"All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame."
With this view, then, of the vast range of poetical thinking and feeling—such as most arouse interest in all possible moods of the reader, and recalling the fact that the aim of the poet is to set forth his strains in musical measures that allure the attention and satisfy the sense of perfect expression, it will be of interest to note a few passages concerning this art of all arts from notable thinkers.
In his introduction to Ward's admirable selections from "The English Poets," Matthew Arnold—critic and poet—to whom allusion has already been made, says:
"The future of poetry is immense, because in poetry, where it is worthy of its high destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an ever surer and surer stay….
"We are here invited to trace the stream of English poetry. But whether we set ourselves, as here, to follow only one of the several streams that make the mighty river of poetry, or whether we seek to know them all, our governing thought should be the same. We should conceive of poetry worthily, and more highly than it has been the custom to conceive of it. We should conceive of it as capable of higher uses, and called to higher destinies, than those which in general men have assigned to it hitherto. More and more mankind will discover that we have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to sustain us….
"But if we conceive thus highly of poetry, we must also set our standard for poetry high, since poetry, to be capable of fulfilling such high destinies, must be poetry of a high order of excellence.
… The best poetry is what we want; the best poetry will be found to have a power of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing else can. A clearer, deeper sense of the best in poetry, and of the strength and joy to be drawn from it, is the most precious benefit which we can gather from a poetical collection such as the present."
Macaulay in his brilliant essay on Milton, which, published in the Edinburgh Review in 1825, gave him instant recognition as "a new literary power," set up an interesting theory. A few extracts will give it:—
"Milton, it is said, inherited what his predecessors created; he lived in an enlightened age; he received a finished education; and we must therefore, if we would form a just estimate of his powers, make large deductions for these advantages.
"We venture to say, on the contrary, paradoxical as the remark may appear, that no poet has ever had to struggle with more unfavorable circumstances than Milton….