Page 78 of 172 LETTER TO MR. B-- - Complete Poetical Works

nient_;'

and to employ his own language, he has imprisoned his own conceptions by the barrier he has erected against those of others. It is lamentable to think that such a mind should be buried in metaphysics, and, like the Nyctanthes, waste its perfume upon the night alone. In reading that man's poetry, I tremble like one who stands upon a volcano, conscious from the very darkness bursting from the crater, of the fire and the light that are weltering below.

"What is Poetry?--Poetry! that Proteus-like idea, with as many appellations as the nine-titled Corcyra! 'Give me,' I demanded of a scholar some time ago, 'give me a definition of poetry.' '_Tres-volontiers;_' and he proceeded to his library, brought me a Dr. Johnson, and overwhelmed me with a definition. Shade of the immortal Shakespeare! I imagine to myself the scowl of your spiritual eye upon the profanity of that scurrilous Ursa Major. Think of poetry, dear B----, think of poetry, and then think of Dr. Samuel Johnson! Think of all that is airy and fairy-like, and then of all that is hideous and unwieldy; think of his huge bulk, the Elephant! and then--and then think of the 'Tempest'--the 'Midsummer Night's Dream'--Prospero--Oberon--and Titania!

"A poem, in my opinion, is opposed to a work of science by having, for its _immediate_ object, pleasure, not truth; to romance, by having, for its object, an _indefinite_ instead of a _definite_ pleasure, being a poem only so far as this object is attained; romance presenting perceptible images with definite, poetry with _in_definite sensations, to which end music is an _essential_, since the comprehension of sweet sound is our most indefinite conception. Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music, without the idea, is simply music; the idea, without the music, is prose, from its very definitiveness.

"What was meant by the invective against him who had no music in his soul?

"To sum up this long rigmarole, I have, dear B----, what you, no doubt, perceive, for the metaphysical poets as poets, the most sovereign contempt. That they have followers proves nothing:

"'No Indian prince has to his palace

More followers than a thief to the gallows.'"

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		The science is like the earth; you can own only a little of it. Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire

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