e fully aware of the excellence of poetry: for it
acts in a divine and unapprehended manner, beyond and above
consciousness; and it is reserved for future generations to
contemplate and measure the mighty cause and effect in all the
strength and splendour of their union. Even in modern times, no living
poet ever arrived at the fullness of his fame; the jury which sits in
judgement upon a poet, belonging as he does to all time, must be
composed of his peers: it must be impanelled by Time from the
selectest of the wise of many generations. A poet is a nightingale,
who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet
sounds; his auditors are as men entranced by the melody of an unseen
musician, who feel that they are moved and softened, yet know not
whence or why. The poems of Homer and his contemporaries were the
delight of infant Greece; they were the elements of that social system
which is the column upon which all succeeding civilization has
reposed. Homer embodied the ideal perfection of his age in human
character; nor can we doubt that those who read his verses were
awakened to an ambition of becoming like to Achilles, Hector, and
Ulysses: the truth and beauty of friendship, patriotism, and
persevering devotion to an object, were unveiled to the depths in
these immortal creations: the sentiments of the auditors must have
been refined and enlarged by a sympathy with such great and lovely
impersonations, until from admiring they imitated, and from imitation
they identified themselves with the objects of their admiration. Nor
let it be objected, that these characters are remote from moral
perfection, and that they can by no means be considered as edifying
patterns for general imitation. Every epoch, under names more or less
specious, has deified its peculiar errors; Revenge is the naked idol
of the worship of a semi-barbarous age; and Self-deceit is the veiled
image of unknown evil, before which luxury and satiety lie prostrate.
But a poet considers the vices of his contemporaries as a temporary
dress in which his creations must be arrayed, and which cover without
concealing the eternal proportions of their beauty. An epic or
dramatic personage is understood to wear them around his soul, as he
may the ancient armour or the modern uniform around his body; whilst
it is easy to conceive a dress more graceful than either. The beauty
of the internal nature cannot be so far concealed by its accidental
vesture,