The reader will proceed to apply these remarks, where he sees fit. For it may scarcely seem worth while to take notice of the insinuation, which a polite writer, but no very able critic, hath thrown out against the entire use of religious description in poetry. I say the entire use; for so I understand him, when he says, “the religion of the gentiles had been woven into the contexture of all the ancient poetry with a very agreeable mixture, which made the moderns affect to give that of Christianity a place also in their poems[29].” He seems not to have conceived, that the visible effects of religious opinions and dispositions, constitute a principal part of what is most striking in the sublimer poetry. The narrative species delights in, or rather cannot subsist without, these solemn pictures of the religious ritual; and the theatre is never more moved, than when its awful scenery is exhibited in the dramatic. Or, if he meant this censure, of the intervention of superior agents, and what we call machinery, the observation (though it be seconded by one, whose profession should have taught him much better[30]) is not more to the purpose. For the pomp of the epic muse demands to be furnished with a train of these celestial personages. Intending, as she doth, to astonish the imagination with whatever is most august within the compass of human thought, it is not possible for her to accomplish this great end, but by the ministry of supernatural intelligences, PER AMBAGES ET MINISTERIA DEORUM.
Or, the proof of these two points may be given more precisely thus: “The relation of man to the deity, being as essential to his nature, as that which he bears to his fellow-citizens, religion becomes as necessary a part of a serious and sublime narration of human life, as civil actions. And as the sublime nature of it requires even virtues and vices to be personified, much more is it necessary, that supernatural agency should bear a part in it. For, whatever some sects may think of religion’s being a divine philosophy in the mind, the poet must exhibit man’s addresses to Heaven in ceremonies, and Heaven’s intervention by visible agency.”
So that the intermixture of religion, in every point of view, is not only agreeable, but necessary to the very genius of, at least, the highest class of poetry. Ancients and moderns might therefore be led to the display of this sacred scenery, without affectation. And for what concerns Christian poets, in particular, we see from an instance at home (whatever may be the success of some Italians, whom he appears to have had in his eye) that, where the subject is proper to receive it, it can appear with as much grace, as in the poets of paganism. It may be concluded then, universally, that religion is the proper object of poetry, which wants no prompter of a preceding model to give it an introduction; and that the forms, under which it presents itself, are too manifest and glaring to observation, to escape any writer.
The case is somewhat different with what I call the moral and oeconomical sentiments. These operate indeed within, and by their busy and active powers administer abundant matter to poetic description, which alone is equal to these unseen workings. For their actings on the body are too feeble to produce any visible alteration of the outward form. Their fine and delicate movements are to be apprehended only and surveyed by conscious attentive reflexion. They are not, usually, of force enough to wield the machine of man; to discompose his frame, or distort his feature: and so rarely come to be susceptible of picture or representation. One may compare the subtle operations of these sentiments on the human form, to the gentle breathing of the air on the face of nature. Its soft aspirations may be perceived; its nimble and delicate spirit may diffuse itself through woods and fields, and its pervading influence cherish and invigorate all animal or vegetative being. Yet no external signs evidence its effects to sense. It acts invisibly, and therefore no power of imitation can give it form and colouring. Its impulses must, at least, have a certain degree of strength: it must wave the grass, incline trees, and scatter leaves, before the painter can lay hold of it, and draw it into description. Just so it is with our calmer sentiments. They seldom stir or disorder the human frame. They spring up casually, and as circumstances concur, within us; but, as it were, sink and die away again, like passing gales, without leaving any impress or mark of violence behind them. In short, when they do not grow out of fixed characters, or are prompted by passion, they do not, I believe, ever make themselves visible.
And this observation reaches as well to event and action in life, as to the corporal figure of the person in whom they operate. The sentiments, here spoken of, however naturally or even necessarily they may occur to the mind on certain occasions, yet have seldom or never any immediate effect on consequent action. And the reason is, that we do not proceed to act on the sole conclusions of the understanding; unless such conclusions, by frequent meditation, or the co-operating influence of some affection, excite a ferment in the mind, and impel the will by passion. Such moral aphorisms as these, “that friendship is the medicine of life,” and, “that our country, as including all other interests, claims our first regard,” though likely to obtrude themselves upon us on a thousand occasions, yet would never have urged Achilles to such a train of action, as makes the striking part of the Iliad; or Ulysses, to that which runs through the intire Odyssey; if a strong, instinctive affection in both had not conspired to produce it. When produced therefore, they are to be considered as the genuine consequences, not of these moral sentiments, taken simply by themselves, but of strong benevolence of soul, implanted by nature, and strengthened by habit. They are properly then, the result of the manners, or passions, which have been already contemplated. Our sentiments, merely as such, terminate in themselves, and furnish no external apparent matter to description.
The same conclusion would, it must be owned, hold of our religious, as moral sentiments, were we to regard them only in this view of dispassionate and cool reflexions. For such reflexions produce no change of feature, no alteration in the form or countenance, nor are they necessarily followed by any sensible demonstration of their power in outward action. But then it usually happens (which sets the widest difference between the two cases) that the one, as respecting an object, whose very idea interests strongly, and puts all our faculties in motion, are, almost of necessity, associated with the impelling causes of affection; and so express themselves in legible signs and characters. Whereas the other sentiments, respecting human nature and its necessities, are frequently no other than a calm indifferent survey of common life, unattended with any emotion or inciting principle of action. Hence religion, inspiriting all its meditations with enthusiasm, generally shews itself in outward signs; whereas we frequently discern no traces, as necessarily attendant upon moral. Which difference is worth the noting, were it only for the sake of seeing more distinctly the vast advantage of poetry, above all other modes of imitation. For these, explaining themselves by the help of natural media, which present a real resemblance, are able but imperfectly to describe religious sentiments; in as much as they express the general vague disposition only, and not the precise sentiments themselves. And in moral, they can frequently give us no image or representation at all. While poetry, which tells its meaning by artificial signs, conveys distinct and clear notices of this class of moral and religious conceptions, which afford such mighty entertainment to the human mind. But it serves to a further purpose, more immediately relative to the subject of this inquiry. For these ethic and prudential conclusions, being seen to produce no immediate effect in look, attitude, or action, we are to regard them only in their remoter and less direct consequences, as influencing, at a distance, the civil and oeconomical affairs of life.
And in this view they open a fresh field for imitation; not quite so striking to the spectator, perhaps, but even larger, than that, into which religion, with all its multiform superstitions, before led us. For to these internal workings, assisted and pushed forward by the wants and necessities of our nature, which set the inventive powers on work, are ultimately to be referred that vast congeries of political, civil, commercial, and mechanic institutions, of those infinite manufactures, arts, and exercises, which come in to the relief or embellishment of human life. Add to these all those nameless events and actions, which, though determined by no fixed habit, or leading affection, human prudence, providing for its security or interests, in certain circumstances, naturally projects and prescribes. These are ample materials for description; and the greater poetry necessarily comprehends a large share of them. Yet in all delineations of this sort two things are observable, 1. That in the latter, which are the pure result of our reasonings concerning expediency, common sense, in given conjunctures, often leads to the same measures: As when Ulysses in Homer disguises himself, for the sake of coming at a more exact information of the state of his family; or, when Orestes in Sophocles does the same, to bring about the catastrophe of the Electra. 2. In respect of the former (which is of principal consideration) the established modes and practices of life being the proper and only archetype, experience and common observation cannot fail of pointing, with the greatest certainty, to them. So that in the one case different writers may concur in treating the same matter, in the other, they must. But this last will bear a little further illustration.
The critics on Homer have remarked, with admiration, in him, the almost infinite variety of images and pictures, taken from the intire circle of human arts. Whatever the wit of man had invented for the service or ornament of society in manual exercises and operations is found to have a place in his writings. Rural affairs, in their several branches; the mechanic, and all the polite arts of sculpture, painting, and architecture, are occasionally hinted at in his poems; or, rather, their various imagery, so far as they were known and practised in those times, is fully and largely displayed. Now this, though it shew the prodigious extent of his observation and diligent curiosity, which could search through all the storehouses and magazines of art, for materials of description, yet is not to be placed to the score of his superior inventive faculty; nor infers any thing to the disadvantage of succeeding poets, whose subjects might oblige them to the same descriptions; any more than his vast acquaintance with natural scenery, in all its numberless appearances, implies a want of genius in later imitators, who, if they ventured, at all, into this province, were constrained to give us the same unvaried representations.
The truth, as every one sees, is, briefly, this. The restless and inquisitive mind of man had succeeded in the discovery or improvement of the numberless arts of life. These, for the convenience of method, are considered as making a large part of those sensible external effects, which spring from our internal sentiments or reasonings. But, though they ultimately respect those reasonings, as their source, yet they, in no degree, depend on the actual exertion of them in the breast of the poet. He copies only the customs of the times, of which he writes, that is, the sensible effects themselves. These are permanent objects, and may, nay must be the same, whatever be the ability or genius of the copier. In short, taken together, they make up what, in the largest sense of the word, we may call, with the painters, il costumè; which though it be a real excellence scrupulously to observe, yet it requires nothing more than exact observation and historical knowledge of facts to do it.
And now having the various objects of poetical imitation before us (the greatest part of which, as appears, must, and the rest may, occur to the observation of the poet) we come to this conclusion, which, though it may startle the parallelist, there seems no method of eluding, “that of any single image or sentiment, considered separately and by itself, it can never be affirmed certainly, hardly with any shew of reason, merely on account of its agreement in subject-matter with any other, that it was copied from it.” If there be any foundation of this inference, it must, then be laid, not on the matter, but MANNER of imitation. But here, again, the subject branches out into various particulars; which, to be seen distinctly, will demand a new division, and require us to proceed with leisure and attention through it.