III. But whatever may be the superiority of painting to the originals from which it is copied, it is still limited, in comparison of that which poetry enjoys. The painter addresses himself to the eye. The poet speaks to the imagination. The painter can represent no other qualities of nature, but those which we discern by the sense of sight. The poet can blend with those, all the qualities which we perceive by means of our other senses. The painter can seize only one moment of existence, and can represent no other qualities of objects than what this single moment affords. The whole history of nature is within the reach of the poet, the varying appearances which its different productions assume in the progress of their growth and decay, and the powerful effects which are produced by the contrast of these different aspects or expressions. The painter can give to the objects of his scenery only the visible and material qualities which are discerned by the eye, and must leave the interpretation of their expression to the imagination of the spectator; but the poet can give animation to whatever he describes. All the sublimity and beauty of the moral and intellectual world are at his disposal; and, by bestowing on the inanimate objects of his scenery the characters and affections of mind, he can produce at once an expression which every capacity may understand, and every heart may feel. Whatever may be the advantage which painting enjoys, from the greater clearness and precision of its images, it is much more than balanced by the unbounded powers which the instrument of language affords to the poet, both in the selection of the objects of his description, and in the decision of their expression. It is, accordingly, by the preservation of unity of character or expression, that the excellence of poetical description is determined; and perhaps the superior advantages which the poet enjoys, in the choice of his ma terials, renders our demand for its observance more rigid, than in any of the other arts of taste. In real nature, we willingly accommodate ourselves to the ordinary defects of scenery, and accept with gratitude those singular aspects in which some predominant character is tolerably preserved. In the compositions of gardening, we make allowance for the narrow limits within which the invention of the artist is confined, and are dissatisfied only when great inconsistencies are retained. Even in painting, we are still mindful that it is the objects only of one sense that the artist can represent; and rather lament his restraints, than condemn his taste, if our minds are not fully impressed with the emotions he studies to raise, or if the different incidents of his composition do not fully accord in the degree, as well as in the nature of their expression. But the descriptions of the poet can claim no such indulgence. With the capacity of blend. ing in his composition the objects of every sense; with the past and the future, as well as the present, in his power; above all, with the mighty spell of mind at his command, with which he can raise every object that he touches into life and sentiment, we feel that he is unworthy of his art, if our imaginations are not satiated with his composition, and if in the chastity, as well as the power of his expression, he has not gratified the demand of our hearts. It would be an unpleasing, and indeed an unnecessary task, to illustrate this observation by the defects or absurdities of poets of inferior genius, or imperfect taste. It will perhaps be more useful, to produce a few instances of description from some of the greatest poets, in which very trifling circumstances serve to destroy, or at least to diminish their effect, when they do not fully coincide with the nature of the emotion which the descriptions are intended to raise. In that fine passage in the second book of the Georgics, in which Virgil celebrates the praises of his native country, after these fine lines, Hic ver assiduum atque alienis mensibus æstas, Nec rapit immensos orbes per humum, neque tanto There is no reader whose enthusiasm is not checked by the cold and prosaic line which follows: Adde tot egregias urbes, operumque laborem. The tameness and vulgarity of the transition dissipates at once the emotion we had shared with the poet, and reduces him, in our opinion, to the level of a mere describer. The effect of the following nervous and beautiful lines in the conclusion of the same book, is nearly destroyed by a similar defect. After these lines, Hanc olim veteres vitam coluere Sabini, Hanc Remus et frater; sic fortis Etruria crevit, We little expect the following spiritless conclusion: There is a still more surprising instance of this fault in one of the most pathetic passages of the whole poem, in the description of the disease among the cattle, which concludes the third Georgic. The passage is as follows: Ecce autem duro fumans sub vomere taurus The unhappy image in the second line is less calculated to excite compassion than disgust, and is singularly illsuited to that tone of tenderness and delicacy which the poet has everywhere else so successfully mantained, in describing the progress of this loathsome disease. In the speech of Agamemnon to Idomeneus, in the fourth book of the Iliad, a circumstance is introduced altogether inconsistent both with the dignity of the speech, and the majesty of epic poetry: Divine Idomeneus! what thanks we owe To worth like thine, what praise shall we bestow! Instances of the same defect may be found in the comparison of the sudden cure of Mars's wound to the coagulation of curds-in that of Ajax retreating before the Trojans to an ass driven by boys from a field of corn-in the comparison of an obstinate combat between the Greeks and the Trojans, to the stubborn struggle between two peasants, about the limits of their respective grounds—in that of Ajax flying from ship to ship, to encounter the Trojans, to a horseman riding several horses at once, and showing his dexterity, by vaulting from one to another. There is a similar fault in the two following passages from Milton, where the introduction of trifling and ludi crous circumstances diminishes the beauty of the one, and the sublimity of the other.. Now morn her rosy steps in the eastern clime Ard temp❜rate vapours bland, which th' only sound Book v. They ended parle, and both address'd for fight Of godlike power? for likest gods they seem'd; Book vi. In the following passage from the sixth book of Lucan's Pharsalia, where he describes the incantations of the witch Eryctho, and of whose voice he had before said with great sublimity, Omne nefas superi, prima jam voce precantis in labouring to increase the terror of the reader, he has rendered his description almost ludicrous, by accumulating images which serve only to confuse, and which in themselves have scarcely any other relation than that of mere noise. Tum vox Lethæos cunctis pollentior herbis |