g ground as an _ethical_
poet: in the former, none excel; in the mock heroic and the ethical,
none equal him; and in my mind, the latter is the highest of all
poetry, because it does that in _verse_, which the greatest of men
have wished to accomplish in prose. If the essence of poetry must be
a _lie_, throw it to the dogs, or banish it from your republic, as
Plato would have done. He who can reconcile poetry with truth and
wisdom, is the only true "_poet_" in its real sense, "the _maker_"
"the _creator_,"--why must this mean the "liar," the "feigner," the
"tale-teller?" A man may make and create better things than these.

I shall not presume to say that Pope is as high a poet as Shakspeare
and Milton, though his enemy, Warton, places him immediately under
them.[1] I would no more say this than I would assert in the mosque
(once Saint Sophia's), that Socrates was a greater man than Mahomet.
But if I say that he is very near them, it is no more than has been
asserted of Burns, who is supposed

"To rival all but Shakspeare's name below."

[Footnote 1: If the opinions cited by Mr. Bowles, of Dr. Johnson
_against_ Pope, are to be taken as decisive authority, they will also
hold good against Gray, Milton, Swift, Thomson, and Dryden: in that
case what becomes of Gray's poetical, and Milton's moral character?
even of Milton's _poetical_ character, or, indeed, of _English_
poetry in general? for Johnson strips many a leaf from every laurel.
Still Johnson's is the finest critical work extant, and can never be
read without instruction and delight.]

I say nothing against this opinion. But of what "_order_," according
to the poetical aristocracy, are Burns's poems? There are his _opus
magnum_, "Tam O'Shanter," a _tale_; the Cotter's Saturday Night, a
descriptive sketch; some others in the same style: the rest are
songs. So much for the _rank_ of his _productions_; the _rank_ of
_Burns_ is the very first of his art. Of Pope I have expressed my
opinion elsewhere, as also of the effect which the present attempts
at poetry have had upon our literature. If any great national or
natural convulsion could or should overwhelm your country in such
sort, as to sweep Great Britain from the kingdoms of the earth, and
leave only that, after all, the most living of human things, a _dead
language_, to be studied and read, and imitated by the wise of future
and far generations, upon foreign shores; if your literature should
become the learn