e when these things shall be
familiar to us, and the relations under which they are contemplated by
the followers of these respective sciences shall be manifestly and
palpably material to us as enjoying and suffering beings. If the time
should ever come when what is now called science, thus familiarised to
men, shall be ready to put on, as it were, a form of flesh and blood,
the Poet will lend his divine spirit to aid the transfiguration, and
will welcome the Being thus produced, as a dear and genuine inmate of
the household of man.--It is not, then, to be supposed that any one, who
holds that sublime notion of Poetry which I have attempted to convey,
will break in upon the sanctity and truth of his pictures by transitory
and accidental ornaments, and endeavour to excite admiration of himself
by arts, the necessity of which must manifestly depend upon the assumed
meanness of his subject.

What has been thus far said applies to Poetry in general; but especially
to those parts of composition where the Poet speaks through the mouths
of his characters; and upon this point it appears to authorise the
conclusion that there are few persons of good sense, who would not allow
that the dramatic parts of composition are defective, in proportion as
they deviate from the real language of nature, and are coloured by a
diction of the Poet's own, either peculiar to him as an individual Poet
or belonging simply to Poets in general; to a body of men who, from the
circumstance of their composition being in metre, it is expected will
employ a particular language.

It is not, then, in the dramatic parts of composition that we look for
this distinction of language; but still it may be proper and necessary
where the Poet speaks to us in his own person and character. To this I
answer by referring the Reader to the description before given of a
Poet. Among the qualities there enumerated as principally conducing to
form a Poet, is implied nothing differing in kind from other men, but
only in degree. The sum of what was said is, that the Poet is chiefly
distinguished from other men by a greater promptness to think and feel
without immediate external excitement, and a greater power in expressing
such thoughts and feelings as are produced in him in that manner. But
these passions and thoughts and feelings are the general passions and
thoughts and feelings of men. And with what are they connected?
Undoubtedly with our moral sentiments and animal se