By S. JOHNSON.
“Wherever I went, I found that poetry was considered as the highest
learning, and regarded with a veneration somewhat approaching to
that which man would pay to the angelic nature. And it yet fills me
with wonder, that in almost all countries the most ancient poets
are considered as the best; whether it be that every other kind of
knowledge is an acquisition gradually attained, and poetry is a gift
conferred at once; or that the first poetry of every nation surprised
them as a novelty, and retained the credit by consent which it received
by accident at first; or whether, as the province of poetry is to
describe nature and passion, which are always the same, the first
writers took possession of the most striking objects for description,
and the most probable occurrences for fiction, and left nothing for
those that followed them but transcriptions of the same events, and new
combinations of the same images. Whatever be the reason, it is commonly
observed, that the early writers are in possession of nature, and their
followers, of art; that the first excel in strength and invention, and
the latter in elegance and refinement.
“I was desirous to add my name to this illustrious fraternity. I read
all the poets of Persia and Arabia, and was able to repeat by memory
the volumes that are suspended in the mosque of Mecca. But I soon
found that no man was ever great by imitation. My desire of excellence
impelled me to transfer my attention to nature and to life. Nature was
to be my subject, and men to be my auditors; I could never describe
what I had not seen; I could not hope to move those with delight or
terror whose interests and opinions I did not understand.
“Being now resolved to be a poet, I saw everything with a new purpose:
my sphere of attention was suddenly magnified; no kind of knowledge
was to be overlooked. I ranged mountains and deserts for images and
resemblances, and pictured upon my mind every tree of the forest and
flower of the valley. I observed with equal care the crags of the rock
and the pinnacles of the palace. Sometimes I wandered along the mazes
of the rivulet, and sometimes watched the changes of the summer clouds.
To a poet nothing can be useless. Whatever is beautiful, and whatever
is dreadful, must be familiar to his imagination; he must be conversant
with all that is awfully vast or elegantly little. The plants of the
garden, the animals of the wood, the minerals of the earth, the meteors
of the sky, must all concur to store his mind with inexhaustible
variety; for every idea is useful for the enforcement or decoration of
moral or religious truth; and he who knows most will have most power
of diversifying his scenes, and of gratifying his reader with remote
allusions and unexpected instruction.
“All the appearances of nature I was therefore careful to study, and
every country which I have surveyed has contributed something to my
poetical powers.”
“In so wide a survey,” said the prince, “you must surely have left
much unobserved. I have lived till now, within the circuit of these
mountains, and yet can not walk abroad without the sight of something
which I never beheld before, or never heeded.”
“The business of a poet,” said Imlac, “is to examine, not the
individual, but the species; to remark general properties and
large appearances; he does not number the streaks of the tulip, or
describe the different shades in the verdure of the forest. He is
to exhibit in his portraits of nature such prominent and striking
features as recall the original to every mind; and must neglect the
minuter discriminations, which one may have remarked and another
have neglected, for those characteristics which are alike obvious to
vigilance and carelessness.
“But the knowledge of nature is only half the task of a poet; he must
be acquainted likewise with all the modes of life. His character
requires that he estimate the happiness and misery of every condition,
observe the power of all the passions in all their combinations, and
trace the changes of the human mind as they are modified by various
institutions, and accidental influences of climate or custom, from
the sprightliness of infancy to the despondency of decrepitude. He
must divest himself of the prejudices of his age or country; he must
consider right and wrong in their abstract and invariable state;
he must disregard present laws and opinions, and rise to general
and transcendental truths, which will always be the same; he must
therefore content himself with the slow progress of his name; contemn
the applause of his own time, and commit his claims to the justice
of posterity. He must write as the interpreter of nature, and the
legislator of mankind, and consider himself as presiding over the
thoughts and manners of future generations, as a being superior to time
and place.
“His labor is not yet at an end: he must know many languages, and many
sciences; and, that his style may be worthy of his thoughts, must, by
incessant practice, familiarize to himself every delicacy of speech and
grace of harmony.”