for his principal object, without which they could not consist, and
on which they so depend, as they become actors and players, as it were,
of what nature will have set forth. So doth the astronomer look upon
the stars, and by that he seeth, setteth down what order nature hath
taken therein. So do the geometrician, and arithmetician, in their
diverse sorts of quantities. So doth the musician, in times, tell you
which by nature agree, which not. The natural philosopher thereon hath
his name, and the moral philosopher standeth upon the natural virtues,
vices, and passions of man; and follow nature (saith he) therein, and
thou shalt not err. The lawyer saith what men have determined. The
historian what men have done. The grammarian speaketh only of the rules
of speech; and the rhetorician, and logician, considering what in
nature will soonest prove and persuade, thereon give artificial rules,
which still are compassed within the circle of a question, according
to the proposed matter. The physician weigheth the nature of a man's
body, and the nature of things helpful, or hurtful unto it. And the
metaphysic, though it be in the second and abstract notions, and
therefore be counted supernatural, yet doth he indeed build upon the
depth of nature: only the poet, disdaining to be tied to any such
subjection, lifted up with the vigour of his own invention, doth grow
in effect another nature, in making things either better than nature
bringeth forth, or quite anew forms such as never were in nature, as
the heroes, demigods, cyclops, chimeras, furies, and such like: so as
he goeth hand in hand with nature, not inclosed within the narrow
warrant of her gifts, but freely ranging only within the zodiac of his
own wit.
Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry, as divers poets
have done, neither with pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling
flowers: nor whatsoever else may make the too much loved earth more
lovely. Her world is brazen, the poets only deliver a golden: but let
those things alone and go to man, for whom as the other things are,
so it seemeth in him her uttermost cunning is employed, and know whether
she have brought forth so true a lover as Theagenes, so constant a
friend as Pylades, so valiant a man as Orlando, so right a prince as
Xenophon's Cyrus: so excellent a man every way, as Virgil's Aneas.
Neither let this be jestingly conceived, because the works of the one
be essential, the other, in imitation or fiction; for any understanding
knoweth the skill of the artificer standeth in that idea or fore-conceit
of the work, and not in the work itself. And that the poet hath that
idea, is manifest, by delivering them forth in such excellency as he
hath imagined them. Which delivering forth also is not wholly
imaginative, as we are wont to say by them that build castles in the
air: but so far substantially it worketh, not only to make a Cyrus,
which had been but a particular excellency, as Nature might have done,
but to bestow a Cyrus upon the world, to make many Cyruses, if they
will learn aright, why and how that maker made him.
Neither let it be deemed too saucy a comparison to balance the highest
point of man's wit with the efficacy of Nature: but rather give right
honour to the heavenly Maker of that maker: who, having made man to
his own likeness, set him beyond and over all the works of that second
nature, which in nothing he showeth so much as in poetry: when, with
the force of a divine breath, he bringeth things forth far surpassing
her doings, with no small argument to the incredulous of that first
accursed fall of Adam; sith our erected wit maketh us know what
perfection is, and yet our infected will keepeth us from reaching unto
it. But these arguments will by few be understood, and by fewer granted.
Thus much (I hope) will be given me, that the Greeks, with some
probability of reason, gave him the name above all names of learning.
Now let us go to a more ordinary opening of him, that the truth may
be more palpable: and so I hope, though we get not so unmatched a
praise as the etymology of his names will grant, yet his very
description, which no man will deny, shall not justly be barred from
a principal commendation.
Poesy, therefore, is an art of imitation, for so Aristotle termeth it
in his word _Mimesis_, that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting,
or figuring forth: to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture: with
this end, to teach and delight; of this have been three several kinds.
The chief both in antiquity and excellency, were they that did imitate
the inconceivable excellencies of God. Such were David in his Psalms,
Solomon in his Song of Songs, in his Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs: Moses
and Deborah, in their hymns, and the writer of Job; which, beside
other, the learned Emanuel Tremilius and Franciscus Junius do entitle
the poetical part of Scripture. Against these none will speak that
hath the Holy Ghost in due holy reverence.
In this kind, though in a full wrong divinity, were Orpheus, Amphion,
Homer in his hymns, and many other, both Greeks and Romans: and this
poesy must be used by whosoever will follow St. James his counsel, in
singing psalms when they are merry: and I know is used with the fruit
of comfort by some, when, in sorrowful pangs of their death-bringing
sins, they find the consolation of the never-leaving goodness.
The second kind, is of them that deal with matters philosophical;
either moral, as Tyrtaus, Phocylides, and Cato: or natural, as Lucretius
and Virgil's _Georgics_; or astronomical, as Manilius, and Pontanus;
or historical, as Lucan; which who mislike, the fault is in their
judgments quite out of taste, and not in the sweet food of
sweetly-uttered knowledge. But because this second sort is wrapped
within the fold of the proposed subject, and takes not the course of
his own invention, whether they properly be poets or no, let grammarians
dispute; and go to the third, indeed right poets, of whom chiefly this
question ariseth; betwixt whom and these second is such a kind of
difference, as betwixt the meaner sort of painters (who counterfeit
only such faces as are set before them) and the more excellent; who,
having no law but wit, bestow that in colours upon you which is fittest
for the eye to see; as the constant, though lamenting look of Lucretia,
when she punished in herself another's fault.
Wherein he painteth not Lucretia whom he never saw, but painteth the
outward beauty of such a virtue: for these third be they which most
properly do imitate to teach and delight; and, to imitate, borrow
nothing of what is, hath been, or shall be: but range, only reined
with learned discretion, into the divine consideration of what may be,
and should be. These be they that, as the first and most noble sort
may justly be termed Vates, so these are waited on in the excellentest
languages and best understandings, with the fore-described name of
poets: for these indeed do merely make to imitate: and imitate both
to delight and teach: and delight to move men to take that goodness
in hand, which without delight they would fly as from a stranger: and
teach, to make them know that goodness whereunto they are moved, which
being the noblest scope to which ever any learning was directed, yet
want there not idle tongues to bark at them. These be subdivided into
sundry more special denominations. The most notable be the heroic,
lyric, tragic, comic, satiric, iambic, elegiac, pastoral, and certain
others. Some of these being termed according to the matter they deal
with, some by the sorts of verses they liked best to write in, for
indeed the greatest part of poets have apparelled their poetical
inventions in that numbrous kind of writing which is called verse:
indeed but apparelled, verse being but an ornament and no cause to
poetry: sith there have been many most excellent poets that never
versified, and now swarm many versifiers that need never answer to the
name of poets. For Xenophon, who did imitate so excellently, as to
give us _effigiem justi imperii_ the portraiture of a just empire under
the name of Cyrus (as Cicero says of him), made therein an absolute
heroical poem.
So did Heliodorus in his sugared invention of that picture of love in
Theagenes and Chariclea, and yet both these wrote in prose: which I
speak to show, that it is not rhyming and versing that maketh a poet,
no more than a long gown maketh an advocate: who, though he pleaded
in armour, should be an advocate and no soldier. But it is that feigning
notable images of virtues, vices, or what else, with that delightful
teaching which must be the right describing note to know a poet by:
although, indeed, the senate of poets hath chosen verse as their fittest
raiment, meaning, as in matter they passed all in all, so in manner
to go beyond them: not speaking (table-talk fashion, or like men in
a dream) words as they chanceably fall from the mouth, but peyzing
[Footnote: weighing.] each syllable of each word by just proportion
according to the dignity of the subject.
Now, therefore, it shall not be amiss first to weigh this latter sort
of poetry by his works, and then by his parts; and if in neither of
these anatomies he be condemnable, I hope we shall obtain a more
favourable sentence. This purifying of wit, this enriching of memory,
enabling of judgment, and enlarging of conceit, which commonly we call
learning, under what name soever it come forth, or to what immediate
end soever it be directed, the final end is, to lead and draw us to
as high a perfection, as our degenerate souls made worse by their
clayey lodgings, can be capable of. This, according to the inclination
of the man, bred many formed impressions; for some that thought this
felicity principally to be gotten by knowledge, and no knowledge to
be so high and heavenly as acquaintance with the stars, gave themselves
to astronomy; others, persuading themselves to be demigods if they
knew the causes of things, became natural and supernatural philosophers;
some an admirable delight drew to music; and some the certainty of
demonstration, to the mathematics. But all, one and other, having this
scope to know, and by knowledge to lift up the mind from the dungeon
of the body, to the enjoying his own divine essence. But when by the
balance of experience it was found, that the astronomer looking to the
stars might fall into a ditch, that the inquiring philosopher might
be blind in himself, and the mathematician might draw forth a straight
line with a crooked heart: then lo, did proof the overruler of opinions
make manifest that all these are but serving sciences, which, as they
have each a private end in themselves, so yet are they all directed
to the highest end of the mistress knowledge, by the Greeks called
_Arkitektonike_, which stands (as I think) in the knowledge of a man's
self, in the ethic and politic consideration, with the end of
well-doing, and not of well-knowing only; even as the saddler's next
end is to make a good saddle: but his farther end, to serve a nobler
faculty, which is horsemanship: so the horseman's to soldiery, and the
soldier not only to have the skill, but to perform the practice of a
soldier: so that the ending end of all earthly learning, being virtuous
action, those skills that most serve to bring forth that, have a most
just title to be princes over all the rest. Wherein if we can show the
poet's nobleness, by setting him before his other competitors, among
whom as principal challengers step forth the moral philosophers, whom
methinketh I see coming towards me with a sullen gravity, as though
they could not abide vice by daylight, rudely clothed for to witness
outwardly their contempt of outward things, with books in their hands
against glory, whereto they set their names, sophistically speaking
against subtlety, and angry with any man in whom they see the foul
fault of anger; these men casting largess as they go, of definitions,
divisions, and distinctions, with a scornful interrogative, do soberly
ask, whether it be possible to find any path, so ready to lead a man
to virtue, as that which teacheth what virtue is? and teacheth it not
only by delivering forth his very being, his causes, and effects: but
also, by making known his enemy vice, which must be destroyed, and his
cumbersome servant passion, which must be mastered, by showing the
generalities that contain it, and the specialities that are derived
from it: lastly, by plain setting down, how it extendeth itself out
of the limits of a man's own little world, to the government of families
and maintaining of public societies. [Footnote: A principal clause--_It
will be well_, or some equivalent--is unhappily lacking to this long
sentence.]
The historian scarcely giveth leisure to the moralist, to say so much,
but that he, laden with old mouse-eaten records, authorizing himself
(for the most part) upon other histories, whose greatest authorities
are built upon the notable foundation of hearsay, having much ado to
accord differing writers, and to pick truth out of partiality, better
acquainted with a thousand years ago than with the present age, and
yet better knowing how this world goeth than how his own wit runneth,
curious for antiquities and inquisitive of novelties, a wonder to young
folks, and a tyrant in table-talk, denieth in a great chafe that any
man, for teaching of virtue and virtuous actions, is comparable to
him. I am _Lux vitae_, _Temporum Magistra_, _Vita memoriae_, _Nuncia
vetustatis_, &c.
The philosopher (saith he) teacheth a disputative virtue, but I do an
active: his virtue is excellent in the dangerless academy of Plato,
but mine showeth forth her honourable face in the battles of Marathon,
Pharsalia, Poitiers, and Agincourt. He teacheth virtue by certain
abstract considerations, but I only bid you follow the footing of them
that have gone before you. Old-aged experience goeth beyond the fine-
witted philosopher, but I give the experience of many ages. Lastly,
if he make the songbook, I put the learner's hand to the lute; and if
he be the guide, I am the light.
Then would he allege you innumerable examples, conferring story by
story, how much the wisest senators and princes have been directed by
the credit of history, as Brutus, Alphonsus of Aragon, and who not,
if need be? At length the long line of their disputation maketh a point
in this, that the one giveth the precept, and the other the example.
Now, whom shall we find (sith the question standeth for the highest
form in the school of learning) to be moderator? Truly, as me seemeth,
the poet; and if not a moderator, even the man that ought to carry the
title from them both, and much more from all other serving sciences.
Therefore compare we the poet with the historian and with the moral
philosopher, and, if he go beyond them both, no other human skill can
match him. For as for the divine, with all reverence it is ever to be
excepted, not only for having his scope as far beyond any of these,
as eternity exceedeth a moment, but even for passing each of these in
themselves.
And for the lawyer, though _Jus_ be the daughter of Justice, and Justice
the chief of virtues, yet because he seeketh to make men good, rather
_Formidine poenae_ than _Virtutis amore_ or to say righter, doth not
endeavour to make men good, but that their evil hurt not others: having
no care, so he be a good citizen, how bad a man he be. Therefore, as
our wickedness maketh him necessary, and necessity maketh him
honourable, so is he not in the deepest truth to stand in rank with
these, who all endeavour to take naughtiness away, and plant goodness
even in the secretest cabinet of our souls. And these four are all
that any way deal in that consideration of men's manners, which being
the supreme knowledge, they that best breed it deserve the best
commendation.
The philosopher therefore and the historian are they which would win
the goal: the one by precept, the other by example. But both not having
both, do both halt. For the philosopher, setting down with thorny
argument the bare rule, is so hard of utterance, and so misty to be
conceived, that one that hath no other guide but him shall wade in him
till he be old before he shall find sufficient cause to be honest; for
his knowledge standeth so upon the abstract and general, that happy
is that man who may understand him, and more happy that can apply what
he doth understand.
On the other side, the historian wanting the precept is so tied, not
to what should be, but to what is, to the particular truth of things,
and not to the general reason of things, that his example draweth no
necessary consequence, and therefore a less fruitful doctrine.
Now doth the peerless poet perform both: for whatsoever the philosopher
saith should be done, he giveth a perfect picture of it in some one,
by whom he presupposeth it was done. So as he coupleth the general
notion with the particular example. A perfect picture, I say; for he
yieldeth to the powers of the mind an image of that whereof the
philosopher bestoweth but a wordish description: which doth neither
strike, pierce, nor possess the sight of the soul so much as that other
doth.
For as in outward things, to a man that had never seen an elephant or
a rhinoceros, who should tell him most exquisitely all their shapes,
colour, bigness, and particular marks; or of a gorgeous palace, the
architecture; with declaring the full beauties, might well make the
hearer able to repeat, as it were by rote, all he had heard, yet should
never satisfy his inward conceits, with being witness to itself of a
true lively knowledge: but the same man, as soon as he might see those
beasts well painted, or the house well in model, should straightway
grow without need of any description, to a judicial comprehending of
them: so no doubt the philosopher with his learned definition, be it
of virtue, vices, matters of public policy or private government,
replenisheth the memory with many infallible grounds of wisdom: which,
notwithstanding, lie dark before the imaginative and judging power,
if they be not illuminated or figured forth by the speaking picture
of poesy.
Tully taketh much pains and many times not without poetical helps, to
make us know the force love of our country hath in us. Let us but hear
old Anchises speaking in the midst of Troy's flames, or see Ulysses,
in the fulness of all Calypso's delights, bewail his absence from
barren and beggarly Ithaca. Anger, the Stoics say, was a short madness;
let but Sophocles bring you Ajax on a stage, killing and whipping sheep
and oxen, thinking them the army of Greeks, with their chieftains
Agamemnon and Menelaus, and tell me if you have not a more familiar
insight into anger, than finding in the schoolmen his genus and
difference. See whether wisdom and temperance in Ulysses and Diomedes,
valour in Achilles, friendship in Nisus and Euryalus, even to an
ignorant man, carry not an apparent shining: and contrarily, the remorse
of conscience in Odipus, the soon repenting pride of Agamemnon, the
self-devouring cruelty in his father Atreus, the violence of ambition
in the two Theban brothers, the sour-sweetness of revenge in Medea,
and to fall lower, the Terentian Gnatho and our Chaucer's Pandar, so
expressed, that we now use their names to signify their trades. And
finally, all virtues, vices, and passions so in their own natural seats
laid to the view, that we seem not to hear of them, but clearly to see
through them. But even in the most excellent determination of goodness,
what philosopher's counsel can so readily detect a prince, as the
feigned Cyrus in Xenophon? or a virtuous man in all fortunes, as Aneas
in Virgil? or a whole commonwealth, as the way of Sir Thomas More's
Utopia? I say the way; because where Sir Thomas More erred, it was the
fault of the man and not of the poet; for that way of patterning a
commonwealth was most absolute, though he perchance hath not so
absolutely performed it: for the question is, whether the feigned image
of poesy, or the regular instruction of philosophy, hath the more force
in teaching; wherein if the philosophers have more rightly showed
themselves philosophers than the poets have obtained to the high top
of their profession, as in truth
_Mediocribus esse poetis,
Non Di, non homines, non concessere columna:_
it is I say again, not the fault of the art, but that by few men that
art can be accomplished.
Certainly, even our Saviour Christ could as well have given the moral
commonplaces of uncharitableness and humbleness, as the divine narration
of Dives and Lazarus: or of disobedience and mercy, as that heavenly
discourse of the lost child and the gracious Father; but that his
through-searching wisdom knew the estate of Dives burning in hell, and
of Lazarus being in Abraham's bosom, would more constantly (as it were)
inhabit both the memory and judgment. Truly, for myself, meseems I see
before my eyes the lost child's disdainful prodigality, turned to envy
a swine's dinner: which by the learned divines are thought not
historical acts, but instructing parables. For conclusion, I say the
philosopher teacheth, but he teacheth obscurely, so as the learned
only can understand him: that is to say, he teacheth them that are
already taught, but the poet is the food for the tenderest stomachs,
the poet is indeed the right popular philosopher, whereof Asop's tales
give good proof: whose pretty allegories, stealing under the formal
tales of beasts, make many, more beastly than beasts, begin to hear
the sound of virtue from these dumb speakers.
But now may it be alleged that, if this imagining of matters be so fit
for the imagination, then must the historian needs surpass, who bringeth
you images of true matters, such as indeed were done, and not such as
fantastically or falsely may be suggested to have been done. Truly
Aristotle himself in his discourse of poesy, plainly determineth this
question, saying that poetry is _philosophoteron_ and _spoudaioteron_,
that is to say, it is more philosophical, and more studiously serious,
than history. His reason is, because poesy dealeth with _katholou,_
that is to say, with the universal consideration; and the history with
_kathekaston,_ the particular; now saith he, the universal weighs what
is fit to be said or done, either in likelihood or necessity (which
the poesy considereth in his imposed names), and the particular only
marks, whether Alcibiades did, or suffered, this or that. Thus far
Aristotle: which reason of his (as all his) is most full of reason.
For indeed, if the question were whether it were better to have a
particular act truly or falsely set down, there is no doubt which is
to be chosen, no more than whether you had rather have Vespasian's
picture right as he was, or at the painter's pleasure nothing
resembling. But if the question be for your own use and learning,
whether it be better to have it set down as it should be, or as it
was: then certainly is more doctrinable the feigned Cyrus of Xenophon
than the true Cyrus in Justin: and the feigned Aeneas in Virgil, than
the right Aeneas in Dares Phrygius.
As to a lady that desired to fashion her countenance to the best grace,
a painter should more benefit her to portrait a most sweet face, writing
Canidia upon it, than to paint Canidia as she was, who, Horace sweareth,
was foul and ill-favoured.