OF MARVELLOUS INCIDENTS.

THE circumstance which originally conspired to bring history into the composition of poetry, as it conveyed it in the mixed state of being authentick and fabulous, must have introduced into the art fanciful imagery as well as natural description. When poetry was first cultivated, history being committed to tradition must have taken a cast from the ignorance and credulity of those persons by whom it was orally transmitted; and hence, however it originated in matter of fact, it soon imbibed a tincture of fiction from the channel through which it passed. In the state wherein the general incidents of history were thus presented to the poet, he probably wanted the power and the inclination of separating in that part which he chose for his subject, what was fictitious from that which was fact; and, as he thus adopted a story which partook not less of fiction than of truth, the art even in his hands became

possessed of marvellous imagery from its origin.

But since knowledge has become more extended, and credulity has yielded to philosophy, we have become enabled to discover a sensible difference in the matter of the historian, which the fathers of poetry either overlooked or disregarded. We are able to draw a line between what is credible and what is false in his narrative, and thus come to separate what is fable in his composition from what is properly denominated history. Thus it is, that we become capable of fixing a standard by which the licences used in his descriptions may be ascertained; as he adheres to truth and probability we account his practice regular and natural; but when he deviates from them, and follows not what is history but what is fable, we consider his practice licentious and arbitrary; and that it is only with a view to the licences allowable in the art, that we permit him to take such liberties, may be easily seen from our judgment on the conduct of the historian; since in the works of the latter we pronounce all such liberties to be striking blemishes which do not admit of defence and scarcely of palliation.

Having determined this much, the nature of such licences as exist in this department of the art may be easily ascertained, and shewn to possess every necessary conformity to the definition formerly given of Poetick Licence in general. When the poet's descriptions are corroborated or contradicted. by history, his mode of practice differs in nothing from that which has been discussed in the preceding part of this inquiry: what ever is licentious in the one case is licentious in the other, and is to be accounted for on the same principles. But when his words have no reference either to recorded or traditionary fact, there is no alternative left him but to follow nature, or deviate from it. In the former case it is evident he uses no licence; for he is an imitator by profession, and generally follows no other archetype but nature. This consideration should be of course set out of the case, as wholly beside the purpose of the present inquiry. The question on the nature of Poetick Licence is consequently limited to the last consideration; that in which the, poet departs from na

ture.

In asserting that a poet or any artist deviates from nature, we cannot be understood

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to speak with a reference to any particular appearance which she assumes in the external sensible world. In all such appearances, what we know under the term nature, is not to be found. Animals formed with a greater or a fewer number of parts than usual are properly denominated unnatural; and this term is applied to objects which exhibit but slight deviations from the general appearance of things. Any part of the human frame formed larger than the common dimensions; any limb swoln beyond the usual size, is designated by the same term. These examples are sufficient to evince, that when we speak of nature, we express ourselves with a reference to her general laws; and that it is only what accords with, or deviates from these that we term natural or the contrary. These general laws when systematized will, it may be granted, form what we should consider a science. When reduced under general heads, as they are to a certain degree in every mind, they possess the essential properties of such: being knowledge collected by observation, generalized by abstraction, and reduced into a systematick form. It is indeed impossible to ascribe them any existence but in science: when

taken out of this state and considered with a reference to reality, they form but a series of particular laws, which admit of numberless exceptions. The poet, in being said to deviate from nature, must be consequently meant to deviate from her general laws as abstracted, and embodied in science. Every liberty, which he takes of the preternatural kind, conforms of course to the definition originally given of Poetick Licence, as it is virtually a deviation from that standard by which this quality is estimated.

As to the object sought in taking such liberties, it differs nothing from that used where the departure is made from history, and consequently from that specified in the general definition: it must be made for the reasons already declared, for the purpose of rendering the composition more striking.