will. A man cannot say, 'I will compose poetry.' The greatest
poet even cannot say it; for the mind in creation is as a fading coal,
which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to
transitory brightness; this power arises from within, like the colour
of a flower which fades and changes as it is developed, and the
conscious portions of our natures are unprophetic either of its
approach or its departure. Could this influence be durable in its
original purity and force, it is impossible to predict the greatness
of the results; but when composition begins, inspiration is already on
the decline, and the most glorious poetry that has ever been
communicated to the world is probably a feeble shadow of the original
conceptions of the poet. I appeal to the greatest poets of the present
day, whether it is not an error to assert that the finest passages of
poetry are produced by labour and study. The toil and the delay
recommended by critics can be justly interpreted to mean no more than
a careful observation of the inspired moments, and an artificial
connexion of the spaces between their suggestions by the intertexture
of conventional expressions; a necessity only imposed by the
limitedness of the poetical faculty itself; for Milton conceived the
_Paradise Lost_ as a whole before he executed it in portions. We have
his own authority also for the muse having 'dictated' to him the
'unpremeditated song'. And let this be an answer to those who would
allege the fifty-six various readings of the first line of the
_Orlando Furioso_. Compositions so produced are to poetry what mosaic
is to painting. This instinct and intuition of the poetical faculty is
still more observable in the plastic and pictorial arts; a great
statue or picture grows under the power of the artist as a child in
the mother's womb; and the very mind which directs the hands in
formation is incapable of accounting to itself for the origin, the
gradations, or the media of the process.

Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest
and best minds. We are aware of evanescent visitations of thought and
feeling sometimes associated with place or person, sometimes regarding
our own mind alone, and always arising unforeseen and departing
unbidden, but elevating and delightful beyond all expression: so that
even in the desire and regret they leave, there cannot but be
pleasure, participating as it does in the nature of its object. It