POSTSCRIPT. As what I have stated in some part of these pages might not be believed without proof, I transcribe literally two passages, one from my Observations, and the other from a Letter to me, by which the reader will see the shifts to which such opponents are reduced. Passage from my Edition of POPE. "Let me not be considered as thinking that THE "SUBJECT ALONE constitutes poetical excellency, the "execution is to be taken into consideration at the same "time, for we might fall asleep over the CREATION "of BLACKMORE, but be alive to the touches of ani"mation and satire in BOILEAU!"-BOWLES. "I am aware that you affect to assign a part of it to "execution! Let me not, however, you say, be con "sidered as thinking that the subject constitutes poetical "excellency! Here you seem (as usual) to have studied "AMBIGUITY OF EXPRESSION."-MAC DERMOT, page 44. The latter limb of the sentence, which puts the meaning out of doubt, is omitted. A full stop is put in the middle of the sentence, for no other reason than that it should appear ambiguous; and then I am boldly accused of purposed ambiguity!!! No reader could believe this, if he had not seen it! and I leave it to speak for itself. The whole of what this logician "HAS PROVED" is thus summed up: "I have PROVED that there is nothing poetical in "the works of nature or art! I have proved that the "objects you call poetical have no poetry, abstracted "from the manner in which they are associated by the "poet; and that where the manner is not poetical, the description will be prosaic, however richly it may be "sown with your poetical images; and that conse“quently in all cases it is the manner alone that con"stitutes poetical pre-eminence.”—Page last. The first is not "proved," nor can be "proved," unless it can be "proved" that no one object is more adapted to poetry than another;-adapted to poetry, being my definition of poetical; bearing the same relation to poetry that picturesque does to painting. To the second:-I refer my reader to the example of BLACKMORE and BOILEAU, which this opponent has designedly omitted. To the third-I deny, if by "treatment alone" it be inferred, that the most successful "treatment" of epistles, or satires, places a poet in the same file as the most successful treatment" of an epic poem. This is the logician's own SUMMARY! the rest is confusion worse confounded, quibbles, word-catching, blunders, and fraud, as far as I can comprehend him. He quotes the lines, "He who would see Melrose aright, "Must see it by the pale moon-light!" He quotes COLLINS's Ode to Fear!! as if he had never heard that tragedy was founded on terror and pity, and as if "fear" was not a passion! I here leave Mr. M'DERMOT ! Having given this summary of the answer to me, I will conclude by giving a summary of my principles, to which this affects to be an answer: 1. That there are some objects, both in nature and art, more poetical, that is, more adapted to poetry, than others. 2. That those most adapted will be found among the greatest objects in nature. 3. That, as in external nature there exist objects more. susceptible of poetry than others, from their beauty, picturesque appearance, ideas excited by the contemplation of power, &c. &c.; so are the higher passions. of the heart, including all that affects the imagination, more adapted to poetry than the manners and habits of any particular period. 4. That the subject, whether of an epic poem, or tragedy, or moral epistles, or satire, must be taken into consideration, before the rank of a poet in his art can be determined, let his execution, in that rank, be what it may. 5. That, be the subject what it may, it must so far. depend on the execution, that he who executes, as well as possible, a poem on any subject, would be a better poet than he would be, whose subject was an epic, in which the execution entirely failed. 6. That if of three poets, one had executed an epic poem, another a tragedy, and the third a most pathetic epistle, one work of exquisite imagination in mock- · heroic, with satires, &c.; and that these three poets had executed their several descriptions of poetry with the same perfection, viz. an epic poem, a tragedy, an ode or epistle, or a mock-heroic, or moral essays, or satires; that then, those who had so executed works like Paradise Lost, or dramas like Macbeth, Othello, Tempest, As you like it, &c. would, from the nature of the subjects, and equal execution, according to my principles, and the principles in criticism generally admitted and acknowledged, be pronounced the greatest poets; and, therefore, that POPE, with all his execution, never could be placed in the same rank with MILTON and SHAKESPEARE.* These are the deductions from my principles, which neither Lord BYRON nor Mr. CAMPBELL have answered. • So far from depreciating POPE, I believe I am the only writer who would place, and who has placed, him above DRYDEN! As to Mr. M'DERMOT's reasonings, they appear to me such as could only be met by ridicule. I should not, indeed, have said a word that looked like disrespect, if he, as well as the Critic in the Quarterly Review, had not used the language of personal flippancies towards me. But, in return for the kindness expressed by him, that, instructed by him, I may remove from the ranks of those "who write dull receipts how poems may be “made” (which I have not done); I hope, under the hasty examination which his Letter to me has undergone," HE may "REMOVE" from the ranks of carping verbal hypercritics, to become a critic with larger and more liberal views, to scorn disingenuous perversions, and to use no language, unprovoked, which may be thought inconsistent with the character of a fair critic, a candid man, or a liberal scholar. |