this question admits of a very definite answer. Take the Iliad
of Homer and a proposition of Euclid. Is it conceivable that the
latter could have been expressed at all in metre, or the former
expressed half so well in prose? If not, what is the reason? Is it
not plain that the poem contains a predominant element of imagination
and feeling which is absolutely excluded from the proposition? And in
the same way it may be shown that whenever a man expresses himself
properly in metre, the subject-matter of his composition belongs to
imagination or feeling; whenever he writes in prose his subject
belongs to or (if the prose be fiction) intimately resembles matter
of fact. We may decide then with certainty that the sphere of poetry
lies in Imagination, and that the larger the amount of _just_ liberty
the Imagination enjoys, the better will be the poetry it produces.
But then a further question arises, and this is the key of the whole
position, How far does this liberty extend? Is Imagination absolute,
supreme, and uncontrolled in its own sphere, or is it under the
guidance and government of reason? That its dominion is not universal
is obvious, but of its influence we are all conscious, and there is
no exaggeration in the eloquent words of Pascal:

"'This mighty power, the perpetual antagonist of reason, which
delights to show its ascendency by bringing her under its control and
dominion, has created a second nature in man. It has its joys and its
sorrows; its health, its sickness; its wealth, its poverty; it
compels reason, in spite of herself, to believe, to doubt, to deny;
it suspends the exercise of the senses, and imparts to them again an
artificial acuteness; it has its follies and its wisdom; and the most
perverse thing of all is that it fills its votaries with a
complacency more full and complete even than that which reason can
supply.'

"If such be the force of Imagination in active life, how absolute
must be its dominion in poetry! And absolute it is, if we are to
believe Wordsworth, who defines poetry to be 'the spontaneous
overflow of powerful emotion.' This definition coincides well with
modern notions on the nature of the art. But how different is the
view if we turn from theory to practice! It would surely be a serious
mistake to describe the noblest poems, like the 'Aeneid' or 'Paradise
Lost,' as the product of mere spontaneous emotion. And even in lyric
verse, to which it may be said Wordsworth is specially