has
acquired a greater readiness and power in expressing what he thinks
and feels, and especially those thoughts and feelings which, by
his own choice, or from the structure of his own mind, arise in him
without immediate external excitement.

But whatever portion of this faculty we may suppose even the greatest
Poet to possess, there cannot be a doubt that the language which it
will suggest to him, must often, in liveliness and truth, fall
short of that which is uttered by men in real life, under the actual
pressure of those passions, certain shadows of which the Poet thus
produces, or feels to be produced, in himself.

However exalted a notion we would wish to cherish of the character of
a Poet, it is obvious, that while he describes and imitates passions,
his employment is in some degree mechanical, compared with the freedom
and power of real and substantial action and suffering. So that it
will be the wish of the Poet to bring his feelings near to those of
the persons whose feelings he describes, nay, for short spaces of
time, perhaps, to let himself slip into an entire delusion, and even
confound and identify his own feelings with theirs; modifying only
the language which is thus suggested to him by a consideration that
he describes for a particular purpose, that of giving pleasure. Here,
then, he will apply the principle of selection which has been already
insisted upon. He will depend upon this for removing what would
otherwise be painful or disgusting in the passion; he will feel that
there is no necessity to trick out or to elevate nature: and, the more
industriously he applies this principle, the deeper will be his faith
that no words, which _his_ fancy or imagination can suggest, will
be to be compared with those which are the emanations of reality and
truth.

But it may be said by those who do not object to the general spirit of
these remarks, that, as it is impossible for the Poet to produce upon
all occasions language as exquisitely fitted for the passion as that
which the real passion itself suggests, it is proper that he should
consider himself as in the situation of a translator, who does not
scruple to substitute excellencies of another kind for those which
are unattainable by him; and endeavours occasionally to surpass his
original, in order to make some amends for the general inferiority
to which he feels that he must submit. But this would be to encourage
idleness and unmanly despair. Further,