118. Hic error tamen et levis haec insania Quantas Virtutes habeat, sic collige:] This apology for poets, and, in them, for poetry itself, though delivered with much apparent negligence and unconcern, yet, if considered, will be found to comprize in it every thing, that any, or all, of its most zealous advocates have ever pretended in its behalf. For it comprehends,
I. [From v. 118 to 124,] the personal good qualities of the poet. Nothing is more insisted on by those, who take upon themselves the patronage and recommendation of any art, than that it tends to raise in the professor of it all those virtues, which contribute most to his own proper enjoyment, and render him most agreeable to others. Now this, it seems, may be urged, on the side of poetry, with a peculiar force. For not only the study of this art hath a direct tendency to produce a neglect or disregard of worldly honours and emoluments (from the too eager appetite of which almost all the calamities, as well as the more unfriendly vices, of men arise) but he, whom the benign aspect of the muse hath glanced upon and destined for her peculiar service, is, by constitution, which is ever the best security, fortified against the attacks of them. Thus his RAPTURES in the enjoyment of his muse make him overlook the common accidents of life [v. 121]; he is generous, open, and undesigning, by NATURE [v. 122]; to which we must not forget to add, that he is temperate, that is to say, poor, by PROFESSION.
VIVIT SILIQUIS ET PANE SECUNDO.
II. [From v. 124 to 132.] THE UTILITY OF THE POET TO THE STATE: and this both on a civil and moral account. For, 1. the poets, whom we read in our younger years, and from whom we learn the power of words, and hidden harmony of numbers, that is, as a profound Scotchman teaches, the first and most essential principles of eloquence[51], enable, by degrees, and instruct their pupil to appear with advantage, in that extensively useful capacity of a public speaker. And, indeed, graver writers, than our poet, have sent the orator to this school. But the pretensions of poetry go much farther. It delights [from v. 130 to 132] to immortalize the triumphs of virtue: to record or feign illustrious examples of heroic worth, for the service of the rising age: and, which is the last and best fruit of philosophy itself, it can relieve even the languor of ill-health, and sustain poverty herself under the scorn and insult of contumelious opulence. 2. In a moral view its services are not less considerable. (For it may be observed the poet was so far of a mind with the philosopher, to give no quarter to immoral poets). And to this end it serves, 1. [v. 127] in turning the ear of youth from that early corruptor of its innocence, the seducement of a loose and impure communication. 2. Next [v. 128] in forming our riper age (which it does with all the address and tenderness of friendship: AMICIS praeceptis) by the sanctity and wisdom of its precepts. And, 3. which is the proper office of tragedy, in correcting the excesses of the natural passions [v. 122]. The reader who doth not turn himself to the original, will be apt to mistake this detail of the virtues of poetry, for an account of the Policy and Legislation of ancient and modern times; whose proudest boast, when the philanthropy of their enthusiastic projectors ran at the highest, was but to prevent the impressions of vice: to form the mind to habits of virtue: and to curb and regulate the passions.
III. His services to Religion. This might well enough be said, whether by religion we understand an internal reverence of the Gods, which poetry first and principally intended; or their popular adoration and worship, which, by its fictions, as of necessity conforming to the received fancies of superstition, it must greatly tend to promote and establish. But the poet, artfully seizing a circumstance, which supposes and includes in it both these respects, renders his defence vastly interesting.
All the customary addresses of Heathenism to its gods, more especially on any great and solemn emergency, were the work of the poet. For nature, it seems, had taught the pagan world, what the Hebrew Prophets themselves did not disdain to practice, that, to lift the imagination, and, with it, the sluggish affections of human nature, to Heaven, it was expedient to lay hold on every assistance of art. They therefore presented their supplications to the Divinity in the richest and brightest dress of eloquence, which is poetry. Not to insist, that devotion, when sincere and ardent, from its very nature, enkindles a glow of thought, which communicates strongly with the transports of poetry. Hence the language of the Gods (for so was poetry accounted, as well from its being the divinest species of communication, our rude conceptions can well frame even for superior intelligencies, as for that it was the fittest vehicle of our applications to them) became not the ornament only, but an essential in the ceremonial, of paganism. And this, together with an allusion to a form of public prayer (for such was his secular ode) composed by himself, gives, at once, a grace and sublimity to this part of the apology, which are perfectly inimitable.
Thus hath the great poet, in the compass of a few lines, drawn together a complete defence of his art. For what more could the warmest admirer of poetry, or, because zeal is quickened by opposition, what more could the vehement declaimer against Plato (who proscribed it), urge in its behalf, than that it furnishes, to the poet himself, the surest means of solitary and social enjoyment: and further serves to the most important CIVIL, MORAL, and RELIGIOUS purposes?
119.—vatis avarus Non temere est animus:] There is an unlucky Italian proverb, which says, Chi ben scrive, non sara mai ricco.—The true reason, without doubt, is here given by the poet.