[95]. Essays, “Of Poetry.”
[96]. Praelectiones Poeticae, 4th ed., London, 1760; see I. 24.
[97]. Programma de Vera Indole Poeseos Praelectionihus Praemissum, Helmst., 1719. See also his programme of 1720 introducing lectures on the Ars Poetica of Horace.
[98]. Œuvres Complètes de M. de Fénélon, Tome V., “Discours sur le poeme épique,” pp. 34 ff. There are many discourses on this theme of prose-poetry in the Mémoires of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres. The Abbé Fraguier is dull but weighty for the test; Burette, a real scholar, is sensible on the same side (Mém. X. 212 f., in 1730). The younger Racine is very feeble; after reading his contradictory and vapid papers, one has Chaucer on one’s lips—“No more of this, for goddes dignité!”
[99]. A Knight’s Conjuring, Percy Soc., 1842, pp. 25, 75.
[100]. Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope, anon., London, 1756. The book is dedicated to Young, and in the dedication Warton gives these general views of poetry.
[101]. Pope said, “There are three distinct tours in poetry; the design, the language, and the versification....” Spence, Anecd., p. 23. As to prose poems, he could read Telemachus with pleasure, “though I don’t like that poetic kind of prose.” Its good sense was so great, “nothing else could make me forget my prejudices against the style.” Ibid., pp. 141 f.
[102]. Praelectiones, Pars Prima, Praelect. Tertia: “Poesin Hebraeam metricam esse.”
[103]. “Sed cum omni poesi haec sit veluti propria quedam lex et necessaria conditio constituta, a qua si discedat, non solum praecipuam elegantiam desiderabit et suavitatem, sed ne nomen suum obtinebit.” It should be added that Calmet, de Poesi vet. Hebrae., p. 15, is against this verse test, “Essentiale Poeseos quaerimus in certo quodam sermone vivido, animato, pathetico, figurisque hyperbolicis audacius ornato. Nec solam versificationem Poetas facere, nec a pedum mensura Poesin dici persuademur.” Then Plato.
[104]. Rhetoric, III. iii. 3.