But there is nothing necessarily evil in this error, and thus cruelty,
envy, revenge, avarice, and the passions purely evil have never formed
any portion of the popular imputations on the lives of poets.
I have thought it most favourable to the cause of truth to set down
these remarks according to the order in which they were suggested to
my mind by a consideration of the subject itself, instead of observing
the formality of a polemical reply; but if the view which they contain
be just, they will be found to involve a refutation of the arguers
against poetry, so far at least as regards the first division of the
subject. I can readily conjecture what should have moved the gall of
some learned and intelligent writers who quarrel with certain
versifiers; I confess myself, like them, unwilling to be stunned by
the Theseids of the hoarse Codri of the day. Bavius and Maevius
undoubtedly are, as they ever were, insufferable persons. But it belongs
to a philosophical critic to distinguish rather than confound.
The first part of these remarks has related to poetry in its elements
and principles; and it has been shown, as well as the narrow limits
assigned them would permit, that what is called poetry, in a restricted
sense, has a common source with all other forms of order and of beauty,
according to which the materials of human life are susceptible of being
arranged, and which is poetry in an universal sense.
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