[125]. The Power of Sound, London, 1880. Chap. III. is on the elements of a work of art. On p. 51, again on p. 423 f., Mr. Gurney rejects poetry in prose.
[126]. Théorie de l’Invention, thèse pour le doctorat ès Lettres, Paris, 1881, p. 142.
[127]. It is perhaps superfluous to point out that imagination is utterly ignored in this analysis, and to recall Mr. Swinburne’s phrase that “the two primary and essential qualities of poetry are imagination and harmony.”
[128]. A curious passage which follows (pp. 149 f.), treats poetry as a supply of coal, rapidly used and close to exhaustion, so far as originality and freshness are concerned.
[129]. Choice of Books, pp. 81 f., 126.
[130]. History of Æsthetics, pp. 461 f.
[131]. Professor Masson in the North British Review, 1853, reviewed the Poetics of Dallas, printing the review later as fifth essay in Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats, London, 1874; the sixth essay “On Prose and Verse,” repeats a discussion of De Quincey’s prose in the journal just named for 1854. Poets are led, Masson says, by the “flag” of imagery and the “flute” of verse; and while he inclines to the test of rhythm, he comes to no conclusion. Bain (On Teaching English, 1887; see Chap. VII. and pp. 249 ff.) also inclines to the test, but hedges after the manner of his brethren.
[132]. Encycl. Brit., article “Poetry,” which defines its subject as “the concrete and artistic expression of the human mind in emotional and rhythmical language.... In discussing poetry, questions of versification touch ... the very root of the subject.”
[133]. In the sense, of course, that it absorbed the best labour of two centuries.
[134]. The same argument, of course, applies to Plato, as in the “hymns” to Eros, noble prose indeed; and in less degree to such passages as De Quincey on the Ladies of Sorrow.