m mihi immissum
existimabo._"

In the quotation which he gives, we at once detect the proper tools and
cunning of the poet: fancy gives us _liquentes campos_, _titania astra_,
_lucentem globum lunae_, and fantasy or imagination, in virtue of its
royal and transmuting power, gives us _intus alit_--_infusa per
artus_--and that magnificent idea, _magno se corpore miscet_--this is
the _divinum nescio quid_--the proper work of the imagination--the
master and specific faculty of the poet--that which makes him what he
is, as the wings make a bird, and which, to borrow the noble words of
the Book of Wisdom, "is more moving than motion,--is one only, and yet
manifold, subtle, lively, clear, plain, quick, which cannot be letted,
passing and going through all things by reason of her pureness; being
one, she can do all things; and remaining in herself, she maketh all
things new."

The following is Fracastorius' definition of a man who not only writes
verses, but is by nature a poet: "_Est autem ille natura poeta, qui
aptus est veris rerum pulchritudinibus capi monerique; et qui per illas
loqui et scribere potest_;" and he gives the lines of Virgil,--

"_Aut sicuti nigrum
Ilicibus crebris sacra nemus accubat umbra,_"

as an instance of the poetical transformation. All that was merely
actual or informative might have been given in the words _sicuti nemus_,
but fantasy sets to work, and _videte, per quas pulchritudines, nemus
depinxit; addens_ ACCUBAT, ET NIGRUM _crebris ilicibus et_ SACRA UMBRA!
_quam ob rem, recte Pontanus dicebat, finem esse poetae, apposite dicere
ad admirationem, simpliciter, et per universalem bene dicendi ideam_.
This is what we call the _beau ideal_, or {kat' exochen} the ideal--what
Bacon describes as "a more ample greatness, a more exact goodness, and a
more absolute variety than can be found in the nature of things, the
world being in proportion inferior to the soul, and the exhibition of
which doth raise and erect the mind by submitting _the shows of things_
to the desires of the mind." It is "the wondrous and goodly paterne" of
which Spenser sings in his "Hymne in honour of Beautie:"--

"What time this world's great Workmaister did cast
To make al things such as we now behold,
_It seems that he before his eyes had plast_
_A goodly Paterne_, to whose perfect mould
He fashioned them, as comely as he could,
That now so faire and seemly they appeare,
As nought may be am