alluding, we
find the greatest poets, like Pindar and Simonides, composing their
odes for set occasions like the public games, in honour of persons
with whom they were but little acquainted, and (most significant fact
of all) in the expectation of receiving liberal rewards. We need not
say that such considerations detract nothing from the genius of these
great poets; but they prove very conclusively that poetry is not what
Wordsworth's definition asserts, and what in these days it is too
often assumed to be, the mere gush of unconscious inspiration. The
definition of Wordsworth may perhaps suit short lyrics, such as he
was himself in the habit of composing, but it would be fatal to the
claims of poetry to rank among the higher arts, for it would exclude
that quality which, in poetry as in all art, is truly sovereign,
Invention. The poet, no less than the mechanical inventor, excels by
the exercise of reason, by his knowledge of the required effect, his
power of adapting means to ends, and his skill in availing himself of
circumstances. Consider for a moment the external difficulties which
restrict the poet's liberty, and require the most vigorous efforts of
reason to subdue them. To begin with, in order to secure the happy
result promised by Horace,

'Cui lecta potenter erit res
Nec facundia deseret hunc nec lucidus ordo,'

he has to take the exact measure of his own powers. How many a poet
has failed for want of judgment by trespassing on a subject and style
for which his genius is unfitted! Again, he is confronted by the most
obvious difficulties of language and metre, which limit his freedom
to a degree unknown to the prose-writer. And beyond this, if he
wishes to be read--and a poem without readers is no more than a
musical instrument without a musician--he has to consider the
character of his audience. He must have all the instinct of an
orator, all the intuitive knowledge of the world, as well as all the
practical resource, which are required to gain command over the
hearts of men, and to subdue, by the charms of eloquence, their
passions, their prejudices, and their judgment. To achieve such
results something more is required than 'the spontaneous overflow of
powerful feeling.'

"How far Wordsworth's own poetry illustrates his principles we shall
consider presently; meantime his definition helps us to understand
what he meant by Gray's fault of widening the space of separation
betwixt prose