aid aside,
and harsh contrasts reconciled. If it be said, the fidelity of the
imitation is often its greatest merit, we have only to reply, that in
such cases the pleasure is not poetical, but consists in the mere
recognition. All novels and tales which introduce real characters, are
in the same degree unpoetical. Portrait-painting, to be poetical,
should furnish an abstract representation of an individual; the
abstraction being more rigid, inasmuch as the painting is confined to
one point of time. The artist should draw independently of the
accidents of attitude, dress, occasional feeling, and transient
action. He should depict the general spirit of his subject--as if he
were copying from memory, not from a few particular sittings. An
ordinary painter will delineate with rigid fidelity, and will make a
caricature. But the learned artist contrives so to temper his
composition, as to sink all offensive peculiarities and hardnesses of
individuality, without diminishing the striking effect of the
likeness, or acquainting the casual spectator with the secret of his
art. Miss Edgeworth's representations of the Irish character are
actual, and not poetical--nor were they intended to be so. They are
interesting, because they are faithful. If there is poetry about them,
it exists in the personages themselves, not in her representation of
them. She is only the accurate reporter in word of what was poetical
in fact. Hence, moreover, when a deed or incident is striking in
itself, a judicious writer is led to describe it in the most simple
and colourless terms, his own being unnecessary; e. g. if the
greatness of the action itself excites the imagination, or the depth
of the suffering interests the feelings. In the usual phrase, the
circumstances are left to 'speak for themselves'.

Let it not be said that our doctrine is adverse to that individuality
in the delineation of character, which is a principal charm of
fiction. It is not necessary for the ideality of a composition to
avoid those minuter shades of difference between man and man, which
give to poetry its plausibility and life; but merely such violation of
general nature, such improbabilities, wanderings, or coarsenesses, as
interfere with the refined and delicate enjoyment of the imagination;
which would have the elements of beauty extracted out of the confused
multitude of ordinary actions and habits, and combined with
consistency and ease. Nor does it exclude the introdu