Mens agitat molem et magno se corpore miscet.”
“Si inquam, eandem rem, hoc pacto referat mihi, non admirabor solum, sed adamabo: et divinum nescio quid, in animum mihi immissum existimabo.”
In the quotation which he gives, we at once detect the proper tools and cunning of the poet: fancy gives us liquentes campos, titania astra, lucentem globum lunæ, and fantasy or imagination, in virtue of its royal and transmuting power, gives us intus alit—infusa per artus—and that magnificent idea, magno se corpore miscet—this is the divinum nescio quid—the proper work of the imagination—the master and specific faculty of the poet—that which makes him what he is, as the wings make a bird, and which, to borrow the noble words of the Book of Wisdom, “is more moving than motion,—is one only, and yet manifold, subtle, lively, clear, plain, quick, which cannot be letted, passing and going through all things by reason of her pureness; being one, she can do all things; and remaining in herself, she maketh all things new.”
The following is Fracastorius’ definition of a man who not only writes verses, but is by nature a poet: “Est autem ille naturâ poeta, qui aptus est veris rerum pulchritudinibus capi monerique; et qui per illas loqui et scribere potest;” and he gives the lines of Virgil,—
“Aut sicuti nigrum
Ilicibus crebris sacra nemus accubat umbra,”
as an instance of the poetical transformation. All that was merely actual or informative might have been given in the words sicuti nemus, but fantasy sets to work, and videte, per quas pulchritudines, nemus depinxit; addens ACCUBAT, ET NIGRUM crebris ilicibus et SACRA UMBRA! quam ob rem, recte Pontanus dicebat, finem esse poetæ, apposite dicere ad admirationem, simpliciter, et per universalem bene dicendi ideam. This is what we call the beau idéal, or κατ’ ἐξοχήν the ideal—what Bacon describes as “a more ample greatness, a more exact goodness, and a more absolute variety than can be found in the nature of things, the world being in proportion inferior to the soul, and the exhibition of which doth raise and erect the mind by submitting the shows of things to the desires of the mind.” It is “the wondrous and goodly paterne” of which Spenser sings in his “Hymne in honour of Beautie:”—
“What time this world’s great Workmaister did cast
To make al things such as we now behold,
It seems that he before his eyes had plast