thout
which, confined, as I have been, to the narrow limits of a Preface, my
meaning cannot be thoroughly understood, I am anxious to give an exact
notion of the sense in which the phrase poetic diction has been used;
and for this purpose, a few words shall here be added, concerning the
origin and characteristics of the phraseology, which I have condemned
under that name.

The earliest poets of all nations generally wrote from passion excited
by real events; they wrote naturally, and as men: feeling powerfully as
they did, their language was daring, and figurative. In succeeding
times, Poets, and Men ambitious of the fame of Poets, perceiving the
influence of such language, and desirous of producing the same effect
without being animated by the same passion, set themselves to a
mechanical adoption of these figures of speech, and made use of them,
sometimes with propriety, but much more frequently applied them to
feelings and thoughts with which they had no natural connection
whatsoever. A language was thus insensibly produced, differing
materially from the real language of men in _any situation_. The Reader
or Hearer of this distorted language found himself in a perturbed and
unusual state of mind: when affected by the genuine language of passion
he had been in a perturbed and unusual state of mind also: in both cases
he was willing that his common judgment and understanding should be laid
asleep, and he had no instinctive and infallible perception of the true
to make him reject the false; the one served as a passport for the
other. The emotion was in both cases delightful, and no wonder if he
confounded the one with the other, and believed them both to be produced
by the same, or similar causes. Besides, the Poet spake to him in the
character of a man to be looked up to, a man of genius and authority.
Thus, and from a variety of other causes, this distorted language was
received with admiration; and Poets, it is probable, who had before
contented themselves for the most part with misapplying only
expressions which at first had been dictated by real passion, carried
the abuse still further, and introduced phrases composed apparently in
the spirit of the original figurative language of passion, yet
altogether of their own invention, and characterised by various degrees
of wanton deviation from good sense and Nature.

It is indeed true, that the language of the earliest Poets was felt to
differ materially from ordinary