Wit. Unfre quented and new ways. Theory of inspiration criticised. proceed to the admiration of what are commonly called conceits, things that sound like the knacks or toys of ordinary epigrammatists, and from thence, after more conversation and variety of objects, grow up to some force of fancy; yet even then, like young hawks, they stray and fly far off, using their liberty as if they would ne'er return to the lure, and often go at check ere they can make a steady view and know their game. Old men, that have forgot their first childhood and are returning to their second, think it lies in agnominations, and in a kind of an alike tinkling of words, or else in a grave telling of wonderful things, or in comparing of times without a discovered partiality. Ib. Nor will I presume to call the matter of which the ornaments or substantial parts of this poem are composed, wit; but only tell you my endeavour was, in bringing truth, too often absent, home to men's bosoms, to lead her through unfrequented and new ways, and from the most remote shades, by representing Nature, though not in an affected, yet in an unusual dress. Ib. [T]heir [ie the heathen] poets were their divines, had the name of prophets; exercised amongst the people a kind of spiritual authority, would be thought to speak by a divine spirit, have their works which they writ in verse (the divine style) pass for the word of God and not of man, and to be hearkened to with reverence. . . . But why a Christian should think it an ornament to his poem, either to profane the true God or invoke a false one, I can imagine no cause but a reasonless imitation of custom, of a foolish custom, by which a man, enabled to speak wisely from Nature and the principles of nature and his own meditation, loves rather to be thought to speak by inspiration, like a bagpipe. meditation. Time and Education begets experience; Experience begets memory; Memory begets judgment and fancy: Judgment begets the strength and structure, and Fancy begets the ornaments of a poem. The ancients therefore fabled not absurdly in making memory the mother of the Muses. For memory is the world (though not really, yet so as in a looking glass) in which the Judgment, the Judgment. severer sister, busieth herself in a grave and rigid examination of all the parts of nature, and in registering by letters their order, causes, uses, differences, and resemblances; whereby the Fancy, when any work of art is to be performed, Fancy. finds her materials at hand and prepared for use, and needs no more than a swift motion over them, that what she wants, and is there to be had, may not lie too long unespied. So that when she seemeth to fly from one Indies to the other, and from Heaven to Earth, and to penetrate into the hardest matter and obscurest places, into the future and into herself, and all this in a point of time, the voyage is not very great, her self being all she seeks; and her wonderful celerity consisteth not so much in motion as in copious imagery discreetly ordered and perfectly registered in the memory, which most men under the name of philosophy have a glimpse of, and is pretended to by many that, grossly mistaking her, embrace contention in her place. But so far forth as the Fancy of man has traced the ways of true philosophy, so far it hath produced very marvellous effects to the benefit of mankind. All that is beautiful or defensible in building, or marvellous in engines and instruments of motion, whatsoever commodity men receive from the observations of the heavens, from the description of the earth, from the account of time, from walking on the seas, and whatsoever distinguisheth the civility of Europe from the barbarity of the American savages, is the workmanship of Fancy but guided by the precepts of true philosophy. But where these precepts fail, as they have hitherto failed in the doctrine of moral virtue, there the architect, Fancy, must take the Philosopher's part upon herself. He therefore that undertakes an heroic poem, which is to exhibit a venerable and amiable image of heroic virtue, must not only be the poet, to place and connect, but also the philosopher, to furnish and Wit or Judgment. Fancy or Wit. Poetical fury. Judgment. Cheerfulness of spirit required. square his matter, that is, to make both body and soul, colour and shadow of his poem out of his own store. T. HOBBES, Answer to Davenant, 1650. [W]hereas in this succession of men's thoughts, there is nothing to observe in the things they think on, but either in what they be like one another, or in what they be unlike, or what they serve for, or how they serve to such a purpose; those that observe their similitudes, in case they be such as are but rarely observed by others, are said to have a good wit; by which, in this occasion, is meant a good fancy. But they that observe their differences, and dissimilitudes; which is called distinguishing, and discerning, and judging between thing and thing; in case such discerning be not easy, are said to have a good judgment. T. HOBBES, Leviathan, 1651. [M]en more generally affect and admire fancy than they do either judgment, or reason, or memory, or any other intellectual virtue; and for the pleasantness of it, give to it alone the name of wit, accounting reason and judgment but for a dull entertainment. For in fancy consisteth the sublimity of a poet, which is that poetical fury which the readers for the most part call for. It flies abroad swiftly to fetch in both matter and words; but if there be not discretion at home to distinguish which are fit to be used and which not, which decent and which undecent for persons, times, and places, their delight and grace is lost. T. HOBBES, The Virtues of an Heroic Poem, 1675. . . . There is nothing that requires so much serenity. and cheerfulness of spirit; it must not be either overwhelmed with the cares of life, or overcast with the clouds of melancholy and sorrow, or shaken and disturbed with the storms of injurious fortune; it must, like the halcyon, have fair weather to breed in. The soul must be filled with bright and delightful ideas, when it undertakes to communicate delight to others, which is the main end of poesy. . . . The truth is, for a man to write well ness of mind. it is necessary to be in good humour; neither is wit less Wit eclipsed eclipsed with the unquietness of mind than beauty with the by unquiet indisposition of body. So that 'tis almost as hard a thing. to be a poet in despite of fortune, as it is in despite of nature. A. COWLEY, Preface to Poems, 1656. [I]f wit be such a plant that it scarce receives heat enough to preserve it alive even in the summer of our cold climate, how can it choose but wither in a long and a sharp winter? A warlike, various, and a tragical age is best to write of, but worst to write in. Ib. not attainable by any industry. study or Wit, ingenuity, and learning in verse, even elegancy Poetic itself, though that comes nearest, are one thing, true native energy poetry is another; in which there is a certain air and spirit which perhaps the most learned and judicious in other arts do not perfectly apprehend, much less is it attainable by any study or industry; nay, though all the laws of heroic poem, all the laws of tragedy were exactly observed, yet still this tour entrejeant, this poetic energy, if I may so call it, would be required to give life to all the rest, which shines through the roughest, most unpolished, and antiquated language, and may haply be wanting in the most polite and reformed. E. PHILLIPS, Preface to Theatrum Poetarum, 1675. it a gift of The principal parts of painting and poetry next follow. Invention Invention is the first part, and absolutely necessary to them both; yet no rule ever was or ever can be given, how to compass it. A happy genius is the gift of nature: . is the particular gift of Heaven, say the divines, both Christians and heathens. How to improve it, many books can teach us; how to obtain it, none; that nothing can be done without it, all agree: Tu nihil invita dices faciesve Minerva. nature. Without invention, a painter is but a copier, and a Invention. poet but a plagiary of others. Both are allowed sometimes Poetry is εὐφυοῦς οὐ μανικοῦ. to copy, and translate; but . . . that is not the best part of their reputation. Imitators are but a servile kind of cattle, says the poet; or at best, the keepers of cattle for other men: they have nothing which is properly their own. J. DRYDEN, A Parallel of Poetry and Painting, 1695. [T]he pains and diligence of ill poets is but thrown away, when they want the genius to invent and feign agreeably. J. DRYDEN, Dedication of the Aeneis, 1697. They who would justify the madness of poetry from the authority of Aristotle, have mistaken the text, and consequently the interpretation: I imagine it to be false read, where he says of poetry, that it is evpvous μavikov, that it had always somewhat in it either of a genius, or of a madman, 'Tis more probable that the original ran thus, that poetry was εὐφυοῦς οὐ μανικοῦ, that it belongs to a witty man, but not to a madman. J. DRYDEN, Preface to Troilus and Cressida, 1679. The composition of all poems is, or ought to be, of wit; and wit in the poet, or wit writing (if you will give me leave to use a school-distinction), is no other than the Imagination. faculty of imagination in the writer, which, like a nimble spaniel, beats over and ranges through the field of memory, till it springs the quarry it hunted after; or, without metaphor, which searches over all the memory for the species or ideas of those things which it designs to represent. Wit written is that which is well defined, the Wit a pro- happy result of thought, or product of imagination. But to imagination. proceed from wit, in the general notion of it, to the proper Wit defined. wit of an heroic or historical poem, I judge it chiefly to consist in the delightful imagining of persons, actions, passions, or things. 'Tis not the jerk or sting of an epigram, nor the seeming contradiction of a poor antithesis (the delight of an ill-judging audience in a play of rhyme), nor the jingle of a more poor paronomasia; neither is it so much the morality of a grave sentence, affected by Lucan, duct |