rom prose writers, which I suppose no measure of verse could
improve.

_B_. In what then consists the essential difference between Poetry and
Prose?

_P_. Next to the measure of the language, the principal distinction
appears to me to consist in this: that Poetry admits of but few words
expressive of very abstracted ideas, whereas Prose abounds with them. And
as our ideas derived from visible objects are more distinct than those
derived from the objects of our other senses, the words expressive of
these ideas belonging to vision make up the principal part of poetic
language. That is, the Poet writes principally to the eye, the
Prose-writer uses more abstracted terms. Mr. Pope has written a bad verse
in the Windsor Forest:

"And Kennet swift for silver Eels _renown'd_."

The word renown'd does not present the idea of a visible object to the
mind, and is thence prosaic. But change this line thus,

"And Kennet swift, where silver Graylings _play_."
and it becomes poetry, because the scenery is then brought before the
eye.

_B_. This may be done in prose.

_P_. And when it is done in a single word, it animates the prose; so it
is more agreeable to read in Mr. Gibbon's History, "Germany was at this
time _over-shadowed_ with extensive forests;" than Germany was at this
time _full_ of extensive forests. But where this mode of expression
occurs too frequently, the prose approaches to poetry: and in graver
works, where we expect to be instructed rather than amused, it becomes
tedious and impertinent. Some parts of Mr. Burke's eloquent orations
become intricate and enervated by superfluity of poetic ornament; which
quantity of ornament would have been agreeable in a poem, where much
ornament is expected.

_B_. Is then the office of poetry only to amuse?

_P_. The Muses are young ladies, we expect to see them dressed; though
not like some modern beauties with so much gauze and feather, that "the
Lady herself is the least part of her." There are however didactic pieces
of poetry, which are much admired, as the Georgics of Virgil, Mason's
English Garden, Hayley's Epistles; nevertheless Science is best delivered
in Prose, as its mode of reasoning is from stricter analogies than
metaphors or similies.

_B_. Do not Personifications and Allegories distinguish poetry?

_P_. These are other arts of bringing objects before the eye; or of
expressing sentiments in the language of vision; and are indeed better
suited to the p