OBSERVATIONS on DIDACTIC POETRY, and on the GENIUS of

AKENSIDE.

[From a Critical ESSAY prefixed to a new Edition on the PLEASURES of IMAGINATION, by Mrs. BARBAULD.]

lation. For poetry cannot descend to teach the elements of any art or science, or confine itself to that regular arrangement and clear brevity which fuits the communication of unknown truths. In fact, the Mufe would make a very indifferent school-mistress. Whoever therefore reads a didactic poem, ought to come to it with a previous knowledge of his fubject; and whoever writes one, ought to fuppofe fuch a knowledge in his readers. If he is obliged to explain technical terms, to refer continually to critical notes, and to follow a fyftem step by step with the patient exactness of a teacher, his poem, however laboured, will be a bad poem. His office is rather to throw a luftre on fuch prominent parts of his fyftem as are most fufceptible of poetical ornament, and to kindle the enthusiasm of those feelings which the truths he is converfant with are fitted to infpire. In that beautiful poem the Effay on Man, the fyftem of the author, if in reality he had any fyftem, is little attended to, but thofe paffages which breathe the love of virtue are read with delight, and fix themfelves on the memory. Where the reader has this previous knowledge of the subject, which we have mentioned as neceffary, the art of the poet becomes itself a fource of pleasure; and fometimes in proportion to the remoteness of the fubject from the more obvious province of poetry, we are delighted to find with how much dexterity the artist of verse can avoid a technical term, how neatly he can turn an uncouth word, and with how much grace embellish a fcientific idea. Who does not admire the infinite art with which Dr. Darwin has defcribed the machine of fir Richard Arkwright?

His verfe is a piece of mechanism as complete in its kind as that which he defcribes. Allured perhaps too much by this artificial fpecies of excellence, and by the hopes of novelty, hardly any branch of knowledge has been fo abftrufe, or fo barren of delight, as not to have afforded a fubject to the didactic poet. Even the loathfomenefs of disease, and the dry maxims of medical knowledge, have been decorated with the charms of poetry, Many of these pieces, however, owe all their entertainment to frequent digreffions. Where thefe arife naturally out of the fubject, as the defcription of a fheepfhearing feaft in Dyer, or the praifes of Italy in the Georgics, they are not only allowable but graceful; but if forced, as is the ftory of Orpheus and Eurydice in the fame. poem, they can be confidered in no other light than that of beautiful monsters, and injure the piece they are meant to adorn, The fubject of a didactic poem, therefore, ought to be fuch as is in itfelf attractive to the man of tafte, for otherwife all attempts to make it fo by adventitious ornaments, will be but like loading with jewels and drapery a figure originally defective and ill-made.

"Of all the subjects which have engaged the attention of didactic poets, there is not, perhaps, a happier than that made choice of by Akenfide, The Pleafures of Imagination; in which every step of the difquifition calls up objects of the most attractive kind, and Fancy is made, as it were, to hold a mirror to her own charms. Imagination is the very fource and well-head of poetry, and nothing forced or foreign to the Mufe could easily flow from fuch a fubject. Accordingly we fee that the author has kept clofe

to his fyftem, and has admitted neither episode nor digreffion; the allegory in the fecond book, which is introduced for the purpose of illuftrating his theory, being all that can properly be called ornament in this whole poem. It must be acknowledged, however, that engaging as his fubject is to minds prepared to examine it, to the generality of readers it must appear dry and abftrufe. It is a work which offers us entertainment, but not of that eafy kind amidst which the mind remains paffive, and has nothing to do but to receive impreffions. Those who have studied the metaphyfics of mind, and who are accuftomed to investigate abstract ideas, will read it with a lively pleafure; but thofe who feek mere amufement in a poem, will find many far inferior ones better fuited to their purpose. The judicious admirer of Akenfide will not call people from the fields and the highways to partake of his feaft; he will with none to read that are not capable of understanding him.

"The ground-work of The Pleafures of Imagination is to be found in Addifon's Effays on the fame fubject, published in the Spectator. Except in the book which treats on ridicule (and even of that the hint is there given), our author follows nearly the fame track; and he is indebted to them not only for the leading thoughts and grand divifion of his fubject, but for much of the colouring alfo; for the papers of Addifon are wrought up with fo much elegance of language, and adorned with fo many beautiful illustrations, that they are equal to the most finifhed poem. Perhaps the obligations of the poet to the effay-writer are not fufficiently adverted to, the latter being only flightly mentioned in the preface

to the poem. It is not meant,
however, to infinuate that Aken-
fide had not various other fources
of his ideas. He fat down to this
work, which was published at the
early age of three and twenty, warm
from the schools of ancient philo
fophy, whofe fpirit he had deeply
imbibed, and full of enthusiasm for
the treafures of Greek and Roman
literature. The works of no au
thor have a more claffic air than
thofe of our poet. His hymn to
the Naiads fhews the most intimate
acquaintance with their mythology.
Their laws, their arts, their liberty,
were equally the objects of his
warm admiration, and are fre-
quently referred to in various parts
of his poems. He was fond of the
Platonic philofophy, and mingled
with the fplendid vifions of the
academic school, ideas of the fair
and beautiful in morals and in
tafte, gathered from the writings
of Shaftesbury, Hutchinfon, and o-
thers of that ftamp, who then very
much engaged the notice of the
public. Educated in the univerfity
of Edinburgh, he joined to his
claffic literature, the keen difcris
minating fpirit of metaphyfic en-
quiry, and the tafte for moral
beauty which has fo much diftiu-
guifhed our northern feminaries, and
which the celebrity of their pro-
feffors, and the genius of the place
has never failed of communicating
to their difciples. Thus prepared,
by nature with genius, and by edu-
cation with the previous studies and
habits of thinking, he was pecu-
liarly fitted for writing a philoso▾
phical poem."

"If the genius of Akenfide be to be estimated from this poem, and it is certainly the most capital of his works, it will be found to be lofty and elegant, chafte, claffical, and correct; not marked with

ftrong

ftrong traits of originality, not ardent nor exuberant. His enthufiafm was rather of that kind which is kindled by reading and imbibing the fpirit of authors, than by contemplating at first hand the works of nature. As a versifier, Akenside is allowed to ftand amongit thofe who have given the most finished models of blank verfe. His periods are long but harmonious, the cadences fall with grace, and the measure is fupported with uniform dignity. His Mufe poffeffes the mien erect, and high commanding gait. We fhall fcarcely find a low or trivial expreffion introduced, a careless or unfinished line permitted to ftand. His ftatelinefs, however, is somewhat allied to stiffness. His verfe is fometimes feeble through too rich a redundancy of ornament, and fometimes laboured into a degree of obfcurity from too anxious a defire of avoiding natural and fimple expreffions. We do not conceive of him as pouring eafy his unpremeditated ftrain. It is rather difficult to read, from the fenfe being extended fometimes through more than twenty lines; but when well read fills and gratifies the ear with all the pomp of harmony. It is far fuperior to the compofitions of his contemporary Thomfon (we fpeak now only of the measure) and more equal than Milton, though inferior to his fineft paffages. It is indeed too equal not to be in fome degree monotonous. He is fond of compound epithets, led to it, perhaps, by his fondness for the Greek, and delights in giving a claffic air to his compofitions by ufing names and epithets the most remote from vulgar ufe. Like Homer's gods his poetry speaks a different language from that of common mortals.

capital work at three and twenty, feems to imply (as his profeffional ftudies did not caufe him to lay afide his poetical purfuits) a genius more early than extenfive, a mind more refined than capacious. And that this was the cafe in reality, will appear from bis having employed himfelf, during feveral years, in correcting, and indeed entirely new moulding this his favourite poem. To correct to a certain degree, is the duty of a man of fenfe; but always to correct will not be the employment of a man of spirit. It betrays a mind rather brooding with fond affection over old productions, than infpired by a fresh ftream of new ideas. The flowers of fancy are apt to lose their odour by much handling, the glow is gone, and the ear itself, after a certain time, lofes its tact amidst repeated alterations, as the taste becomes confounded by the fucceffive trial of different flavours.

"The edition which he was preparing, was, however, left in too imperfect a ftate to juftify its being prefented to the public, at least of fuperfeding the complete one which is here given, and which paffed rapidly through many editions foon after its firft appearance. In the poflhumous poem the ordonnance is greatly changed: novelty is left out as a primary fource of the pleasure of the imagination, and placed among the adventitious circumftances which only increase it. The greatest part of the lines on ridicule are alfo omitted; and he has abandoned the idea of its being the test of truth, an idea which had given offence to the feverer moralifts. Inftead of the allegory of Virtue and Euphrofyne, the third book confifts of a ftory concerning That an author who lived to near Solon, on which Dr. Johnson makes fifty fhould have produced his moft this fingle obfervation, that it is

too

and owns her charms,” p. 134:

"On the whole, though we may thofe few born to create an era in not look upon Akenfide as one of poetry, we may well confider him as formed to fhine in the brighteft; we may venture to predict that his work, which is not formed on any local or temporary fubject, will continue to be a claffic in our language; and we fhall pay him the grateful regard which we owe to genius exerted in the cause of liberty and philofophy, of virtue and of tafte,"