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Show And it would be eafy to [eleCt examples of the beautiful or new from profe writers, which, I fuppofe, no meafure of verfe could improve. B. In what then confifis the effential difference between Poetry ·and Profe? P. Next to the meafure of the language, the principal diftinCtion appears to me to confifi in this: that Poetry admits of but few words expreffive of very ab:fhaCl:ed ideas, whereas Profe abounds with them. And as our ideas derived from vifible objeCts are more difiinct than thofe derived from the objects of our other fenfes, the words expreffive of thefe ideas belonging to vifion make up the principal part of poetic language. That is, the Poet writes principally to the eye, the Profe-writer ufes more abfiraCl:ed terms. Mr. Pope has written a bad verfe in the Windfor Fore:fl: " And Kennet fwift for filver Eels renown'd." The word renown'd does not prefent the idea of a vi:fible object to the mind, and is thence profaic. But change this line thus: '' And Kennet fwift, where filver Graylings play." and it becomes poetry, becaufe the fcenery is then brought before the eye. B. This may be done in profe. P. And when it is done in a lingle word, it animates the profe; fo it is more agreeable to read in Mr. Gibbon's Hiftory, '' Germany [ 49 ] was a:t this time over-Jhadowed with extenfive forefi:s; than Germany was at this ·time full of extenfive forefis. But where this mode of. expr~ffion occurs too frequently, the profe approaches to poetry: and m graver works, where ·we .expeet to be infiruCted rather than amufed, it becomes tedious and impertinent. Some parts of Mf. Burke's eloquent orations become intricate and enervated by fuperfluity of poetic ornament; which quantity of ornament would have been agr-eeable in a poem, where much ornament is expected. B. Is then the office of Poetry only to amufe? P. The Mufes are young Ladies; we expetl: to fee them dreffed; though not like fome modem beauties, with fo much gauze and feather, that '' the Lady herfelf is the leafi part of her." There are however didaCtic pieces of poetry, which are much admired, as the ·Georgics of Virgil, Mafon's Engli:fh Garden, Hayley's Epifiles; neverthelefs Science is befi delivered in .Profe, as its mode of ·reafoning is from ftricter analogies than metaphors or fimllies. B. Do not Perfonifications and Allegories diftinguifh Poetry? P. Thete are other arts of bringing objeCls before the eye; or of expreffing fentiments in the language of vifion; and are indeed better fuited to the pen than the pencil. B. That is fttange, ·when you have ji.1fi faid they are ufecl to bring their objects before the eye. .P. In poetry the perfonifi<:ation or allegoric figure is gen~rally indifiinet, and therefore does not fhike us fo forcibly as to make us attend to its improbability; !Jut in painting, the figures being all much more difiinet, their .improbability becomes apparent, .and {eizes our atttntion to it. Thus the perfon of Concealment is v.ery H |