"I have always been of opinion," says he, "that virtue sinks deepest into the heart of man when it comes recommended by the powerful charms of poetry. The most active principle in our mind is the imagination: to it a good poet makes his court perpetually, and by this faculty takes care to gain it first. Our passions and inclinations come over next; and our reason surrenders itself with pleasure in the end. Thus the whole soul is insensibly betrayed into morality, by bribing the fancy with beautiful and agreeable images of those very things that in the books of the philosophers appear austere, and have at the best but a kind of forbidden aspect. In a word, the poets do, as it were, strew the rough paths of virtue so full of flowers, that we are not sensible of the uneasiness of them, and imagine ourselves in the midst of pleasures, and the most bewitching allurements, at the time we are making a progress in the severest duties of life.
"All then agree, that licentious poems do of all writings soonest corrupt the heart: and why should we not be as universally persuaded, that the grave and serious performances of such as write in the most engaging manner, by a kind of divine impulse, must be the most effectual persuasives to goodness? If therefore I were blessed with a son, in order to the forming of his manners (which is making him truly my son) I should be continually putting into his hand some fine poet. The graceful sentences and the manly sentiments so frequently to be met with in every great and sublime writer, are, in my judgment, the most ornamental and valuable furniture that can be for a young gentleman's head; methinks they show like so much rich embroidery upon the brain. Let me add to this, that humanity and tenderness (without which there can be no true greatness in the mind) are inspired by the Muses in such pathetical language, that all we find in prose authors towards the raising and improving of these passions, is in comparison but cold, or lukewarm at the best. There is besides a certain elevation of soul, a sedate magnanimity, and a noble turn of virtue, that distinguishes the hero from the plain, honest man, to which verse can only raise us. The bold metaphors and sounding numbers, peculiar to the poets, rouse up all our sleeping faculties, and alarm the whole powers of the soul, much like that excellent trumpeter mentioned by Virgil:
'——Quo non præstantior alter
Ære ciere viros, Martemque accendere cantu.'[302]
"I fell into this train of thinking this evening, upon reading a passage in a masque written by Milton, where two brothers are introduced seeking after their sister, whom they had lost in a dark night and thick wood. One of the brothers is apprehensive lest the wandering virgin should be overpowered with fears through the darkness and loneliness of the time and place. This gives the other occasion to make the following reflections, which, as I read them, made me forget my age, and renewed in me the warm desires after virtue, so natural to uncorrupted youth.
'I do not think my sister so to seek,
Or so unprincipled in virtue's book,
And the sweet peace that goodness bosoms ever,
As that the single want of light and noise
(Not being in danger, as I trust she is not)
Could stir the constant mood of her calm thoughts,
And put them into misbecoming plight.
Virtue could see to do what Virtue would,
By her own radiant light, though sun and moon
Were in the flat sea sunk. And Wisdom's self
Oft seeks to sweet retirèd solitude:
Where, with her best nurse, Contemplation,
She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings,
That in the various bustle of resort
Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impaired.
He that has light within his own clear breast,
May sit i' th' centre, and enjoy bright day:
But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts,
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;
Himself is his own dungeon.'"[303]
FOOTNOTES:
[300] See No. 50.
[301] Perhaps Dr. Thomas Walker, head schoolmaster at the Charter House, where Steele and Addison were scholars. In the Spectator, No. 488, Dr. Walker is alluded to as "the ingenious T. W."
[302] "Æneid," vi. 164.