The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients, by John Ogilvie This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients Author: John Ogilvie Commentator: Wallace Jackson Release Date: April 6, 2008 [EBook #25008] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ESSAY ON THE LYRIC POETRY *** Produced by Louise Hope, David Starner, Joe Cooper, Diane Nelson Jones, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. This e-text includes characters that will only display in UTF-8 (Unicode) file encoding, including a number of citations in accented Greek: θήκαο δ’ οἰωνῶν μέγ’ ὑπείροχον ἀγγελιώτην If these characters do not display properly, or if the apostrophes and quotation marks in this paragraph appear as garbage, you may have an incompatible browser or unavailable fonts. First, make sure that the browser’s “character set” or “file encoding” is set to Unicode (UTF-8). You may also need to change your browser’s default font. All Greek passages include mouse-hover transliterations. Longer passages have separate transliterations for each sentence or verse line. A few typographical errors have been corrected. They have been marked in the text with mouse- hover popups. Longer or more complicated errors are discussed at the end of the e-text in notes identified by A letters. cover, see below THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY J O H N O G I LV I E AN E S S A Y ON THE L Y R I C P O E T R Y OF THE A N C I E N T S (1762) Introduction by Wallace Jackson PUBLICATION NUMBER 139 WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY University Of California, Los Angeles 1970 GENERAL EDITORS William E. Conway, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library George Robert Guffey, University of California, Los Angeles Maximillian E. Novak, University of California, Los Angeles ASSOCIATE EDITOR David S. Rodes, University of California, Los Angeles ADVISORY EDITORS Richard C. Boys, University of Michigan James L. Clifford, Columbia University Ralph Cohen, University of Virginia Vinton A. Dearing, University of California, Los Angeles Arthur Friedman, University of Chicago Louis A. Landa, Princeton University Earl Miner, University of California, Los Angeles Samuel H. Monk, University of Minnesota Everett T. Moore, University of California, Los Angeles Lawrence Clark Powell, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library James Sutherland, University College, London H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., University of California, Los Angeles Robert Vosper, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library CORRESPONDING SECRETARY Edna C. Davis, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Roberta Medford, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library INTRODUCTION John Ogilvie (1733-1813), Presbyterian divine and author, was one of a group of Scottish literary clergy and a fellow of the Edinburgh Royal Society. Chambers and Thomson print the following generous estimation of his work: Of all his books, there is not one which, as a whole, can be expected to please the general reader. Noble sentiments, brilliant conceptions, and poetic graces, may be culled in profusion from the mass; but there is no one production in which they so predominate, (if we except some of the minor pieces,) as to induce it to be selected for a happier fate than the rest. Had the same talent which Ogilvie threw away on a number of objects, been concentrated on one, and that one chosen with judgment and taste, he might have rivalled in popularity the most renowned of his contemporaries.1 The present letters reproduced here, along with the two volumes of his Philosophical and Critical Observations on Composition (London, 1774), are Ogilvie’s major contributions to literary criticism. The remainder of his work, which is extensive, is divided almost equally between poetry and theological inquiry. At least one of his poems, “The Day of Judgment” (1758), was known to Churchill, Boswell, and Johnson, but unfortunately for Ogilvie’s reputation Johnson “saw nothing” in it.2 I shall attempt no special pleading for Ogilvie here; he is and shall remain a minor neoclassic theorist. At the very least, however, it can be said that his methods are reasonably various and that, while his general critical assumptions are not unique, his control is strong. The fluidity with which he moves from one related position to another indicates a mind well informed by the critical tenets of his own time. If he does not surprise, he is nevertheless an interesting and worthy exemplar of the psychological tradition in later eighteenth-century criticism; and his historicism provides, and is intended to provide, an extensive field for the workings of psychological inquiry. Thus his initial inquiry, in the first letter, into the Aristotelian principles of imitation and harmony establishes each as “natural” to the mind, and his distinctions between the separate provinces of reason and imagination are for the purpose of assigning to each its separate intellectual capacities. From these orderings follows his idea that poetry is of an earlier date than philosophy, the product of an irregular faculty, less governable than the reason and of swifter development. In turn, these assumptions lead into a form of historical primitivism in which the products of the first poets were “extemporary effusions,” rudely imitative of pastoral scenes or celebratory of the divine being. Thus the first generic distinction Ogilvie makes is between pastoral poetry and i ii lyric; the function of the former is to produce pleasure, the latter to raise admiration of the powers presiding over nature. As poetry is more natural to the young mind than philosophy, so is the end of pastoral poetry more easily achieved than that of the lyric. The difference resides essentially in Ogilvie’s notion that the pastoral poet contemplates “external objects,” while the lyric poet regards that which is not immediately available to the senses and consequently requires a more exuberant invention. What follows upon these reflections is a rather ingenious form of historical progressivism in which the civilizing powers of the poet provide the principal justification for lyric poetry. At work in Ogilvie’s thought is a conception of the mythopoeic function of the earliest poets whose names have come down to us. Such poets, however, did not create their mythos, but imbibed it from the earlier Egyptian civilization and formed disguised allegorical poems. Here the instructive function of the first poets is related to the enlarging of the reader’s imagination, so that Ogilvie’s rather shrewd defense of lyric poetry is based upon the civilizing effects of imaginative appeal. The infancy of poetry is related to the infancy of civilization, and the analogical possibilities of the one to the other sustain his argument at every point. If his historicism is dubious, his discourse is neatly illustrative of a neoclassic critical method and of the kind of psychological assumptions upon which such arguments could proceed. From the rather copious use of allegory and metaphor, as civilizing instruments, Ogilvie traces the rise of the religious fable as part of the inevitable sequence of imaginative development. To account, therefore, for the irregularity of the ode, for the “enthusiasm, obscurity and exuberance” (p. xxiv) which continue to characterize it, he refers to its anciently established character, a character not susceptible to amelioration by speculative rules. He allows, however, that both the “Epopee” (or epic) and the drama were gradually improved, and the informing principle of his historical progressivism is again patent. The modifications of the ode are from the fictitious theology of Orpheus and Museus to the elegance and grace of Anacreon, Horace, and Sappho. It is mainly Horace whom Ogilvie has in view as the exemplar of the lyric poet, though “a professed imitator both of Anacreon and Pindar” (p. xxx). We can distinguish, therefore, several different criteria which contribute to Ogilvie’s criticism: (1) a unity of sentiment consistent with a variety of emotions; (2) a propriety of the passions in which vivacity is controlled by the circumstances of character; (3) a just relation between language and sentiment; (4) elegant and pointed expression (“sallies and picturesque epithets” [p. xxxi.]) both to heighten the passions expressed and to draw from them their less obvious effects. Such distinctions define Ogilvie’s typical insistence upon copying Nature, by which he means that the lyric poet’s task is not only to follow the workings of the mind, but to heighten passion in a way that is more consistent with the nature of the passion itself than with its action in any particular mind. His criticism looks to the representation of “the internal movements of the mind warmed by imagination,” yet “exposed in the happiest and most agreeable attitudes” (p. xxxv). The relation between the empirical and the ideal is a crux common to Ogilvie and neoclassic theory, not entirely resolved here by the practical and referential method of citing Horace’s shorter odes. But it is a subject which comes in for more extended treatment in his second letter, in my judgment a far more critically ambitious letter and one in which his very fair critical abilities are more conspicuously apparent. The second letter undertakes to explain the rules of lyric poetry, even as the first was concerned with the defects and causes of the poetry. Ogilvie rehearses a characteristic later eighteenth-century view of the imagination and makes again the conventional distinctions between faculties appropriate to philosophy and to poetry. His discussion of the function of judgment is, if anything, more conventional within the boundaries of neoclassic criticism than is his view of the imagination. Its typical role as concerned with the “disposition of materials” has a pedigree extending backward to Hobbes and the critical climate of the early years of Restoration England. Principally, Ogilvie is eager to assert that the poet is as judicious as the philosopher, by which, however, he does not intend to put forth a view of the cognitive function of the poet, but rather the justice with which he paints the passions. Essentially, therefore, Ogilvie’s distinction between poet and philosopher is for the sake of distinguishing between the former’s greater interest in the passions, the latter’s more proper concern with the reason. Once again there is nothing unusual in his treatment of the subject at this time, with the possible exception that Ogilvie’s conception of the imagination is not so comprehensive as that being developed by Alexander Gerard, William Duff, and some of the other contemporary associatioassociationistsnlsts. In order, however, to emphasize the importance of imagination, by which he largely means the imagistic liveliness of the poet’s mind, he allows that the imagination is secondary only in didactic or ethical poetry. Such forms are perhaps best understood as hybrid, a kind of poetizing of philosophy, a sort of reasoning in verse, and therefore forms in which the imagination is not given full exercise. Given his premises it is not surprising that Ogilvie often emphasizes ornamentation or imagistic display and supports his position by conceiving of the modern lyric as descended from the religiously consecrated ode. The sublime and exuberant imagery of the latter exists reductively as an important virtue of the present lyric. As Ogilvie develops his argument in the second letter, it is apparent also that the imagination functions as that faculty which best contemplates the sublime and the wonderful. The imagination is thus contemplative and expressive, and both functions are justified through the passions that admiration evokes. In sum, the imagination is evoked by the passions, a proposition which suggests why, for Ogilvie, the characteristic mark of genius is a highly animated sensibility. It is apparent also that Ogilvie’s criteria include sympathy, for sympathy is that which compels the transmission of the poet’s sentiments to his readers. What is dimly present here is a theory of the poetic occasion, an occasion brought about by the poet’s participation in a common cultural condition which inspires the communication of sentiments, both common and important, from one person to another. Corollary to this proposition is the notion that the poetic achievement is measured by the uniqueness of the poet’s invention. Thus, it is not merely iii iv v the poet’s choice of a sublime subject that is important, but also the excellence with which he treats an unpromising subject. Ogilvie’s criteria demand not merely a celerity of imagining, or a facility for the sublime, but a degree of innovativeness which wins the highest regard. To follow the argument is to realize that his conception of the imagination includes judgment, celerity, and innovation. All three functions are basic to the imaginative act. It is the last, however, which he most emphasizes; and it is apparent, I think, that one intention of his argument is to refute the assumption that the sublime is the principal object of the poetic imagination. It is clear also that Ogilvie is attentive to the excesses of imagism, even as he makes the variety of a poet’s images (along with the boldness of his transitions and the picturesque vivacity of his descriptions) one of the major terms of critical assessment. Especially, he is attentive to that which detracts from the principal object, and thus a kind of concentration of purpose emerges as a tacit poetic value, a concentration to which he refers as a “succession of sentiments which resemble ... the subject of his Poem” (lii). Here again Ogilvie has not so much a unity of structure in view as a unity of the passions, and it is this particular theme which generally guides his discourse; it is the general premise upon which his inquiry depends and on which his major justification of lyric poetry is based. In more modern terms we might here speak of the principle of the correlative, which Ogilvie rehearses in his treatment of the correspondence of subject and metaphor, and even indeed of metaphor as a mode of vision. Poetic discourse, for Ogilvie, does not depend upon metaphor, but without metaphor such discourse would be impossible. What is important, then, is the principle of propriety, a neat accord between the figure and the subject, a kind of aperçu. Thus, metaphors properly employed are “generally short, expressive, and fitted to correspond with great accuracy to the point which requires to be illustrated” (pp. liii-liv). Second only to this consideration is that of color, by which he means tone or emphasis, and here again with a view toward the overall unity of the passions. It is perhaps worth noting that both considerations are relevant to Ogilvie’s sense of the imagination as a judicious faculty operating independently of the reason, but nevertheless obedient to the laws of logical form, organic relationships, and proper successions, all of which imply an idea of structure. Much of the time Ogilvie is occupied with quite familiar and conventional critical problems. The relation between regularity and irregularity is one that he particularly stresses, and his resolutions tend to allow a certain wildness as natural to the imagination, even as evidence of the faculty. He is, however, more inclined to permit bold and spirited transitions in the shorter ode than in the longer ode. As usual Ogilvie’s critical principles are related to the nature of the work in question, and a greater irregularity is natural to the shorter ode since it presumes the imitation of the passions. But it is important to recognize that Ogilvie stresses not only the imitation of the passions, but the exercise of them as well; and the relation between the one and the other forms at bottom the larger principles on which his second letter is based. We might wish to say that he has in view the education of the passions, not merely by imitating them, but, as it were, by drawing from the reader his own possibilities for sensible response. It does not at all imply pre-romantic values to suggest that Ogilvie’s criticism is directed toward a frank exploitation of the reader’s emotion. As Maclean makes clear,3 such interests are hardly unique to romantic criticism. Bishop Lowth, for example, distinguished between the internal source and the external source of poetry, preferring the former because through it the mind is immediately conscious of itself and its own emotions.4 Ogilvie does not quite make the same statement, but his position easily coincides with it; and if, with John Crowe Ransom,5 we consider romantic poetry as uniquely directed toward the exploitation of the feelings, we shall be surprised by any number of minor eighteenth-century critics who are unabashedly interested in similar values. Ogilvie’s position very much resembles Thomas Twining’s view that the “description of passions and emotions by their sensible effects ... [is what] principally deserves the name of imitative.”6 In accord with the psychological bias informing his essay, Ogilvie tends to reduce the importance of narrative events in favor of vivid and picturesque descriptions, for the latter most immediately communicate themselves to the reader and most expressly realize the translation from thought to feeling. Once again it is the uniqueness of rendering that he has in mind, the innovative cast of the poet’s mind which transforms the familiar and by so doing gives it a newly affective power. It is important to recognize that Ogilvie shares with his contemporaries a more limited sense of the varieties of subject- matter than we are likely to grant. But as this is so for him, and as indeed this condition is a function of eighteenth-century historiography, it helps to explain the emphasis he places upon the uniqueness with which the subject is realized. Over and again such an interest shapes his inquiries and becomes both an attribute and a test of a poet’s capacity. These remarks need to be qualified only by his inquiry into personification: for here it is the expectation of the mind that must not be disappointed, and that which is iconographically established (the figure of Time, for example) should not be violated. While Ogilvie is not a major critic a good part of his charm and interest for us stems from a mind that is not in the least doctrinaire. His method is inductive, his appeal is always to the human psychology as that can be known experientially, and his standards are Aristotelian (if by such a reference we mean to signify a procedure based upon the known effects of known works). While there is nothing in these letters that deviates from the psychological tradition in later eighteenth-century criticism, it is also evident that Ogilvie is not really an associationist, and that he is less interested in the creative functioning of the poet’s imagination than in the precepts of a psychological humanism which underscore his criteria and give validity to his remarks on the range and appeal of lyric poetry. In sum, his historicism exists as a justification for his defense of lyric poetry and is intended to provide a basis for the psychological bias of his argument. Duke University vi vii viii NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION 1. Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen (Glasgow, 1855), Vol. IV. For a list of Ogilvie’s works consult Stephen and Lee, Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 1921-22), Vol. XIV. For an estimation of Ogilvie’s relation to the theology of his own day consult James McCosh, The Scottish Philosophy (London, 1875). 2. Life of Samuel Johnson, ed. George Birkbeck Hill (Oxford, 1887), I., 421, 425. 3. Norman Maclean, “From Action to Image: Theories of the Lyric in the Eighteenth Century,” in Critics and Criticism Ancient and Modern, ed. R. S. Crane (Chicago, 1952), pp. 408-463. 4. Ibid., p. 439. 5. John Crowe Ransom, The New Criticism (New York, 1941), p. 15. 6. An Inquiry into the Fine Arts (London, 1784), p. 6. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE This facsimile of An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients (1762) is reproduced from a copy in the Duke University Library. P O E M S ON S E V E R A L S U B J E C T S . TO WHICH IS PREFIX’D, A N E S S A Y ON THE LYRIC POETRY of the ANCIENTS; In T W O L E T T E R S inscribed to The Right Honourable JAMES Lord DESKFOORD. A By J O H N O G I L V IE, A.M. sun breaking over the clouds L O N D O N: Printed for G. Keith, at the Bible-and-Crown in Gracechurch-Street. M. DCC. LXII. Although the facsimile includes this full Table of Contents, only the introductory section—the Essay on Lyric Poetry— was reprinted. C O N T E N T S. An ESSAY on the Lyric Poetry of the ANCIENTS. Letter I. Page iii Letter II. xxxix ODES, &c. To Melancholy 1 To the Genius of Shakespear 8 To Time 16 To Sleep 23 To Evening 29 To Innocence 36 The Day of JUDGMENT. A Poem. Book I. 49 Book II. 79 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. The 148th Psalm paraphrased 107 Verses to a Lady, with Voltaire’s Temple of Taste 112 A Town Eclogue 116 Jupiter and the Clown. A Fable 120 An Elegy on the Death of a Linnet 128 An Evening Piece 131 To Miss —— with a Flower 134 Sappho’s Ode to Venus translated 136 To the Memory of Mrs. —— 138 To the Memory of Mr. H*** M***. An Elegy 143 To the Memory of the late pious, and ingenious Mr. Hervey 147 The Third Chapter of Habakkuk paraphrased 152 AN E S S A Y ON THE L Y R I C P O E T R Y OF THE A N C I E N T S. HUMBLY INSCRIBED TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE I J A M E S Lord Deskfoord. A N E S S A Y ON THE LYRIC POETRY of the ANCIENTS. L E T T E R I. MY LORD, T is an observation, no doubt, familiar to your Lordship, that Genius is the offspring of Reason and Imagination properly moderated, and co-operating with united influence to promote the discovery, or the illustration of truth. Though it is certain that a separate province is assigned to each of these faculties, yet it often becomes a matter of the greatest difficulty to prevent them from making mutual encroachments, and from leading to extremes which are the more dangerous, because they are brought on by an imperceptible progression. —Reason in every mind is an uniform power, and its appearance is regular, and invariably permanent. When this Faculty therefore predominates in the sphere of composition, sentiments will follow each other in connected succession, the arguments employed to prove any point will be just and forcible; the stability of a work will be principally considered, and little regard will be payed to its exterior ornament. Such a work however, though it may be valued by a few for its intrinsic excellence, yet can never be productive of general improvement, as attention can only be fixed by entertainment, and entertainment is incompatible with unvaried uniformity1. On the contrary, when Imagination is permitted to bestow the graces of ornament indiscriminately, we either find in the general that sentiments are superficial, and thinly scattered through a work, or we are obliged to search for them beneath a load of superfluous colouring. Such, my Lord, is the appearance of the superior Faculties of the mind when they are disunited from each other, or when either of them seems to be remarkably predominant. Your Lordship is too well acquainted with this subject not to have observed, that in composition, as in common life, extremes, however pernicious, are not always so distant from each other, as upon superficial inspection we may be apt to conclude. Thus in the latter, an obstinate adherence to particular opinions is contracted by observing the consequences of volatility; indifference ariseth from despising the softer feelings of tenderness; pride takes its origin from the disdain of compliance; and the first step to avarice is the desire of avoiding profusion. Inconveniencies similar to these are the consequences of temerity in canvassing the subjects of speculation. The mind of an Author receives an early bias from prepossession, and the dislike which he conceives to a particular fault precipitates him at once to the opposite extreme. For this reason perhaps it is, that young authors who possess some degree of Genius, affect on all occasions a florid manner 2, and clothe their sentiments in the dress of imagery. To them nothing appears so disgusting as dry and lifeless uniformity; and instead of pursuing a middle course betwixt the extremes of profusion and sterility, they are only solicitous to shun that error of which Prejudice hath shown the most distorted resemblance. It is indeed but seldom, that Nature adjusts the intellectual balance so accurately as not to throw an unequal weight into either of the scales. Such likewise is the situation of man, that in the first stage of life the predominant Faculty engrosseth his attention, as the predominant Passion influenceth his actions. Instead therefore of strengthening the weaker power by assisting its exertions, and by supplying its defects, he is adding force to that which was originally too strong; and the same reflection which discovers his error, shows him likewise the difficulty of correcting it. Even in those minds, in which the distribution was primarily equal, education, habit, or some early bias is ready to break that perfect poise which is necessary to constitute consummate excellence. From this account of the different manners, in which the faculties of the mind exert themselves in the sphere of competition, your Lordship will immediately observe, that the Poet who attempts to combine distant ideas, to catch remote allusions, to form vivid and agreeable pictures; is more apt from the very nature of his profession to set up a false standard of excellence, than the cool and dispassionate Philosopher who proceeds deliberately from position to argument, and who employs Imagination only as the Handmaid of a superior faculty. Having gone thus far, like persons who have got into a track from which they cannot recede, we may venture to proceed a step farther; and affirm that the Lyric Poet is exposed to this hazard more nearly than any other, and that to prevent him from falling into the extreme we have mentioned, will require the exercise of the closest attention. That I may illustrate this observation as fully as the nature of the subject will permit, it will be expedient to enquire into iii b2 iv v vi vii the end which Lyric Poetry proposeth to obtain, and to examine the original standards from which the rules of this art are deduced. Aristotle, who has treated of poetry at great length, assigns two causes of its origin,—Imitation and Harmony; both of which are natural to the human mind 3. By Imitation he understands, “whatever employs means to represent any subject in a natural manner, whether it hath a real or imaginary existence 4.” The desire of imitating is originally stamped on the mind, and is a source of perpetual pleasure. “Thus” (says the great Critic) “though the figures of wild beasts, or of dead men, cannot be viewed as they naturally are without horror and reluctance; yet the Imitation of these in painting is highly agreeable, and our pleasure is augmented in proportion to that degree of resemblance which we conceive to subsist betwixt the Original and the Copy5.” By Harmony he understands not the numbers or measures of poetry only, but that music of language, which when it is justly adapted to variety of sentiment or description, contributes most effectually to unite the pleasing with the instructive 6. This indeed seems to be the opinion of all the Ancients who have written on this subject. Thus Plato says expressly, that those Authors who employ numbers and images without music have no other merit than that of throwing prose into measure 7. You will no doubt be of opinion, my Lord, upon reflecting on this subject, that Poetry was originally of an earlier date than Philosophy, and that its different species were brought to a certain pitch of perfection before that Science had been cultivated in an equal degree. Experience informs us on every occasion, that Imagination shoots forward to its full growth, and even becomes wild and luxuriant, when the reasoning Faculty is only beginning to open, and is wholly unfit to connect the series of accurate deduction. The information of the senses (from which Fancy generally borrows her images) always obtains the earliest credit, and makes for that reason the most lasting impressions. The sallies of this irregular Faculty are likewise abrupt and instantaneous, as they are generally the effects of a sudden impulse which reason is not permitted to restrain. As therefore we have already seen, that the desire of imitating is innate to the mind (if your Lordship will permit me to make use of an unphilosophical epithet) and as the first inhabitants of the world were employed in the culture of the field, and in surveying the scenery of external Nature, it is probable that the first rude draughts of Poetry were extemporary effusions, either descriptive of the scenes of pastoral life, or extolling the attributes of the Supreme Being. On this account Plato says that Poetry was originally Ενθεος Μιμησις 8, or an inspired imitation of those objects which produced either pleasure or admiration. To paint those objects which produced pleasure was the business of the pastoral, and to display those which raise admiration was the task consigned to the Lyric Poet. —To excite this passion, no method was so effectual as that of celebrating the perfections of the Powers who were supposed to preside over Nature. The Ode therefore in its first formation was a song in honour of these Powers 9, either sung at solemn festivals or after the days of Amphion who was the inventor of the Lyre, accompanied with the musick of that instrument. Thus Horace tells us, Musa dedit fidibus Divos, puerosque Divorum, 10 The Muse to nobler subjects tun’d her lyre, Gods, and the sons of Gods her song inspire. Francis. In this infancy of the arts, when it was the business of the Muse, as the same Poet informs us, Publica privatis secernere, sacra prophanis; Concubitu prohibere vago, dare jura maritis, Oppida moliri, leges includere ligno. 11 Poetic Wisdom mark’d with happy mean, Public and private, sacred and profane, The wandering joys of lawless love supprest, With equal rites the wedded couple blest, Plann’d future towns, and instituted laws, &c. Francis. your Lordship will immediately conclude that the species of Poetry which was first cultivated (especially when its end was to excite admiration) must for that reason have been the loosest and the most undetermined. There are indeed particular circumstances, by the concurrence of which one branch of an Art may be rendered perfect, when it is first introduced; and these circumstances were favourable to the Authors of the Eclogue. But whatever some readers may think, your Lordship will not look upon it as a paradox, to affirm that the same causes which produced this advantage to pastoral poetry, contributed in an equal degree to make the first Lyric Poems the most vague, uncertain, and disproportioncd standards. In general it may be observed, that the difficulty of establishing rules is always augmented in proportion to the variety of objects which an Art includes. Pastoral Poetry is defined by an ingenious Author, to be an imitation of what may be supposed to pass among Shepherds 12. This was accomplished the more easily by the first performers in this art, because they were themselves employed in the occupation which they describe, and the subjects which fell within their sphere must have been confined to a very narrow circle. They contented themfelves with painting in the simplest language the external beauties of nature, and with conveying an image of that age in which men generally lived on the footing of equality, and followed the dictates of an understanding uncultivated by Art. In succeeding ages, when manners became more polished, and the refinements of luxury were substituted in place of the simplicity of Nature, men were still fond of retaining an idea of this happy period (which perhaps originally existed in its full extent, only in the imagination of Poets) and the character of a perfect pastoral was justly drawen from the writings of those Authors who first attempted to excel in it13. Though we must acknowledge, that the poetic representations of a golden age are chimerical, and that descriptions of this kind were not always measured by the standard of truth; yet it must be allowed at the same time, that at a period when Manners were uniform and natural, the Eclogue, whose principal excellence lies in exhibiting simple and lively viii ix c x xi c2 xii pictures of common objects and common characters, was brought at once to a state of greater perfection by the persons who introduced it, than it could have arrived at in a more improved and enlightned aera. You will observe, my Lord, that these circumstances were all of them unfavourable to Lyric Poetry. The Poet in this branch of his Art proposed as his principal aim to excite Admiration, and his mind without the assistance of critical skill was left to the unequal task of presenting succeeding ages with the rudiments of Science. He was at liberty indeed to range through the ideal world, and to collect images from every quarter; but in this research he proceeded without a guide, and his imagination like a fiery courser with loose reins was left to pursue that path into which it deviated by accident, or was enticed by temptation. In short, Pastoral Poetry takes in only a few objects, and is characterized by that simplicity, tenderness, and delicacy which were happily and easily united in the work of an ancient Shepherd. He had little use for the rules of criticism, because he was not much exposed to the danger of infringing them. The Lyric Poet on the other hand took a more diversified and extensive range, and his imagination required a strong and steady rein to correct its vehemence, and restrain its rapidity. Though therefore we can conceive without difficulty, that the Shepherd in his poetic effusions might contemplate only the external objects which were presented to him, yet we cannot so readily believe that the mind in framing a Theogony, or in assigning distinct provinces to the Powers who were supposed to preside over Nature, could in its first Essays proceed with so calm and deliberate a pace through the fields of invention, as that its work should be the perfect pattern of just and corrected composition. From these observations laid together, your Lordship will judge of the state of Lyric Poetry, when it was first introduced, and will perhaps be inclined to assent to a part of the proposition laid down in the beginning, “that as Poets in general are more apt to set up a false standard of excellence than Philosophers are, so the Lyric Poet was exposed to this danger more immediately than any other member of the same profession.” Whether or not the preceding Theory can be justly applied to the works of the first Lyric Poets, and how far the Ode continued to be characterised by it in the more improved state of ancient Learning, are questions which can only be answered by taking a short view of both. It is indeed, my Lord, much to be regretted, that we have no certain guide to lead us through that labyrinth in which we grope for the discovery of Truth, and are so often entangled in the maze of Error when we attempt to explain the origin of Science, or to trace the manners of remote antiquity. I should be at a loss to enter upon this perplexed and intricate subject, if I did not know, that History has already familiarized to your Lordship the principal objects which occur in this research, and that it is the effect of extensive knowledge and superior penetration to invigorate the effort of Diffidence, and to repress the surmises of undistinguishing Censure. The Inhabitants of Greece who make so eminent a figure in the records of Science, as well as in the History of the progression of Empire, were originally a savage and lawless people, who lived in a state of war with one another, and possessed a desolate country, from which they expected to be driven by the invasion of a foreign enemy14. Even after they had begun to emerge from this state of absolute barbarity, and had built a kind of cities to restrain the encroachments of the neighbouring nations, the inland country continued to be laid waste by the depredations of robbers, and the maritime towns were exposed to the incursions of pirates 15. Ingenious as this people naturally were, the terror and suspence in which they lived for a considerable time, kept them unacquainted with the Arts and Sciences which were flourishing in other countries. When therefore a Genius capable of civilizing them started up, it is no wonder that they held him in the highest estimation, and concluded that he was either descended from, or inspired by some of those Divinities whose praises he was employed in rehearsing. Such was the situation of Greece, when Linus, Orpheus, and Museus, the first Poets whose names have reached posterity, made their appearance on the theatre of life. These writers undertook the difficult task of reforming their countrymen, and of laying down a theological and philosophical system16. —We are informed by Diogenes Laertius, that Linus, the Father of Grecian Poetry, was the son of Mercury and the Muse Urania, and that he sung of the Generation of the world, of the course of the sun and moon, of the origin of animals, and of the principles of vegetation17. He taught, says the same Author, that all things were formed at one time, and that they were jumbled together in a Chaos, till the operation of a Mind introduced regularity. After all, however, we must acknowledge, that so complex, so diversified, and so ingenious a system as the Greek Theology, was too much for an uninstructed Genius, however exuberant, to have conceived in its full extent. Accordingly we are told, that both Orpheus and Museus travelled into Ægypt, and infused the traditionary learning of a cultivated people into the minds of their own illiterate countrymen18. To do this the more effectually, they composed Hymns, or short sonnets, in which their meaning was couched under the veil of beautiful allegory, that their lessons might at once arrest the imagination, and be impressed upon the Memory19. This, my Lord, we are informed by the great Critic, was the first dress in which Poetry made its appearance 20. Of Orpheus we know little more with certainty, than that the subjects of his poems were the formation of the world, the offspring of Saturn, the birth of the Giants, and the origin of man21. These were favourite topics among the first Poets, and the discussion of them tended at once to enlarge the imagination, and to give the reasoning faculty a proper degree of exercise. This Poet however, though he obtained the highest honours from his contemporaries, yet seems to have managed his subjects in so loose a manner, that succeeding Writers will not allow him to have been a Philosopher 22. At present we are not sufficiently qualified to determine his character, as most of the pieces which pass under his name are ascribed to one Onomacritus, an Athenian who flourished about the time of Pisistratus. That the writings of Orpheus were highly and extensively useful, is a truth confirmed by the most convincing evidence. The extraordinary effects which his Poetry and Music are said to have produced, however absurd and incredible in themselves, are yet unquestioned proofs that he was considered as a superior Genius, and that his countrymen thought themselves highly indebted to him. Horace gives an excellent account of this matter in very few words. Sylvestres homines, Sacer, Interpresque Deorum Cædibus, & victu fœdo deterruit Orpheus, xiii xiv xv xvi xvii d xviii Dictus ob hoc lenire tigres, rabidosque leones. 23 The wood-born race of men when Orpheus tam’d, From acorns, and from mutual blood reclaim’d. The Priest divine was fabled to assuage The tiger’s fierceness, and the lion’s rage. Francis. Museus, the Pupil of Orpheus, is as little known to posterity as his Master. His only genuine production which has reached the present times is an Ode to Ceres, a piece indeed full of exuberance and variety24. The Ancients in general seem to have entertained a very high opinion of his Genius and writings, as he is said to have been the first person who composed a regular Theogony, and is likewise celebrated as the inventor of the Sphere 25. His principle was that all things would finally resolve into the same materials of which they were originally compounded 26. Virgil assigns him a place of distinguishied eminence in the plains of Elysium. ——sic est affata Sibylla. Musæum ante omnes, medium nam plurima turba Hunc habet, atque humeris extantem suspicit altis. 27 ——The Sibyl thus address’d Musæus, rais’d o’er all the circling throng. It is generally allowed that Amphion, who was a native of Bæotia, brought music into Greece from Lydia, and invented that instrument (the Lyre) from which Lyric Poetry takes its name 28. Before his time they had no regular knowledge of this divine art, though we must believe that they were acquainted with it in some measure, as dancing is an art in which we are informed that the earliest Poets were considerable proficients 29. Such, my Lord, was the character of the first Lyric Poets, and such were the subjects upon which they exercised invention. We have seen, in the course of this short detail, that these Authors attempted to civilize a barbarous people, whose imagination it was necessary to seize by every possible expedient; and upon whom chastised composition would have probably lost its effect, as its beauties are not perceptible to the rude and illiterate. That they employed this method principally to instruct their countrymen is more probable, when we remember that the rudiments of learning were brought from Ægypt, a country in which Fable and Allegory remarkably predominated 30. By conversing with this people, it is natural to suppose that men of impetuous imaginations would imbibe their manner, and would adopt that species of composition as the most proper, which was at the same time agreeable to their own inclination, and authorised as expedient by the example of others. From the whole, my Lord, we may conclude with probability, that the Greek Hymn was originally a loose allegorical Poem, in which Imagination was permitted to take its full career, and sentiment was rendered at once obscure and agreeable, by being screened behind a veil of the richest poetic imagery. The loose fragments of these early writers which have come down to our times, render this truth as conspicuous as the nature of the subject will permit. A Theogony, or an account of the procession of fabulous Deities, was a theme on which Imagination might display her inventive power in its fullest extent. Accordingly Hesiod introduces his work with recounting the genealogy of the Muses, to whom he assigns “an apartment and attendants, near the summit of snowy Olympus 31.” These Ladies, he tells us, “came to pay him a visit, and complimented him with a scepter and a branch of laurel, when he was feeding his flock on the mountain of Helicon32.” Some tale of this kind it was usual with the Poets to invent, that the vulgar in those ages of fiction and ignorance might consider their persons as sacred, and that the offspring of their imaginations might be regarded as the children of Truth. From the same licentious use of Allegory and Metaphor sprung the Fables of the wars of the Giants, of the birth and education of Jupiter, of the dethroning of Saturn, and of the provinces assigned by the Supreme to the Inferior Deities; all of which are subjects said to have been particularly treated by Orpheus 33. The love of Fable became indeed so remarkably prevalent in the earliest ages, that it is now impossible in many instances to distinguish real from apparent truth in the History of these times, and to discriminate the persons who were useful members of society, from those who exist only in the works of a Poet, whose aim was professedly to excite Admiration. Thus every event of importance was disfigured by the colouring of poetic narration, and by ascribing to one man the separate actions which perhaps were performed by several persons of one name 34, we are now wholly unable to disentangle truth from a perplexed and complicated detail of real and fictitious incidents. It appears likewise from these shreds of antiquity, that the subjects of the Hymn were not sufficiently limited, as we sometimes find one of them addressed to several Deities, whose different functions recurring constantly to the mind must have occasioned unavoidable obscurity35. The Poet by this means was led into numberless digressions, in which the remote points of connection will be imperceptible to the reader, who cannot place himself in some situation similar to that of the Writer, and attend particularly to the character and manners of the period at which he wrote. Your Lordship, without the testimony of experience, would hardly believe that a species of composition which derived its origin from, and owed its peculiarities to the circumstances we have mentioned, could have been considered in an happier æra as a pattern worthy the imitation of cultivated genius, and the perusal of a polished and civilized people. One is indeed ready to conclude, at the first view, that a mode of writing which was assumed for a particular purpose, and was adopted to the manners of an illiterate age, might at least have undergone considerable alterations in succeeding periods, and might have received improvements proportioned to those which are made in other branches of the same art. But the fact is, that while the other branches of poetry have been gradually modelled by the rules of criticism, the Ode hath only been changed in a few external circumstances, and the enthusiasm, obscurity and exuberance, which characterised it when first introduced, continue to be ranked among its capital and discriminating excellencies. xix d2 xx xxi xxii xxiii xxiv To account for this phenomenon, my Lord, I need only remind your Lordship of a truth which reflexion has, no doubt, frequently suggested;—that the rules of criticism are originally drawen, not from the speculative idea of perfection in an art, but from the work of that Artist to whom either merit or accident hath appropriated the most established character. From this position it obviously follows, that such an art must arrive at once to its highest perfection, as the attempts of succeeding performers are estimated not by their own intrinsic value or demerit, but by their conformity to a standard which is previously set before them. It hath happened fortunately for the republic of letters, that the two higher species of poetry are exempted from the bad consequences which might have followed an exact observation of this rule. An early and perfect standard was settled to regulate the Epopee, and the Drama was susceptible of gradual improvement, as Luxury augmented the subjects, and decorated the machinery of the theatre. We have already seen that Lyric Poetry was not introduced with the advantages of the former, and reflection must convince us, that it is not calculated to gain the slow and imperceptible accessions of the latter. We may observe however in the general, that as the opinions of the bulk of mankind in speculative matters are commonly the result of accident rather than the consequences of reflection, so it becomes extremely difficult, if not impossible, in some instances to point out a defect in an established model without incurring the censure of the multitude. Such, my Lord, is the nature of man, and so trifling and capricious are the circumstances upon which his sentiments depend. Accustomed as your Lordship has been to survey the improved manners of an enlightned age, you will contemplate with pleasure an happier aera in the progression of Science, when the Ode from being confined wholly to fictitious Theology, was transposed to the circle of Elegance and the Graces. Such is its appearance in the writings ot Anacreon, of Horace, and in the two fragments of Sappho. Anacreon was nearly contemporary with that Onomacritus, whom we have mentioned as the Author of those poems which are ascribed to Orpheus. He flourished between the 60th and the 70th Olympiad. His pieces are the offspring of genius and indolence. His subjects are perfectly suited to his character. The devices which he would have to be carved upon a silver cup are extremely ingenious. ——Διος γονον Βακχον Ευιον ἡμιν. Μυστιν αματε Κυπριν Ὑμεναιοις κροτουσαν. Και Εροτας αποπλους Και χαριτας γελωσας, &c. 36 ——The race of Jove, Bacchus whose happy smiles approve; The Cyprian Queen, whose gentle hand Is quick to tye the nuptial band; The sporting Loves unarm’d appear, The Graces loose and laughing near. Sweetness and natural elegance characterise the writings of this Poet, as much as carelessness and ease distinguished his manners. In some of his pieces there is exuberance and even wildness of imagination, as in that particularly which is addressed to a young girl, where he wishes alternately to be transformed into a mirror, a...