as to approach very near to poetical numbers; such as the Telemachus of Fenelon; and the English translation of Ossian. The truth is, verse and prose, on some occasions, run into one another, like light and shade. It is hardly possible to determine the exact limit where eloquence ends, and poetry begins; nor is there any occasion for being very precise about the boundaries, as long as the nature of each is understood. These are the minutiae of criticism, concerning which frivolous writers are always disposed to squabble; but which deserve not any particular discussion. The truth and justness of the definition, which I have given of poetry, will appear more fully from the account which I am now to give of its origin; and which will tend to throw light on much of what I am afterwards to deliver, concerning its various kinds. The Greeks, ever fond of attributing to their own nation the invention of all sciences and arts, have ascribed the origin of poetry to Orpheus, Linus, and Musæus. There where, perhaps, such persons as these, who were the first distinguished bards in the Grecian countries. But long before such names were heard of, and among nations where they were never known, poetry existed. It is a great error to imagine, that poetry and music are arts which belong only to polished nations. They have their foundation in the nature of man, and belong to all nations, and to all ages; though, like other arts founded in nature, they have been more cultivated, and from a concurrence of favourable circumstances, carried to greater perfection in some countries than in others. In order to explore the rise of poetry, we must have recourse to the deserts and the wilds; we must go back to the age of hunters and of shepherds; to the highest antiquity; and to the simplest form of manners among mankind. It has been often said, and the concurring voice of all antiquity affirms, that poetry is older than prose. But in what sense this seemingly strange paradox holds true, has not always been well understood. There never certainly, was any period of society, in which men conversed together in poetical numbers. It was in very humble and scanty prose, as we may easily believe, that the first tribes carried on intercourse among themselves, relating to the wants and necessities of life. But from the very beginning of society, there were occasions on which they met together for feasts, sacrifices, and public assemblies; and on all such occasions, it is well known, that music, song, and dance, made their principal entertainment. It is chiefly in America, that we have had the opportunity of being made acquainted with men in their savage state. We learn from the particular and concurring accounts of travellers, that among all the nations of that vast continent, especially among the nothern tribes, with whom we have had most intercourse, music and song are, at all their meetings, carried on with an incredible degree of enthusiasm; that the chiefs of the tribe are those who signalize themselves most on such occasions; that it is in songs they celebrate their religious rites; that, by these they lament their public and private calamities, the death of friends, or the loss of warriors; express their joy on their victories; celebrate the great actions of their nation, and their heroes; excite each other to perform great exploits in war, or suffer death and torments with unshaken constancy. Here then we see the first beginnings of poetic composition, in those rude effusions, which the enthusiasm of fancy or passion suggested to untaught men, when roused by interesting events, and by their meeting together in public assemblies. Two particulars would early distinguish this language of song, from that in which they conversed on the common occurrences of life; namely, an unusual ar rangement of words, and the employment of bold figures of speech. It would invert words or change them from that order in which they are commonly placed, to that which most suited the train in which they rose in the speaker's imagination: or which was most accommodated to the cadence of the passion by which he was moved. Under the influence too of any strong emotion, objects do not appear to us such as they really are, but such as passion makes us see them. We magnify and exaggerate; we seek to interest all others in what causes our emotion; we compare the least things to the greatest; we call upon the absent as well as the present, and even address ourselves to things inanimate. Hence, in congruity with those various movements of the mind, arise those turns of expression, which we now distinguish by the learned names of hyperbole, prosopopœia, simile, &c. but which are no other than the native original language of poetry, among the most barbarous nations. Man is both a poet and a musician by nature. The same impulse which prompted the enthusiastic poetic style, prompted a certain melody, or modulation of sound, suited to the emotions of joy or grief, of admiration, love, or anger. There is a power in sound, which, partly from nature, partly from habit and association, makes such pathetic impressions on the fancy, as delight even the most wild barbarians. Music and poetry, therefore, had the same rise; they were prompted by the same occasions; they were united in song; and, as long as they continued united, they tended, without doubt, mutually to heighten and exalt each others power. The first poets sung their own verses; and hence the beginning of what we call, versification, or words arranged in a more artful order than prose, so as to be suited to some tune or melody. The liberty of transposition, or inversion, which the poetic style, as I observed, would naturally assume, made it easier to form the words into some sort of numbers that fell in with the music of the song. Very harsh and uncouth, we may easily believe, these numbers would be at first. But the pleasure was felt; it was studied; and versification, by degrees, passed into an art. It appears from what has been said, that the first compositions which were either recorded by writing, or transmitted by tradition, could be no other than poetical compositions. No other but these, could draw the attention of men in their rude uncivilized state. Indeed, they knew no other. Cool reasoning and plain discourse, had no power to attract savage tribes, addicted only to hunting and war. There was nothing that could either rouse the speaker to pour himself forth, or draw the crowd to listen, but the high powers of passion, of music, and of song. This vehicle, therefore, and no other, could be employed by chiefs and legislators, when they meant to instruct or to animate their tribes. There is, likewise, a farther reason why such compositions only could be transmitted to posterity; because, before writing was invented, songs only could last, and be remembered. The ear gave assistance to the memory, by the help of numbers; fathers repeated and sung them to their children; and by this oral tradition of national ballads, were conveyed all the historical knowledge, and all the instruction of the first ages. The earliest accounts which history gives us concerning all nations, bear testimony to these acts. In the first ages of Greece, priests, philosophers, and statesmen, all delivered their instructions in poetry. Apollo, Orpheus and Amphion, their most ancient bards are represented as the first tamers of mankind, the first founders of laws and civilization. Minos and Thales sung to the lyre the laws which they composed;* and till the age immediately preceding that of Herodotus, history had appeared in no other form than that of poetical tales. In the same manner among all other nations, poems and songs are the first objects that make their appearance. Among the Scythian or Gothic nations, many of their kings and leaders were sealders, or poets; and it is from their runic songs, that the most early writers of their history, such as Saxo-Grammaticus, acknowledge, that they had derived their chief information. Among the Celtic tribes in Gaul, Britain, and Ireland, we know in what admiration their bards were held, and how great influence they possessed over the people. They were both poets and musicians, as all the first poets in every country were. They were always near the person of the chief or sovereign; they recorded all his great exploits; they were employed as ambassadors between contending tribes, and their persons were held sacred. From this deduction it follows, that as we have reason to look for poems and songs among the antiquities of all countries, so we may expect, that in the strain of these there will be a remarkable resemblance, during the primitive periods of every country. The occasions of their being composed, are every where nearly the same. The praises of gods and heroes, the celebration of famed ancestors, the recital of martial deeds, songs of victory, and songs of lamentation over the misfortunes and death of their countrymen, occur among all nations; and the same enthusiasm and fire, the same wild and irregular, but animated composition, concise and glowing style, bold and extravagant figures of speech, are the general distinguishing characters of all the most ancient original poetry. That strong hyperbolical manner, which we have been long accustomed to call the oriental manner of poetry, (because some of the earliest poetical productions came to us from the east) is in truth no more oriental than occidental; it is characteristical of an age rather than of a country; and belongs, in some measure, to all nations at that period which first gives rise to music and to song. Mankind never re * Strabo, 1, 10, semble each other so much as they do in the beginnings of society. Its subsequent revolutions give birth to the principal distinctions of character among nations, and divert into channels widely separated, that current of human genius and manners, which descends originally from one spring. Diversity of climate, and of manner of living, will, however, occasion some diversity in the strain of the first poetry of nations; chiefly according as those nations are of a more ferocious, or of a more gentle spirit; and according as they advance faster or slower in the arts of civilization. Thus we find all the remains of the ancient Gothic poetry remarkably fierce, and breathing nothing but slaughter and blood; while the Peruvian and the Chinese songs turned, from the earliest times, upon milder subjects. The Celtic poetry, in the days of Ossian, though chiefly of the martial kind, yet had attained a considerable mixture of tenderness and refinement; in consequence of the long cultivation of poetry among the Celta, by means of a series and succession of bards which had been established for ages. So Lucan informs us: Vos quoque qui fortes animos, belloque peremptos L. 44. Among the Grecian nations, their early poetry appears to have soon received a philosophical cast, from what we are informed concerning the subjects of Orpheus, Linus, and Musæus, who treated of creation and of chaos, of the generation of the world, and of the rise of things; and we know that the Greeks advanced sooner to philosophy, and proceeded with a quicker pace in all the arts of refinement, than most other nations. The Arabians and the Persians have always been the greatest poets of the east; and among them, as among other nations, poetry was the earliest vehicle of all their learning and instruction. The ancient Arabs, we are informed, valued themselves much on their metrical compositions, which were of two sorts; the one they compared to loose pearls, and the other to pearls strung. In the former, the sentences or verses were without connection; and their beauty arose from the elegance of the expression, and the acuteness of the sentiment. The moral doctrines of the Persians were generally comprehended in such independent proverbial apothegms, formed into verse. In this respect they bear a considerable resemblance to the Proverbs of Solomon; a great part of which book consists of unconnected poetry, like the loose pearls of the Arabians. The same form of composition appears also in the book of Job. The You too, ye bards, whom sacred raptures fire, And noblest themes in deathless songs pursue. Vid. Voyages de Chardin, chap de la Poësie des Persans. Vid. Preliminary discourse to Sale's Translation of the Koran. 54 Greeks seems to have been the first who introduced a more regular structure, and closer connection of parts, into their poetical writings. During the infancy of poetry, all the different kinds of it lay confused, and were mingled in the same composition, according as inclination, enthusiasm, or casual incidents, directed the poet's strain. In the progress of society and arts, they began to assume those different regular forms, and to be distinguished by those different names under which we now know them. But in the first rude state of poetical effusions, we can easily discern the seeds of beginnings of all the kinds of regular poetry. Odes and hymns of every sort, would naturally be among the first compositions; according as the bards were moved by religious feelings, by exultation, resentment, love, or any other warm sentiment, to pour themselves forth in song. Plaintive or elegiac poetry, would as naturally arise from lamentations over their deceased friends. The recital of the achievements of their heroes, and their ancestors, gave birth to what we now call epic poetry; and as not content with simply reciting these, they would infallibly be led, at some of their public meetings, to represent them, by introducing different bards, speaking in the character of their heroes, and answering each other, we find in this the first outlines of tragedy, or dramatic writing. None of these kinds of poetry, however, were in the first ages of society properly distinguished or separated, as they are now, from each other. Indeed, not only were the different kinds of poetry then mixed together, but all that we now call letters, or composition of any kind, was then blended in one mass. At first, history, eloquence, and poetry, were all the same. Whoever wanted to move or to persuade, to inform or to entertain his countrymen and neighbours, whatever was the subject, accompanied his sentiment and tales with the melody of song. This was the case in that period of society, when the character and occupations of the husbandman and the builder, the warrior and the statesman, were united in one person. When the progress of society brought on a separation of the different arts and professions of civil life, it led also by degrees to a separation of the different literary provinces from each other. The art of writing was in process of time invented; records of past transactions began to be kept; men, occupied with the subjects of policy and useful arts, wished now to be instructed, and informed, as well as moved. They reasoned and reflected upon the affairs of life; and were interested by what was real, not fabulous, in past transactions. The historian, therefore, now laid aside the buskins of poetry; he wrote in prose, and attempted to give a faithful and judicious relation of former events. The philosopher addressed himself chiefly to the understanding. The orator stu died to persuade by reasoning, and retained more or less of the ancient passionate and glowing style, according as it was conducive to his purpose. Poetry became now a separate art, calculated chiefly to please, and confined generally to such subjects as related to the imagination and passions. Even its earliest companion, music, was in a great measure divided from it. |