25.1.
mvp-aristotle-comment-109
25.3
NEITHER IS THE PROPRIETY OF POETRY THE SAME WITH THAT OF THE POLITICAL OR ANY OTHER ART.
ARISTOTLE means, that in other arts, such as the theory of government, geography, history, the merit of their professors must solely depend on their accurate acquaintance with every circumftance at all relative to the subject on which they write. Now this is by no means the cafe with poetry, which only requires a probable imitation of human actions
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. actions and manners. Had the Winter's Tale of Shakespear been a history, or a treatise on geography, it would have been essentially defective from his supposing Bohemia to be a maritime country. But this has not the smallest effect on the interest, and confequently on the merit of the play. Had Shakespear chofen a mode of imitation to which his powers were unequal, (we may suppose any thing,) and consequently written a bad play, the fault would have been essential, but having undertaken an imitation to which his powers were perfectly equal, and which therefore he executed well, no fault can fall on the play, the action, manners and sentiments, because the poet did not know that Bohemia was an inland country. For it is not the office of the poet to instruct his hearers in particular subjects of art, but to awaken his paffions by general representations of nature. The author of the Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful makes the following remark on this subject in his introduction to that elegant work. Why should a perfon be shocked at a shipwreck on the coast of Bohemia who does not know but that Bohemia may be an island in the Atlantic Ocean? and after all, what reflection is this on the natural good taste of the perfon here supposed." It is true however that at present such an error would condemn the best play that could be possibly written. For there are so many more perfons now, who understand the first elements of geography than are capable of feeling, or judging of a tragedy. Besides, it is impoffible that a poet of the present day could have that general knowledge of human events, and propriety of conduct, fit to enable him to imitate human actions and manners, and be so grofsly ignorant as this must shew him to be. The mistake of Shakespear is a proof of the general igno- 3 S2 rance
rance of his age. Were a poet now to make such an error, it would be corrected in the rehearsal, even by the scene-shifters. A mistake of the same kind, as the illustration from the hind by Aristotle, occurs in the Ode on Spring, by Mr. Warton, one of the most beautiful and original descriptive poems in our language, and which strongly shews the force of poetical imitation in (A) rendering objects that have no beauty in themselves highly beautiful in description. I suppose there are few scenes less pleasing and picturesque in themselves than the view from Catherine Hill near Winchester, over the bare adjacent downs, and on the Itchin at its feet, formed into a navigable canal, and creeping through a wide valley of flat-water meadow, intersected often at right angles by strait narrow water courses. But hear the poet, and observe how the scene appears in the picture he has given of it without changing the features of the original. 'O'er the broad downs, a novel race, • Frisk the lambs with faltering pace, • And with eager bleatings fill • The foss that skirts the beacon'd hill. • His free born vigor yet unbroke • To lordly man's ufurping yoke, • The bounding colt forgets to play, Basking beneath the noontide ray. • And stretch'd upon the daisies pied • Of a green dingle's floping fide; [D] See Note 1. Chap. IV. • While
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. • While far beneath where nature spreads • Her boundless length of level meads, • In loose luxuriance taught to stray • A thousand tumbling rills inlay • With filver veins the vale, or pass • Redundant through the sparkling grass.' Besides the general beauty of the description it must have a particular one in the eyes of every Wykhamist as recalling the idea of the days of early youth, the joys of which are strongly impressed on the memory, while the hours of school restraint, which sometimes confidered going to hills even as a task, are but faintly traced. But to return to the object of the note. What hypercritic would cenfure these lines: ، Scarce a bee with airy wing • Murmurs the blossom'd boughs around, ، That cloath the garden's SOUTHERN MOUND.' Because the fouth wall of a garden is its northern bound ? An impropriety is often found in the works of the earlier engravers from copying directly from the drawing, which occasions the figures of the impreffion to be reversed, and the sword to be in the warrior's left hand, and the shield on his right. This is never discovered without being purposely looked for. As Aristotle observes however, that such errors, however trifling they may be, are still errors, and as fuch ought to be avoided if possible: we may justly censure the arrogance of these writers, who founding their pretenfions
pretenfions to fame on higher excellencies, wantonly, and sometimes wilfully, affect to be negligent and even ignorant of flighter things. This species of self importance will often obtrude itself into the conversation of those persons who think too highly of their own merit, where to the difcerning it has an effect directly the reverse of that which is proposed [B]. It is nevertheless sometimes a defect attending real merit. I knew a gentleman high, and defervedly so, in literary reputation, who had this foible in a great degree. He thought it shewed superior attention to things of extraordinary consequence to pay none to common occurrences. He lived near London; and a friend happening in the spring to ask him the state of vegetation in the country, he answered him, that he was too much employed in other objects to give any attention to things of that nature. His friend, a little piqued at such an absurd affectation of consequence, replied, ' I am furprized, Sir, at that, fince Solomon, who ⚫ had fome reputation for wisdom in his day, could speak of plants from the cedar of Libanus to the hyffop that grew on the wall.' That agreeable and honeft egotist Montaigne speaks of his own ignorance and want of dexterity in many of the common offices of life; but so far from priding himself on it he prefaces his account with the following remark. • But great minds are univerfal minds; open, and pre- ، pared for every thing, and if not actually informed, immediately • capable of receiving information. MONTAIGNE'S Essays, L. II. Ch. XVII. ON PRESUMPTION. [B] The true, strong, and found mind, is the mind that can equally embrace great things ، and small. Now I am told the king of Pruffia will say to a fervant, " Bring me a bottle " of such a wine, which came in such a year; it lies in such a corner of the cellar." BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON, Vol. 11. p. 254. Exactly
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. Exactly correspondent with this was the judgment passed by a country clergyman on a late nobleman in high estimation both in the literary and the political world. 'My lord - -' he said, ' is not a great man: he • does not know wheat from barley.'
