Controversy is not seldom excited in consequence of the disputants
attaching each a different meaning to the same word; and in few
instances has this been more striking than in disputes concerning the
present subject. If a man chooses to call every composition a poem
which is rhyme, or measure, or both, I must leave his opinion
uncontroverted. The distinction is at least competent to characterize
the writer's intention. If it were subjoined that the whole is likewise
entertaining or affecting, as a tale, or as a series of interesting
reflections, I of course admit this as another fit ingredient of a
poem, and an additional merit. But if the definition sought for be
that of a legitimate poem, I answer, it must be one the parts of which
mutually support and explain each other; all in their proportion
harmonizing with, and supporting the purpose and known influences of
metrical arrangement. The philosophic critics of all ages coincide
with the ultimate judgment of all countries, in equally denying the
praises of a just poem, on the one hand to a series of striking lines
or distichs, each of which, absorbing the whole attention of the reader
to itself, disjoins it from its context, and makes it a separate whole,
instead of a harmonizing part; and on the other hand, to an unsustained
composition, from which the reader collects rapidly the general result
unattracted by the component parts.
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