cal mind.
Nor does it follow from our position that every poet must in fact be a
man of consistent and practical principle; except so far as good
feeling commonly produces or results from good practice. Burns was a
man of inconsistent practice--still, it is known, of much really sound
principle at bottom. Thus his acknowledged poetical talent is in no
wise inconsistent with the truth of our doctrine, which will refer the
beauty which exists in his compositions to the remains of a virtuous
and diviner nature within him. Nay, further than this, our theory
holds good even though it be shown that a bad man may write a poem. As
motives short of the purest lead to actions intrinsically good, so
frames of mind short of virtuous will produce a partial and limited
poetry. But even where it is exhibited, the poetry of a vicious mind
will be inconsistent and debased; i. e. so far only such, as the
traces and shadows of holy truth still remain upon it. On the other
hand, a right moral feeling places the mind in the very centre of that
circle from which all the rays have their origin and range; whereas
minds otherwise placed command but a portion of the whole circuit of
poetry. Allowing for human infirmity and the varieties of opinion,
Milton, Spenser, Cowper, Wordsworth, and Southey, may be considered,
as far as their writings go, to approximate to this moral centre. The
following are added as further illustrations of our meaning. Walter
Scott's centre is chivalrous honour; Shakespeare exhibits the [Greek:
ethos], the physiognomy of an unlearned and undisciplined piety; Homer
the religion of nature and the heart, at times debased by polytheism.
All these poets are religious:--the occasional irreligion of Virgil's
poetry is painful to the admirers of his general taste and delicacy.
Dryden's _Alexander's Feast_ is a magnificent composition, and has
high poetical beauties; but to a delicate judgement there is something
intrinsically unpoetical in the end to which it is devoted, the
praises of revel and sensuality. It corresponds to a process of
clever reasoning erected on an untrue foundation--the one is a
fallacy, the other is out of taste. Lord Byron's _Manfred_ is in parts
intensely poetical; yet the refined mind naturally shrinks from the
spirit which here and there reveals itself, and the basis on which the
fable is built. From a perusal of it we should infer, according to the
above theory, that there was right and fine feeling in