We say this with little fear of contradiction. Yet the spirit of our
assertion must be more heeded than the letter. Mankind have seemed
to define Poesy in a thousand, and in a thousand conflicting,
definitions. But the war is one only of words. Induction is as well
applicable to this subject as to the most palpable and utilitarian;
and by its sober processes we find that, in respect to compositions
which have been really received as poems, the imaginative, or, more
popularly, the creative portions alone have ensured them to be so
received. Yet these works, on account of these portions, having once
been so received and so named, it has happened naturally and
inevitably, that other portions totally unpoetic have not only come to
be regarded by the popular voice as poetic, but have been made to
serve as false standards of perfection in the adjustment of other
poetical claims. Whatever has been found in whatever has been received
as a poem, has been blindly regarded as ex statu poetic. And this is a
species of gross error which scarcely could have made its way into any
less intangible topic. In fact that license which appertains to the
Muse herself, it has been thought decorous, if not sagacious, to
indulge in all examination of her character.
Poesy is thus seen to be a response- unsatisfactory it is true-
but still in some measure a response, to a natural and irrepressible
demand.
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