PROOFS AND EXAMPLES.

Mr. CAMPBELL's metaphysician is too absurd, and too dishonest, to contend with. I shall therefore request Mr. CAMPBELL's attention to the following extracts, and ask, if he admit or deny the truth contained in them. In my opinion, the plain question respecting the "SUBJECT and EXECUTION" of a poem is resolved by them. Let us then hear Dr. JOHNSON:

"I am now to examine PARADISE LOST; a poem "which, with respect to DESIGN, may CLAIM the FIRST "PLACE, and, with respect to PERFORMANCE, the "SECOND, among the productions of the human mind.” -Dr. Johnson.

I will next beg Mr. CAMPBELL to answer, plainly, if this poem claim the FIRST PLACE, with regard to design, and the SECOND with respect to performance, WHY it could be so pronounced? Nay, if MILTON had written satires, moral poems, one most exquisite and pathetic epistle, one most exquisite mock-heroic, whatever proofs these might be of his GENIUS, pro tanto, could he have been so pronounced, though the satires were the best the world ever saw? I will beg Mr. CAMPBELL to say Yes or No! If he deny what Dr. JOHNSON, and what most men of reflection

will say, I think he would find it difficult to prove a counter-position. If he agree with Dr, JOHNSON, the difference on this point between him and me is small indeed. I must come a little closer respecting "SUBJECT," and put Dr. JOHNSON forward.

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'By the general consent of critics, the first praise of "GENIUS is due to the writer of an EPIC POEM; for it

requires an ASSEMBLAGE OF ALL THE POWERS, "which are singly sufficient for other compositions!!" -Life of Milton.

Is this good sense, or is it nonsense?

Again:

"The SUBJECT of an epic poem is naturally an "event of great importance. That of MILTON is not "the destruction of a city, or the foundation of an empire: the SUBJECT is, the Fall of Worlds, the "Revolutions of Heaven, &c."-Life of Milton.

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Before the GREATNESS displayed by MILTON'S poem, all other GREATNESS shrinks away," &c.

To display the motions and actions of BEINGS thus superior, so far as human reason can examine them, "or human imagination represent them, is the task "which this MIGHTY POET has UNDERTAKEN and "PERFORMED!!"

3

I place before you these extracts from one whom, I think, as good a judge as you can produce. Are the positions sound? Yes, or no. If yes, can POPE, however exquisite his skill, in respect to any thing he has written, be ranked on the same "file" with this

mighty" poet? It is almost too absurd to ask the question. POPE's genius is granted, his talents are granted, his execution of what he has done puts this

beyond all doubt; but his genius has never undertaken or performed a subject so adapted to the higher orders of poetry; and his EXECUTION, if these premises be true, though consummate, will only place him eminent in his line; and no more in the same walk with MILTON and SHAKESPEARE, than with him whose execution entitled him, among all poets that ever lived, to be pronounced THE FIRST among the lights of the human mind!!

Upon these premises I rest, as far as "subject" and execution are concerned. And I have only to add that those who, in their blind idolatry, wish to place POPE in the rank of SHAKESPEARE and MILTON, are the "bigots," and "sectarists ;"* not I, who wished only to appreciate, not depreciate, his distinctive and characteristic excellence.

I cannot pass over the audacious falsehood of Mr. CAMPBELL'S advocate, who can "prove" from my propositions, that THOMSON is as great a poet as SHAKESPEARE!! Whereas, I have constantly put all descriptive poetry least and last; and "pas

sions," passions, passions!! first. The only way to prevent, if any thing can in future, this audacious perversion, will be to print "passions" at the end of every sentence, when I am speaking of external nature.

On Objects

"Sublime and Beautiful" in Nature, abstractedly.

WHETHER there be sublime or beautiful objects in nature, per se, or not, (though it appears to me that none but the most metaphysically mad could think otherwise,) there can be no cavil, if I take my pictures from poetry, as to whether what is beautiful, or picturesque, or sublime, be poetical. We will open THEOCRITUS, for the book lies on my table.

Αδυ τι το ψιθυρισμα και α πιτυς, αιπολε, τηνά,

Α ποτι ταις παγαισι μελισδέλαιο

To say nothing of the music of these lines, we see the landscape, and hear, as it were, the very whisper of the pine hanging over the fountain; though another poet might, from want of taste, or from injudicious selection, or mean additions, even of these very objects make a contemptible daub by "imitating nature abominably;" yet, if the objects had not been picturesque, and so far adapted to poetry, THEOCRITUS could not have made the picture so beautiful; and therefore the objects are, per se, poetical. For if it were true, that this subject had not intrinsic poetry from nature, THEOCRITUS could have made the subsequent verses as poetical as these. Has he done so? No, he could not. All the

execution in the world could not make the next succeeding lines as poetical.

Every scholar, of any taste and feeling, involuntarily repeats the first passage with delight, and turns as involuntarily from the other. Why? Because the subject of the one is picturesque, and therefore so far ⚫ poetical; the other is less so, and no art or genius in the poet could make it as poetically beautiful.

A

A lover of "in-door nature" who would say that there is nothing in the whole range of art, or of nature, per se, more poetical than another, might apply Adʊ T το φθινό propa to the kitchen bellows, not omitting, in shining description, the fire-tongs and shovel: the genius with which these in-door implements, together with the gentle

Sugion of the bellows were described, would probably make them, as poetry, pari passu with the landscape of THEOCRITUS, in his opinion!!

I assert, on the contrary, that whatever skill MAY BE EMPLOYED, some subjects, described by one and the same genius, will be more poetical than others, and all men will involuntarily confess it, cum ventum ad

verum est.

HORACE says, (and I have at least such a dunce as HORACE on my side on more points than one,)

"Et quæ,

"Desperat traCTATA NITESCERE, POSSE RELINQUIT:"

Further; if I were to go for an object, abstractedly poetical, from nature as given by this poet, I would transcribe one line only:

"Et præceps Anio, et Tiburni lucus.

The next line is

"Uda mobilibus Pomaria rivis."