9-20-28LUB IT T has been lamented by biographers, and echoed by their readers, that the life of a poet affords but few materials for a narrative; and that the time of his birth and death, with the intermediate dates of his publications, are the chief anecdotes of him which we can communicate to the world. This opinion, like many others, is not controverted, because it hath been long received. It appears, upon a superficial view, to have substance; but it will vanish upon examination. It must be owned that the poet's journey through life is often difficult to be traced. The sensibility and ardour of his mind will not fuffer him to travel on in the beaten and uniform track, along which the generality of mankind are fatisfied to proceed. He often quits the common road for the unfrequented haunts of meditation; he is fometimes seduced from his course by pleasure, and loft in her flowery labyrinth; and sometimes disgusted with the roughness of the way, he leaves it in dejection, and seeks the cavern of despair. It is with poets, as it is with the rest of mankind; but a few of them, comparatively speaking, are born to affluence. A rich inheritance is, indeed, more apt to lull genius, than to call forth its exertion. a tion. Human nature is not formed to flourish in extremes. Poetical ardour is damped by penury, and dissipated by wealth. Thus the mind of man is equally unfit for glorious atchievements, under the equinoctial fervor, and the polar frost. The thoughts of the inhabitant of Iceland are confined to the provision of necessary sustenance; the pleasures of his life are circumscribed by the immediate, and blunt fenfations of animal nature. The scene is more varied to the African, but not by intellectual activity. His senses are quick and fine, but he is too indolent to make them the fource of reflection and imagination. His body and his mind are enfeebled by the perpendicular fun. He reclines under a spreading shade; he inhales the fragrant breath of the zephyr; he is lulled by the murmurs of a neighbouring stream. His happiness is, love without gallantry, and repose without contemplation. As the poet then is generally born poor, he has the difficulties of life to combat by his own dexterity and endeavours. He is not protected and recommended by gold, that magical auxiliary, which gives vigour to the body, and alacrity to the mind; which railes us without talents or virtue, to the firit departments of a state; unlocks to us the cabinets of kings, and authorizes us to determine the fate of nations. Fortune deigns not to smile upon him when he comes into the world; and nature but ill prepares him to despise, and to defeat her frown. Many causes confpire to break the schemes which he forms for his distant advantage, to disgust him against mankind, and to withdraw him from society. He grows impatient of a uniform and laborious progrefs, from the delicacy of his frame; as a tender eye is injured by looking earnestly for any time on one object. Many people are of an open, unguarded guarded temper, by which they are so strongly influenced, that they never learn fufficiently to restrain it, notwithstanding the repeated experience of the great inconveniences which it occafions. This is al most a conftant characteristick of the poet. Warmly actuated by his present ideas, he communicates his most important designs, his sympathies, and antipathies, his affections, and resentments, to perfons with whom it is improper to lodge his secrets, without any regard to consequences; and thus he loses many confiderable advantages, many fincere and weighty friends, by the treachery of his compa nions. To extenuate this absurdity in fome degree, it must be observed, that it partly proceeds from his ingenuous and unsuspecting nature. He is above perfidy himself, and therefore he is flow to imagine that it refides in the breast of another. Indeed he is so poor a politician in the common transactions of life, he hath so romantick a constitution, that he is apt to disdain the inferiour morality, to confound prudence with cunning and pufillanimity, and to deem it unworthy the attention of a great mind. He generally attributes to himself at least as great abilities as he possesses; he is sensible that poetical talents are rare, and that they are universally admired. Flushed with this confciousuess, he hastily concludes that the favour of the Muses alone will secure him that love and esteem which may be conciliated, but which can never be seized; and that the world will be subdued by the power of numbers. He leaves others to make their way by the humble cultivation of candour and affability, who are incapable of advancing by nobler arts. He forgets that it is peculiarly incumbent upon him to acquire these modest virtues; for mankind are naturally hurt with the a 2 the splendour of shining talents; and affection is most willingly given to those who can never excite admiration. Thus he oftener complies with the impulse of fentiment than with the forms of the world; he is apt to refuse wealth and titles that respect which we may certainly pay them without meanness, and deviates into haughtiness by avoiding servility. This behaviour, like his works, is unfortunately áctuated by imagination. For whatever consequence the poet may have in his own opinion, he will find his genius a very unequal competitor with power and riches. They have a strong and univerfal influence; and they inherit it by long prescription. The poet can only amuse us for a few hours; but they can protect, and make us happy for life. The poet gives us only flowery, and chimerical amusement; but to them we are indebted for substantial conveniences and delights. It is his province to paint; it is theirs to realize. The fenfible reader will not suppose that I mean to affix this character, which I think belongs to poets in general, to every difciple of the Muses. No rules are more exceptionable than those by which we class the operations of the mind. Many individuals repress the unhappy bent of their conttitution, the tendency of their profeffion, and the disposition of their nation. There are prudent poets, as there are uncorrupted ministers of state. But I will venture farther to observe, that the more rapturous and fublime the foul of the poet is, the more evidently will he appropriate this defcription. The more vigorous his genius is, the weaker will be his conduct. Extreme sensibility is the source of great poetical talents; and extreme sensibility can only be checked by the most heroic virtue. I mean not that partial and feminine sensibility, by 1 > |