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ON THE

PRETERNATURAL

BEING S.

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heav'n,
And, as Imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name.

Midfummer Night's Dream.

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ON THE

PRÆTERNATURAL

BEINGS,

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S the genius of Shakespear, through

the whole extent of the Poet's province, is the object of our enquiry, we should do him great injustice, if we did not attend to his peculiar felicity in those fictions and inventions, from which Poetry derives its highest distinction, and from whence it first affumed its pretenfions to divine inspiration, and appeared the affociate of Religion.

The ancient Poet was admitted into the fynod of the Gods: he difcourfed of their natures, he repeated their counfels, and, without the charge of impiety or prefumption, disclosed their diffenfions, and publish

ed their vices: He peopled the woods with

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Nymphs, the Rivers with Deities; and, that he might still have fome Being within call to his affistance, he placed responsive Echo in the vacant regions of Air.

In the infant ages of the world, the credulity of Ignorance greedily received every marvellous tale: but, as mankind increased in knowledge, and a long feries of traditions. had established a certain mythology and history, the Poet was no longer permitted to range, uncontrolled, through the boundless dominions of Fancy, but became restrained, in fome measure, to things believed, or known. Though the duty of Poetry to please and to furprise ftill fubfifted, the means varied with the state of the world, and it foon grew neceffary to make the new Inventions lean on the old Traditions.The human mind delights in novelty, and is captivated by the marvellous, but even in fable itfelf requires the credible.-The Poet, who can give to fplendid inventions, and to fictions new and bold, the air and authority of reality and truth, is master of the genuine fources

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