on is all; that one class of poetry
has, as such, no superiority over another; and that poets are to be
ranked by their excellence as artists, and not according to some
imaginary scale of dignity in the different orders of poetry, as epic,
didactic, satiric, etc. "There is, in fact," wrote Roscoe, "no poetry in
any subject except what is called forth by the genius of the poet. . . .
There are no great subjects but such as are made so by the genius of the
artist." Byron said that to the question "whether 'the description of a
game of cards be as poetical, supposing the execution of the artists
equal, as a description of a walk in a forest,' it may be answered that
the materials are certainly not equal, but that the _artist_ who has
rendered the game of cards poetical is by far the greater of the two.
But all this 'ordering' of poets is purely arbitrary on the part of Mr.
Bowles. There may or may not be, in fact, different 'orders' of poetry,
but the poet is always ranked according to his execution, and not
according to his branch of the art." Byron also contended, like
Campbell, that art is just as poetical as nature, and that it was not the
water that gave interest to the ship but the ship to the water. "What
was it attracted the thousands to the launch? They might have seen the
poetical 'calm water' at Wapping or in the London lock or in the
Paddington Canal or in a horse-pond or in a slop-basin." Without natural
accessories--the sun, the sky, the sea, the wind--Bowles had said, the
ship's properties are only blue bunting, coarse canvas, and tall poles.
"So they are," admits Byron, "and porcelain is clay, and man is dust, and
flesh is grass; and yet the two latter at least are the subjects of much
poesy. . . . Ask the traveller what strikes him as most poetical, the
Parthenon or the rock on which it stands. . . . Take away Stonehenge
from Salisbury plain and it is nothing more than Hounslow Heath or any
other unenclosed down. . . . There can be nothing more poetical in its
aspect than the city of Venice; does this depend upon the sea or the
canals? . . . Is it the Canal Grande or the Rialto which arches it, the
churches which tower over it, the palaces which line and the gondolas
which glide over the waters, that render this city more poetical than
Rome itself? . . . Without these the water would be nothing but a
clay-coloured ditch. . . . There would be nothing to make the canal of
Venice more poetical than