in
what a ludicrous chaos the imputations of real or fictitious crime
have been confused in the contemporary calumnies against poetry and
poets; consider how little is, as it appears--or appears, as it is;
look to your own motives, and judge not, lest ye be judged.

Poetry, as has been said, differs in this respect from logic, that it
is not subject to the control of the active powers of the mind, and
that its birth and recurrence have no necessary connexion with the
consciousness or will. It is presumptuous to determine that these are
the necessary conditions of all mental causation, when mental effects
are experienced unsusceptible of being referred to them. The frequent
recurrence of the poetical power, it is obvious to suppose, may
produce in the mind a habit of order and harmony correlative with its
own nature and with its effects upon other minds. But in the intervals
of inspiration, and they may be frequent without being durable, a poet
becomes a man, and is abandoned to the sudden reflux of the influences
under which others habitually live. But as he is more delicately
organized than other men, and sensible to pain and pleasure, both his
own and that of others, in a degree unknown to them, he will avoid the
one and pursue the other with an ardour proportioned to this
difference. And he renders himself obnoxious to calumny, when he
neglects to observe the circumstances under which these objects of
universal pursuit and flight have disguised themselves in one
another's garments.

But there is nothing necessarily evil in this error, and thus cruelty,
envy, revenge, avarice, and the passions purely evil, have never
formed any portion of the popular imputations on the lives of poets.

I have thought it most favourable to the cause of truth to set down
these remarks according to the order in which they were suggested to
my mind, by a consideration of the subject itself, instead of
observing the formality of a polemical reply; but if the view which
they contain be just, they will be found to involve a refutation of
the arguers against poetry, so far at least as regards the first
division of the subject. I can readily conjecture what should have
moved the gall of some learned and intelligent writers who quarrel
with certain versifiers; I confess myself, like them, unwilling to be
stunned by the Theseids of the hoarse Codri of the day. Bavius and
Maevius undoubtedly are, as they ever were, insufferable persons. But