Now this picture, which Aelian took from nature, and which any one, if he hath not seen the several parts of it subsisting together, may easily compound for himself out of that stock of rural images which are reposited in the memory, is, in fact, the substance of all those luscious and luxuriant paintings, which poetry hath ever been able to feign. For what more is there in the Elysiums, the Arcadias, the Edens, of ancient and modern fame? And the common object of all these pictures being continually present to the eye, what way is there of avoiding the most exact agreement of representation in them? Or how from any similarity in the materials, of which they are formed, shall we infer an imitation?
This agreeable scenery is, for an obvious reason, the most frequent object of description. Though sometimes it chuses to itself a dark and sombrous imagery; which nature, again, holds out to imitation; or fancy, which hath a wondrous quickness and facility in opposing its ideas, readily suggests. We have an instance in the picture of that horrid and detested vale which Tamora describes in Titus Andronicus. It is a perfect contrast to Aelian’s, and may be called an Anti-tempe. Or, to see this opposition of images in the strongest light, the reader may turn to L’Allegro and Il Penseroso of Milton; where he hath artfully made, throughout the two poems, the same kind of subjects excite the two passions of mirth and melancholy.
When the reader is got into this train, he will easily extend the same observation to other instances of natural description; and can hardly avoid, after a few trials, coming to this short conclusion, “that of all the various delineations in the poets, of the HEAVENS, in their vicissitude of times and seasons; of the EARTH, in its diversity of mountains, valleys, promontories, &c. of the SEA, under its several aspects of turbulence, or serenity; of the make and structure of ANIMALS, &c. it can rarely be affirmed, that they are copies of one another, but rather the genuine products of the same creating fancy, operating uniformly in them all.”
Yet, notwithstanding this identity of the subject-matter in natural description, there is room enough for true Genius to shew itself. To omit other considerations for the present, it will more especially appear in the manner of Representation; by which is not meant the language of the poet, but simply the form under which he chuses to present his imagery to the fancy. The reader will excuse my adding a word on so curious a subject, which he will readily apprehend from the following instance.
Descriptions of the morning are very frequent in the poets. But this appearance is known by so many attending circumstances, that there will be room for a considerable variety in the pictures of it. It may be described by those stains of light, which streak and diversify the clouds; by the peculiar colour of the dawn; by its irradiations on the sea, or earth; on some peculiar objects, as trees, hills, rivers, &c. A difference also will arise from the situation, in which we suppose ourselves; if on the sea shore, this harbinger of day will seem to break forth from the ocean; if on the land, from the extremity of a large plain, terminated, it may be, by some remarkable object, as a grove, mountain, &c. There are many other differences, of which the same precise number will scarcely offer itself to two poets; or not the same individual circumstances; or not disposed in the same manner. But let the same identical circumstance, suppose the breaking or first appearance of the dawn, be taken by different writers, and we may still expect a considerable diversity in their representation of it. What we may allow to all poets, is, that they will impersonate the morning. And though this idea of it is metaphorical, and so belongs to another place, as respecting the manner of imitation only; yet, when once considered under this figure, the drawing of it comes as directly within the province of description, as the real, literal circumstances themselves. Now in descriptions of the morning under this idea of a person, the very same attitude, which is made analogous to the circumstance before specified, and is to suggest it, will, as I said, be represented by different writers very differently. Homer, to express the rise or appearance of this person, speaks of her as shooting forth from the ocean:
——ΑΠ ΩΚΕΑΝΟΙΟ ΡΟΑΩΝ
ΩΡΝΥΘ.
Virgil, as rising from the rocks of Ida.
Jamque jugis summae surgebat Lucifer Idae,
Ducebatque diem.
Shakespear hath closed a fine description of the morning with the same image, but expressed in a very different manner.
——Look what streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:
Night’s candles are put out: and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountains top.