utwardly holden by men, a practical faith in the opinions which I am
wishing to establish is almost unknown. If my conclusions are
admitted, and carried as far as they must be carried if admitted at
all, our judgements concerning the works of the greatest Poets both
ancient and modern will be far different from what they are at
present, both when we praise, and when we censure: and our moral
feelings influencing and influenced by these judgements will, I
believe, be corrected and purified.

Taking up the subject, then, upon general grounds, let me ask, what is
meant by the word Poet? What is a Poet? To whom does he address
himself? And what language is to be expected from him?--He is a man
speaking to men: a man, it is true, endowed with more lively
sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater
knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than are
supposed to be common among mankind; a man pleased with his own
passions and volitions, and who rejoices more than other men in the
spirit of life that is in him; delighting to contemplate similar
volitions and passions as manifested in the goings-on of the Universe,
and habitually impelled to create them where he does not find them. To
these qualities he has added a disposition to be affected more than
other men by absent things as if they were present; an ability of
conjuring up in himself passions, which are indeed far from being the
same as those produced by real events, yet (especially in those parts
of the general sympathy which are pleasing and delightful) do more
nearly resemble the passions produced by real events, than anything
which, from the motions of their own minds merely, other men are
accustomed to feel in themselves:--whence, and from practice, he has
acquired a greater readiness and power in expressing what he thinks
and feels, and especially those thoughts and feelings which, by his
own choice, or from the structure of his own mind, arise in him
without immediate external excitement.

But whatever portion of this faculty we may suppose even the greatest
Poet to possess, there cannot be a doubt that the language which it
will suggest to him, must often, in liveliness and truth, fall short
of that which is uttered by men in real life, under the actual
pressure of those passions, certain shadows of which the Poet thus
produces, or feels to be produced, in himself.

However exalted a notion we would wish to cherish of the charac