ating the lion, in the state of
awe, wonder, or terror, which the spectacle naturally excites, or is,
on the occasion, supposed to excite. Now this is describing the lion
professedly, but the state of excitement of the spectator really. The
lion may be described falsely or with exaggeration, and the poetry be
all the better; but if the human emotion be not painted with
scrupulous truth, the poetry is bad poetry, i. e. is not poetry at
all, but a failure.

Thus far our progress towards a clear view of the essentials of
poetry has brought us very close to the last two attempts at a
definition of poetry which we happen to have seen in print, both of
them by poets and men of genius. The one is by Ebenezer Elliott, the
author of _Corn-Law Rhymes_, and other poems of still greater merit.
'Poetry', says he, 'is impassioned truth.' The other is by a writer in
_Blackwood's Magazine_, and comes, we think, still nearer the mark. He
defines poetry, 'man's thoughts tinged by his feelings'. There is in
either definition a near approximation to what we are in search of.
Every truth which a human being can enunciate, every thought, even
every outward impression, which can enter into his consciousness, may
become poetry when shown through any impassioned medium, when invested
with the colouring of joy, or grief, or pity, or affection, or
admiration, or reverence, or awe, or even hatred or terror: and,
unless so coloured, nothing, be it as interesting as it may, is
poetry. But both these definitions fail to discriminate between poetry
and eloquence. Eloquence, as well as poetry, is impassioned truth;
eloquence, as well as poetry, is thoughts coloured by the feelings.
Yet common apprehension and philosophic criticism alike recognize a
distinction between the two: there is much that every one would call
eloquence, which no one would think of classing as poetry. A question
will sometimes arise, whether some particular author is a poet; and
those who maintain the negative commonly allow that, though not a
poet, he is a highly eloquent writer. The distinction between poetry
and eloquence appears to us to be equally fundamental with the
distinction between poetry and narrative, or between poetry and
description, while it is still farther from having been satisfactorily
cleared up than either of the others.

Poetry and eloquence are both alike the expression or utterance of
feeling. But if we may be excused the antithesis, we should say that