ough I own that there are parts, in
that description, as there are in all the descriptions of that excellent
writer, extremely fine and poetical. The terrible picture which
Lucretius has drawn of religion in order to display the magnanimity of
his philosophical hero in opposing her, is thought to be designed with
great boldness and spirit:--

Humana ante oculos foede cum vita jaceret,
In terris, oppressa gravi sub religione,
Quae caput e coeli regionibus ostendebat
Horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans;
Primus Graius homo mortales tollere contra
Est oculos ausus.

What idea do you derive from so excellent a picture? none at all, most
certainly: neither has the poet said a single word which might in the
least serve to mark a single limb or feature of the phantom, which he
intended to represent in all the horrors imagination can conceive. In
reality, poetry and rhetoric do not succeed in exact description so well
as painting does; their business is, to affect rather by sympathy than
imitation; to display rather the effect of things on the mind of the
speaker, or of others, than to present a clear idea of the things
themselves. This is their most extensive province, and that in which
they succeed the best.

SECTION VI.

POETRY NOT STRICTLY AN IMITATIVE ART.

Hence we may observe that poetry, taken in its most general sense,
cannot with strict propriety be called an art of imitation. It is indeed
an imitation so far as it describes the manners and passions of men
which their words can express; where _animi motus effert interprete
lingua_. There it is strictly imitation; and all merely _dramatic_
poetry is of this sort. But _descriptive_ poetry operates chiefly by
_substitution_; by the means of sounds, which by custom have the effect
of realities. Nothing is an imitation further than as it resembles some
other thing; and words undoubtedly have no sort of resemblance to the
ideas for which they stand.

SECTION VII.

HOW WORDS INFLUENCE THE PASSIONS.

Now, as words affect, not by any original power, but by representation,
it might be supposed, that their influence over the passions should be
but light; yet it is quite otherwise; for we find by experience, that
eloquence and poetry are as capable, nay indeed much more capable, of
making deep and lively impressions than any other arts, and even than
nature itself in very many cases. And this arises chiefly from these
three causes. F