e
_Oedipus_, which, in spite of its many beauties, has not even a share
of the richness and sublimity of either?

Aristotle, then, it must be allowed, treats dramatic composition more
as an exhibition of ingenious workmanship, than as a free and
unfettered effusion of genius. The inferior poem may, on his
principle, be the better tragedy. He may indeed have intended solely
to delineate the outward framework most suitable to the reception of
the spirit of poetry, not to discuss the nature of poetry itself. If
so, it cannot be denied that, the poetry being given equal in the two
cases, the more perfect plot will merit the greater share of praise.
And it may seem to agree with this view of his meaning, that he
pronounces Euripides, in spite of the irregularity of his plots, to
be, after all, the most tragic of the Greek dramatists, inasmuch (i.
e.) as he excels in his appeal to those passions which the outward
form of the drama merely subserves. Still there is surely too much
stress laid by the philosopher upon the artificial part; which, after
all, leads to negative, more than to positive excellence; and should
rather be the natural and (so to say) unintentional result of the
poet's feeling and imagination, than be separated from them as the
direct object of his care. Perhaps it is hardly fair to judge of
Aristotle's sentiments by the fragment of his work which has come down
to us. Yet as his natural taste led him to delight in the explication
of systems, and in those large and connected views which his vigorous
talent for thinking through subjects supplied, we may be allowed to
suspect him of entertaining too cold and formal conceptions of the
nature of poetical composition, as if its beauties were less subtle
and delicate than they really are. A word has power to convey a world
of information to the imagination, and to act as a spell upon the
feelings: there is no need of sustained fiction--often no room for
it.[19] Some confirmation of the judgement we have ventured to pass on
the greatest of analytical philosophers, is the account he gives of
the source of poetical pleasure; which he almost identifies with a
gratification of the reasoning faculty, placing it in the satisfaction
derived from recognizing in fiction a resemblance to the realities of
life--[Greek: symbainei theorountas manthanein kai syllogizesthai, ti
hekaston.][20]

[19] The sudden inspiration, e. g. of the blind Oedipus, in
the second play b