E-text prepared by R. W. Jones <rwj@freeshell.org>
Transcriber's note: This file was proofed, using a text-to-speech reader, against the hard copy 2nd. edition published in 1819. No attempt has been made to change the text of any of the quoted verse to reflect later editors' amendments. Italics are indicated thus. The footnotes are serially numbered from the first to the last Lecture, unlike in the original.
Delivered at the Surrey Institution
by
LECTURE VI.
ON SWIFT, YOUNG, GRAY, COLLINS &c.
The best general notion which I can give of poetry is, that it is thenatural impression of any object or event, by its vividness exciting aninvoluntary movement of imagination and passion, and producing, bysympathy, a certain modulation of the voice, or sounds, expressing it.
In treating of poetry, I shall speak first of the subject-matter ofit, next of the forms of expression to which it gives birth, andafterwards of its connection with harmony of sound.
Poetry is the language of the imagination and the passions. Itrelates to whatever gives immediate pleasure or pain to the human mind.It comes home to the bosoms and businesses of men; for nothing but whatso comes home to them in the most general and intelligible shape, can bea subject for poetry. Poetry is the universal language which the heartholds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry, cannothave much respect for himself, or for any thing else. It is not a merefrivolous accomplishment, (as some persons have been led to imagine) thetrifling amusement of a few idle readers or leisure hours—it has beenthe study and delight of mankind in all ages. Many people suppose thatpoetry is something to be found only in books, contained in lines of tensyllables, with like endings: but wherever there is a sense of beauty,or power, or harmony, as in the motion of a wave of the sea, in thegrowth of a flower that "spreads its sweet leaves to the air, anddedicates its beauty to the sun,"—there is poetry, in its birth. Ifhistory is a grave study, poetry may be said to be a graver: itsmaterials lie deeper, and are spread wider. History treats, for the mostpart, of the cumbrous and unwieldly masses of things, the empty cases inwhich the affairs of the world are packed, under the heads of intrigueor war, in different states, and from century to century: but there isno thought or feeling that can have entered into the mind of man, whichhe would be eager to communicate to others, or which they would listento with delight, that is not a fit subject for poetry. It is not abranch of authorship: it is "the stuff of which our life is made." Therest is "mere oblivion," a dead letter: for all that is worthremembering in life, i