrayed.
In reading the ancient authors, even for the purposes of school
education, the unformed taste will begin to relish the irresistible
energy, greatness, and sublimity of Homer; the serene majesty, the
melody, and pathos of Virgil; the tenderness of Sappho and Tibullus;
the elegance and propriety of Terence; the grace, vivacity, satire, and
sentiment of Horace.
Nothing will more conduce to the improvement of the scholar in his
knowledge of the languages, as well as in taste and morality, than
his being obliged to translate choice parts and passages of the most
approved classics, both poetry and prose, especially the latter; such
as the orations of Demosthenes and Isocrates, the Treatise of Longinus
on the Sublime, the Commentaries of Cæsar, the Epistles of Cicero and
the Younger Pliny, and the two celebrated speeches in the Catilinarian
conspiracy by Sallust. By this practice he will become more intimate with
the beauties of the writing and the idioms of the language from which he
translates; at the same time it will form his style, and by exercising
his talent of expression, make him a more perfect master of his mother
tongue. Cicero tells us, that in translating two orations, which the most
celebrated orators of Greece pronounced against each other, he performed
this task, not as a servile interpreter, but as an orator, preserving
the sentiments, forms, and figures of the original, but adapting the
expression to the taste and manners of the Romans.—“In quibus non verbum
pro verbo necesse habui reddere, sed genus omnium verborum vimque
servavi;” “in which I did not think it was necessary to translate
literally word for word, but I preserved the natural and full scope of
the whole.” Of the same opinion was Horace, who says in his Art of Poetry,
Nec verbum verbo curabis reddere, fidus
Interpres:——
Nor word for word translate with painful care——
Nevertheless, in taking the liberty here granted, we are apt to run into
the other extreme, and substitute equivalent thoughts and phrases, till
hardly any features of the original remain. The metaphors of figures,
especially in poetry, ought to be as religiously preserved as the images
of painting, which we cannot alter or exchange without destroying, or
injuring, at least, the character and style of the original.
In this manner the preceptor will sow the seeds of that taste, which
will soon germinate, rise, blossom, and produce perfect fruit by dint
of future care and cultivation. In order to restrain the luxuriancy of
the young imagination, which is apt to run riot, to enlarge the stock of
ideas, exercise the reason, and ripen the judgment, the pupil must be
engaged in the severer study of science. He must learn geometry, which
Plato recommends for strengthening the mind, and enabling it to think
with precision. He must be made acquainted with geography and chronology,
and trace philosophy through all her branches. Without geography and
chronology he will not be able to acquire a distinct idea of history;
nor judge of the propriety of many interesting scenes, and a thousand
allusions, that present themselves in the works of genius. Nothing
opens the mind so much as the researches of philosophy; they inspire
us with sublime conceptions of the Creator, and subject, as it were,
all nature to our command. These bestow that liberal turn of thinking,
and in a great measure contribute to that universality in learning, by
which a man of taste ought to be eminently distinguished. But history
is the inexhaustible source from which he will derive his most useful
knowledge respecting the progress of the human mind, the constitution of
government, the rise and decline of empires, the revolution of arts, the
variety of character, and the vicissitudes of fortune.
The knowledge of history enables the poet not only to paint characters,
but also to describe magnificent and interesting scenes of battle and
adventure. Not that the poet or painter ought to be restrained to the
letter of historical truth. History represents what has really happened
in nature; the other arts exhibit what might have happened, with such
exaggeration of circumstance and feature as may be deemed an improvement
on nature: but this exaggeration must not be carried beyond the bounds
of probability: and these, generally speaking, the knowledge of history
will ascertain. It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to
find a man actually existing, whose proportions should answer to those of
the Greek statue, distinguished by the name of the Apollo of Belvedere;
or to produce a woman similar in proportion of parts to the other
celebrated piece, called the Venus de Medicis; therefore it may be truly
affirmed, that they are not conformable to the real standard of nature:
nevertheless, every artist will own that they are the very archetypes of
grace, elegance, and symmetry; and every judging eye must behold them
with admiration, as improvements on the lines and lineaments of nature.
The truth is, the sculptor or statuary composed the various proportions
in nature from a great number of different subjects, every individual
of which he found imperfect or defective in some one particular, though
beautiful in all the rest; and from these observations, corroborated by
taste and judgment, he formed an ideal pattern, according to which his
idea was modelled, and produced in execution.
Every body knows the story of Zeuxis, the famous painter of Heraclea,
who, according to Pliny, invented the _chiaro oscuro_, or disposition of
light and shade, among the ancients, and excelled all his contemporaries
in the chromatique, or art of colouring. This great artist being employed
to draw a perfect beauty, in the character of Helen, to be placed in the
Temple of Juno, culled out five of the most beautiful damsels the city
could produce, and selecting what was excellent in each, combined them
in one picture according to the predisposition of his fancy, so that it
shone forth an amazing model of perfection.[5] In like manner, every man
of genius, regulated by true taste, entertains in his imagination an
ideal beauty, conceived and cultivated as an improvement upon nature: and
this we refer to the article of invention.
It is the business of art to imitate nature, but not with a servile
pencil; and to choose those attitudes and dispositions only, which are
beautiful and engaging. With this view we must avoid all disagreeable
prospects of nature, which excite the ideas of abhorrence and disgust.
For example, a painter would not find his account in exhibiting the
resemblance of a dead carcass, half consumed by vermin, or of swine
wallowing in ordure, or of a beggar lousing himself on a dunghill, though
these scenes should be painted never so naturally, and all the world
must allow that the scenes were taken from nature, because the merit of
the imitation would be greatly over-balanced by the vile choice of the
artist. There are, nevertheless, many scenes of horror, which please in
the representation, from a certain interesting greatness, which we shall
endeavour to explain when we come to consider the sublime.
Were we to judge every production by the rigorous rules of nature,
we should reject the Iliad of Homer, the Æneid of Virgil, and every
celebrated tragedy of antiquity and the present times, because there is
no such thing in nature as an Hector or Turnus talking in hexameter, or
an Othello in blank verse: we should condemn the Hercules of Sophocles,
and the Miser of Moliere, because we never knew a hero so strong as the
one, or a wretch so sordid as the other. But if we consider poetry as
an elevation of natural dialogue, as a delightful vehicle for conveying
the noblest sentiments of heroism and patriot virtue, to regale the
sense with the sounds of musical expression, while the fancy is ravished
with enchanting images, and the heart warmed to rapture and ecstasy,
we must allow that poetry is a perfection to which nature would gladly
aspire; and that though it surpasses, it does not deviate from her,
provided the characters are marked with propriety and sustained with
genius. Characters, therefore, both in poetry and painting, may be a
little overcharged or exaggerated, without offering violence to nature;
nay, they must be exaggerated in order to be striking, and to preserve
the idea of imitation, whence the reader and spectator derive in many
instances their chief delight. If we meet a common acquaintance in the
street, we see him without emotion; but should we chance to spy his
portrait well executed, we are struck with pleasing admiration. In this
case the pleasure arises entirely from the imitation. We every day hear
unmoved the natives of Ireland and Scotland speaking their own dialects;
but should an Englishman mimic either, we are apt to burst out into a
loud laugh of applause, being surprised and tickled by the imitation
alone, though at the same time we cannot but allow that the imitation
is imperfect. We are more affected by reading Shakspeare’s description
of Dover Cliff, and Otway’s picture of the Old Hag, than we should be
were we actually placed on the summit of the one, or met in reality with
such a beldame as the other, because in reading these descriptions we
refer to our own experience, and perceive with surprise the justness of
the imitations. But if it is so close as to be mistaken for nature, the
pleasure then will cease, because the μιμησις, or imitation, no longer
appears.
Aristotle says, that all poetry and music is imitation,[6] whether epic,
tragic, or comic, whether vocal or instrumental, from the pipe or the
lyre. He observes, that in man there is a propensity to imitate even
from his infancy; that the first perceptions of the mind are acquired by
imitation; and seems to think that the pleasure derived from imitation is
the gratification of an appetite implanted by nature. We should rather
think the pleasure it gives arises from the mind’s contemplating that
excellency of art, which thus rivals nature, and seems to vie with her in
creating such a striking resemblance of her works. Thus the arts may be
justly termed imitative even in the article of invention: for in forming
a character, contriving an incident, and describing a scene, he must
still keep nature in view, and refer every particular of his invention
to her standard; otherwise his production will be destitute of truth and
probability, without which the beauties of imitation cannot subsist.
It will be a monster of incongruity, such as Horace alludes to, in the
beginning of his Epistle to the Pisos:
Humano capiti cervicem pictor equinam
Jungere si velit, et varias inducere plumas
Undique collatis membris, ut turpiter atrum
Desinat in piscem, mulier formosa superne;
Spectatum admissi risum teneatis, amici?
Suppose a painter to a human head
Should join a horse’s neck, and wildly spread
The various plumage of the feather’d kind
O’er limbs of different beasts absurdly join’d;
Or if he gave to view a beauteous maid
Above the waist with every charm array’d;
Should a foul fish her lower parts unfold,
Would you not laugh such pictures to behold?
The magazine of nature supplies all those images which compose the most
beautiful imitations. This the artist examines occasionally, as he would
consult a collection of masterly sketches; and selecting particulars for
his purpose, mingles the ideas with a kind of enthusiasm, or το θειον,
which is that gift of heaven we call genius, and finally produces such a
whole as commands admiration and applause.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] His real name was Quintus Flaminius.
[5] Præbete igitur mihi quæso, inquit, ex istis virginibus formosissimas,
dum pingo id, quod pollicitus sum vobis, ut mutum in simulacrum ex
animali exemplo veritas transferatur.—Ille autem quinque delegit.—Neque
enim putavit omnia, quæ quæreret ad venustatem, uno in corpore se
reperire posse; ideo quod nihil simplici in genere omnibus ex partibus
perfectum natura expolivit. _Cic. Lib. 2. de Inv. cap. 1._
[6] Ἐποποιΐα δη και ἡ της τραγωδιας ποιησις, ετι δε κωμωδια και ἡ
διθυραμβοποιητικη, και της αὐλιτικης ἡ πλειστη και κιθαριστικης, πασαι
τυγχανουσιν ουσαι μιμησεις το συνολον.
XIV.
ORIGIN OF POETRY.
The study of polite literature is generally supposed to include all
the liberal arts of poetry, painting, sculpture, music, eloquence,
and architecture. All these are founded on imitation; and all of them
mutually assist and illustrate each other. But as painting, sculpture,
music, and architecture cannot be perfectly attained without long
practice of manual operation, we shall distinguish them from poetry
and eloquence, which depend entirely on the faculties of the mind; and
on these last, as on the arts which immediately constitute the Belles
Lettres, employ our attention in the present inquiry; or, if it should
run to a greater length than we propose, it shall be confined to poetry
alone; a subject that comprehends, in its full extent, the province of
taste, or what is called polite literature; and differs essentially from
eloquence both in its end and origin.
Poetry sprang from ease, and was consecrated to pleasure; whereas
eloquence arose from necessity, and aims at conviction. When we say
poetry sprang from ease, perhaps we ought to except that species of it
which owed its rise to inspiration and enthusiasm, and properly belonged
to the culture of religion. In the first ages of mankind, and even in the
original state of nature, the unlettered mind must have been struck with
sublime conceptions, with admiration and awe, by those great phenomena,
which, though every day repeated, can never be viewed without internal
emotion. Those would break forth in exclamations expressive of the
passion produced, whether surprise or gratitude, terror or exultation.
The rising, the apparent course, the setting, and seeming renovation of
the sun; the revolution of light and darkness; the splendour, change, and
circuit of the moon; and the canopy of heaven, bespangled with stars,
must have produced expressions of wonder and adoration. “O! glorious
luminary! great eye of the world! source of that light which guides
my steps! of that heat which warms me when chilled with cold! of that
influence which cheers the face of nature! whither dost thou retire
every evening with the shades? Whence dost thou spring every morning
with renovated lustre, and never-fading glory? Art not thou the Ruler,
the Creator, the God, of all that I behold? I adore thee as thy child,
thy slave, thy suppliant! I crave thy protection, and the continuance of
thy goodness! Leave me not to perish with cold, nor to wander solitary
in utter darkness! Return, return, after thy wonted absence: drive
before thee the gloomy clouds that would obscure the face of nature. The
birds begin to warble, and every animal is filled with gladness at thy
approach: even the trees, the herbs, and the flowers, seem to rejoice
with fresher beauties, and send forth a grateful incense to thy power,
whence their origin is derived!” A number of individuals, inspired with
the same ideas, would join in these orisons, which would be accompanied
with corresponding gesticulations of the body. They would be improved
by practice, and grow regular from repetition. The sounds and gestures
would naturally fall into measured cadence. Thus the song and dance will
be produced, and a system of worship being formed, the muse would be
consecrated to the purposes of religion.
Hence those forms of thanksgivings and litanies of supplication with
which the religious rites of all nations, even the most barbarous, are
at this day celebrated in every quarter of the known world. Indeed this
is a circumstance in which all nations surprisingly agree, how much
soever they may differ in every other article of laws, customs, manners,
and religion. The ancient Egyptians celebrated the festivals of their
god Apis with hymns and dances. The superstition of the Greeks, partly
derived from the Egyptians, abounded with poetical ceremonies, such as
choruses and hymns, sung and danced at their apotheoses, sacrifices,
games, and divinations. The Romans had their _carmen seculare_ and Salian
priests, who on certain festivals sung and danced through the streets of
Rome. The Israelites were famous for this kind of exultation: “And Miriam
the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand, and all
the women went out after her, with timbrels and with dances, and Miriam
answered them, Sing ye to the Lord,” &c. “And David danced before the
Lord with all his might.” The psalms composed by this monarch, the songs
of Deborah and Isaiah, are further confirmations of what we have advanced.
From the Phœnicians the Greeks borrowed the cursed Orthyan song, when
they sacrificed their children to Diana. The poetry of the bards
constituted great part of the religious ceremonies among the Gauls and
Britons; and the carousals of the Goths were religious institutions,
celebrated with songs of triumph. The Mahometan dervise dances to the
sound of the flute, and whirls himself round until he grows giddy, and
falls into a trance. The Marabous compose hymns in praise of Allah. The
Chinese celebrate their grand festivals with processions of idols, songs,
and instrumental music. The Tartars, Samoiedes, Laplanders, Negroes,
even the Caffres, called Hottentots, solemnize their worship (such as it
is) with songs and dancing; so that we may venture to say, poetry is the
universal vehicle in which all nations have expressed their most sublime
conceptions.