It makes us the
inhabitants of a world to which the familiar world is a chaos.
It reproduces the common universe of which we are portions and
percipients, and it purges from our inward sight the film of familiarity
which obscures from us the wonder of our being. It compels us to
feel that which we perceive, and to imagine that which we know. It
creates anew the universe, after it has been annihilated in our
minds by the recurrence of impressions blunted by reiteration.
It justifies the bold and true words of Tasso: Non merita nome di
creatore, se non Iddio ed il Poeta.
A poet, as he is the author to others of the highest wisdom, pleasure,
virtue and glory, so he ought personally to be the happiest, the
best, the wisest, and the most illustrious of men. As to his glory,
let time be challenged to declare whether the fame of any other
institutor of human life be comparable to that of a poet. That
he is the wisest, the happiest, and the best, inasmuch as he is
a poet, is equally incontrovertible: the greatest poets have been
men of the most spotless virtue, of the most consummate prudence,
and, if we would look into the interior of their lives, the most
fortunate of men: and the exceptions, as they regard those who
possessed the poetic faculty in a high yet inferior degree, will
be found on consideration to confine rather than destroy the rule.
Let us for a moment stoop to the arbitration of popular breath, and
usurping and uniting in our own persons the incompatible characters
of accuser, witness, judge, and executioner, let us decide without
trial, testimony, or form, that certain motives of those who are
'there sitting where we dare not soar', are reprehensible.
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