And this is that sovereign quality in poetry, which, as an old writer of our own naturally expresses it, is of force to hold children from play, and old men from the chimney corner[52]. The poet, in the place before us, considers it as a kind of magic virtue, which transports the spectator into all places, and makes him, occasionally, assume all persons. The resemblance holds, also, in this, that its effects are instantaneous and irresistible. Rules, art, decorum, all fall before it. It goes directly to the heart, and gains all purposes at once. Hence it is, that, speaking of a real genius, possessed of this commanding power, Horace pronounces him, emphatically, THE POET,
Ille per extentum funem mihi posse videtur
Ire POETA:
it being more especially this property, which, of itself, discovers the true dramatist, and secures the success of his performance, not only without the assistance of art, but in direct opposition to its clearest dictates.
This power has been felt on a thousand other occasions. But its triumphs were never more conspicuous, than in the famous instance of the Cid of P. Corneille; which, by the sole means of this enchanting quality, drew along with it the affections and applauses of a whole people: notwithstanding the manifest transgression of some essential rules, the utmost tyranny of jealous power, and, what is more, in defiance of all the authority and good sense of one of the justest pieces of criticism in the French language, written purposely to discredit and expose it.
224. Cum lamentamur non adparere labores Nostros, &c.] It was remarked upon verse 211, that the beauties of a poem can only appear by being felt. And they, to whom they do not appear in this instance, are the writer’s own friends, who, it is not to be supposed, would disguise their feelings. So that the lamentation, here spoken of, is at once a proof of impertinence in the poet, and of the badness of his poetry, which sets the complainant in a very ridiculous light.
228. Egere vetes.] The poet intended, in these words, a very just satire on those presuming wits and scholars, who, under the pretence of getting above distressful want, in reality aspire to public honours and preferments; though this be the most inexcusable of all follies (to give it the softest name), which can infest a man of letters: Both, because experience, on which a wise man would chuse to regulate himself, is contrary to these hopes; and, because if literary merit could succeed in them, the Reward, as the poet speaks,
would either bring
No joy, or be destructive of the thing:
That is, the learned would either have no relish for the delights of so widely different a situation; or, which hath oftener been the case, would lose the learning itself, or the love of it at least, on which their pretensions to this reward are founded.