And culls the spoils of every flower.
We must indeed acknowledge in general, that when an high degree of spirit and vivacity is required to characterize any species of composition, the Author may be
allowed to take greater liberties than we should grant to another, whose subject demanded regularity and connection. Let it however be observed at the same time, that this freedom is often granted, not because the theme indispensibly requires, but because we naturally expect it from the genius of the Writer. We justly suppose, that the Philosopher seldom mistakes his talents so far as to be solicitous of shining in a sphere, for which he must know himself to be wholly disqualified; and from the work of a Poet who addresseth imagination, we look for those marks of wildness and incoherence which discover the extent of that faculty.
I have acknowledged in a former part of this Essay, that the shorter Ode not only admits of bold and spirited transitions, but that these are in many instances necessary to constitute a perfect imitation of nature[72]. This observation however cannot be applied with so much propriety to the other kinds of it, because the transport of passion is abrupt, instantaneous, and the mind returns suddenly to the point from which it had digressed. On the contrary, as the passions cannot be kept on their full stretch for any considerable time, we expect that in the higher species of Lyric Poetry, the Poet will keep the principal object more immediately in his eye, and that his transitions will never make us lose sight of it so far, as
not to recall with ease the intermediate points of connection.
When this rule is not violated, we can enter with pleasure into the design of the Poet, and consider his work as a whole in which every separate member has its distinct and proper use. Thus, when Pindar is celebrating Aristagoras, we can easily observe that the Poet’s oblique encomium on the Father and friends of his Heroe, is introduced with great propriety, as every remark of this kind reflects additional lustre on the character of the principal personage[73]. We are even sometimes highly entertained with digressions, which have not so near a relation to the subject of the Ode as the last mentioned circumstance; because though the immediate design is not going forward, we can still however keep it in view with the same ease, as a traveller can do the public road, from which he willingly makes an excursion to survey the neighbouring country. Thus the noble panegyric upon the whole people of Rhodes, and the account of their Founder Tlepolemus, which we meet with in the Ode inscribed to Diagoras the Rhodian; these are happy and beautiful embellishments, whose introduction enlivens the whole piece with a proper variety of objects[74].
The same principle which induceth us to approve of Poet’s transitions in the preceding instances, must (as
your Lordship will immediately conceive) lead us to condemn those which are far-fetched, pursued too closely, or foreign to the subject of the poem. This is frequently the consequence of following the track of imagination with implicit compliance, as the Poet without being sensible of his mistake runs into one digression after another, until his work is made up of incoherent ideas; in which, as Horace expresseth it,
velut ægri somnia vanæ
Finguntur species, ut nec pes, nec caput uni