CHAP. I.

OF THE ROMANTICK EPOS.

Ir has been the fate of poetry to have had the same process which was applied to separate fable from mixed history, likewise extended to reject marvellous imagery from its composition. Thus some criticks, of no small reputation, have maintained that fanciful description, on account of its being repugnant to truth and nature, should be wholly withheld from poetical invention.

The general force of such objections to the marvellous fictions of poetry has been confirmed, rather than annulled, by those criticks who have undertaken the recommendation, as well as by those who have entered upon the defence of this part of poetry. The former have found fewer strong positions to be commended, than it seems to possess; and have not made any provision against the attacks which might be directed towards those points in which it is assailable. For, fastening on. the powers which marvellous poetry possesses to delight every description

to produce the common end of pleasure, agree in that one point which is of itself sufficient, and which only is necessary to constitute a similarity. In both, though truth may be deserted, it cannot be deserted whereever it is acknowledged as truth. Unless, in fact, we can be brought to forget it altogether, no violation can be offered to its unalterable nature. So that making due allowances for the different objects pursued in the romantick poem, and in the other species of poetical composition, they may be regarded merely as draughts of the same object laid down, upon different scales, by artists of the same school; in which, though the dimensions are unlike, the proportions are similar.

The right of adopting marvellous imagery which poets claim appearing thus capable of vindication, however licentious it may seem and remote from nature; and being chosen by him who engages in the epical romance as the ground-work of his compo sitions, it must be evident that with respect to the objects which he may imitate, he commences with a licence that scarcely knows any restriction. But though the space, through which he is at liberty to expatiate,

possessing all the weight of being derived from high authority.

The grounds which the first of these criticks, whose opinions have been directed to this object, has found for the marvellous imagery of poetry to support itself, may be stated as follows. The poetical world is taken as true by assumption; and any fabulous system being admitted by supposition, nothing introduced in its detail is questioned as false by those who are initiated in its mysteries especially if the fiction is agreeable to verisimilitude, and has shadowed under it some appearance of truth. Though as no proof of any parity of reasoning, yet, as the circumstance may explain this obscure and unsatisfactory doctrine, I shall select a passage from the critick mentioned in the second place, but with some alteration in its meaning and application. "It is not true that all is unnatural and monstrous, as is pronounced to be the case in the Italian poets, because their subjects are blended with the wonderful: for if we admit as probable some stroke of

b BOUHOURS. La maniere de bien penser, Dial. I. p. 14. ed. Par. 1688.

enchantment, as the marvellous conveyance of Armida to the happy island in Tasso, every thing which succeeds that circumstance will be found natural, and suitable to our common notions of probability."

C

This it must be admitted is a legitimate conclusion; but let it be observed, that it is but hypothetical; and of course establishes nothing more than that the second part of the proposition follows from the first. Regarded in this light, all that it maintains, is, that we shall believe the fictions of poetry if we can believe the mythological systems on which they are founded. But the difficulty is thus removed only by raising a greater: for it can allow of but little doubt, that where any marvellous production is submitted for our belief, if we have any hesitation in admitting its probability on the grounds of internal verisimilitude, we cannot admit it on account of any assumed principle, which is not only liable to the same doubts with the composition in question, but which, in that indistinct view wherein it must be regarded, cannot find the same support for its verisimilitude as is attendant on a produc

C HURD on Chivalry and Romance. Let. X.

tion placed before our observation with all its striking circumstances.

d

How the cause of the marvellous part of poetical composition has come to fail under this person who volunteered his services in its vindication, may be easily accounted for. He had the support of a favourite system in view. For having constructed a theory on a confined principle; "that truth is the test of perfection in all the sentiments of good composition, and that such as want this foundation must be vicious;" on applying this principle to poetry he found it irreconcileable with marvellous imagery, that most engaging part in the composition of the art. To reduce the innumerable train of exceptions to his theory which arose from this quarter, and which ought to have shewn the critick the narrowness of the principle on which he built it, there was left him but the one expedient which he adopted; he established the title of poetical sentiments of this kind to truth, but to that species of it which, being hypothetical, may conceal a false conclusion under a just deduction.

The defence into which Bishop Hurd, the

4 BOUHOURS. Ubi supr. p. 12.