ere
men are all insignificant and very much alike, each man instantly sees
all his fellows when he surveys himself. The poets of democratic ages
can never, therefore, take any man in particular as the subject of a
piece; for an object of slender importance, which is distinctly seen
on all sides, will never lend itself to an ideal conception. Thus the
principle of equality; in proportion as it has established itself in
the world, has dried up most of the old springs of poetry. Let us now
attempt to show what new ones it may disclose.

When scepticism had depopulated heaven, and the progress of equality
had reduced each individual to smaller and better known proportions, the
poets, not yet aware of what they could substitute for the great themes
which were departing together with the aristocracy, turned their eyes
to inanimate nature. As they lost sight of gods and heroes, they set
themselves to describe streams and mountains. Thence originated in
the last century, that kind of poetry which has been called, by way
of distinction, the descriptive. Some have thought that this sort of
delineation, embellished with all the physical and inanimate objects
which cover the earth, was the kind of poetry peculiar to democratic
ages; but I believe this to be an error, and that it only belongs to a
period of transition.

I am persuaded that in the end democracy diverts the imagination from
all that is external to man, and fixes it on man alone. Democratic
nations may amuse themselves for a while with considering the
productions of nature; but they are only excited in reality by a survey
of themselves. Here, and here alone, the true sources of poetry amongst
such nations are to be found; and it may be believed that the poets who
shall neglect to draw their inspirations hence, will lose all sway over
the minds which they would enchant, and will be left in the end with
none but unimpassioned spectators of their transports. I have shown how
the ideas of progression and of the indefinite perfectibility of the
human race belong to democratic ages. Democratic nations care but little
for what has been, but they are haunted by visions of what will be; in
this direction their unbounded imagination grows and dilates beyond all
measure. Here then is the wildest range open to the genius of poets,
which allows them to remove their performances to a sufficient distance
from the eye. Democracy shuts the past against the poet, but opens
the future