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SECTION VIII.

Of the Hiftory of Literature.

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F we may rely on the general obfervations contained in the laft fection, the literary, as well ás mechanical arts, being a natural produce of the human mind, will rife fpontaneously where-ever men are happily placed; and in certain nations it is not more neceffary to look abroad for the origin of literature, than it is for the fuggeftion of any of the pleasures or exercifes in which mankind, under a ftate of profperity and freedom, are fufficiently inclined to indulge themselves.

viofl 10 We are apt to confider arts as foreign and adventitious to the nature of man: But there is no art that did not find its occafion in human life, and that was not, in fome one or other of the fituations in which our species is found, fuggested as a means for the attainment of fome useful end. The mechanic and commercial arts took their rife from the

love of property, and were encouraged by the profpects of fafety and of gain: The literary and liberal arts took their rife from the understanding, the fancy, and the heart. They are mere exercises of the mind in fearch of its peculiar pleasures and oc<> cupations and are promoted by circumstances that fuffer the mind to enjoy itself. T itself.Tolloy on

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MEN

MEN are equally engaged by the past, the prefent, and the future, and are prepared for every Occupation that gives scope to their powers. Productions, therefore, whether of narration, fiction, or reasoning, that tend to employ the imagination, or move the heart, continue for ages a fubject of attention, and a fource of delight. The memory of human tranfactions being preferved in tradition or writing, is the natural gratification of a paffion that confifts of curiofity, admiration, and the love of amusement.

BEFORE many books are written, and before fcience is greatly advanced, the productions of mere genius are fometimes complete: The performer requires not the aid of learning where his description or story relates to near and contiguous objects; where it relates to the conduct and characters of men with whom he himself has acted, and in whofe occupations and fortunes he himfelf has bor part.

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WITH this advantage, the poet is the first to offer the fruits of his genius, and to lead in the career of thofe arts by which the mind is deftined to exhibit its imaginations, and to exprefs its paffions. Every tribe of barbarians have their passionate or historic rhymes, which contain the fuperftition, the enthufiafm, and the admiration of glory, with which the breasts of men, in the earliest state of society, are poffeffed. They delight in verfification, either

: because

becaufe the cadence of numbers is natural to the Hlanguage of fentiment, or becaufe, not having the advantage of writing, they are obliged to bring the ear in aid of the memory, in order to facilitate the repetition, and infure the prefervation of their work's.

WHEN We attend to the language which favages employ on any folemn occafion, it appears that man is a poet by nature. Whether at firft obliged by? the mere defects of his tongue, and the scantinefs of proper expreffions, or feduced by a pleasure of the fancy in ftating the analogy of its objects, hen clothes every conception in image and metaphor. "We have planted the tree of peace," fays, anb American orator; we have buried the axe underd "its roots: We will henceforth repose under its

fhade; we will join to brighten the chain that «binds our nations together." Such are the colad lections of metaphor which thofe nations employ in their public harangues. They have dikeways already adopted those lively figures, and that daring in freedom of language, which the learned have after om wards found fo well fitted to express the rapid trans hid fitions of the imagination, and the ardours of a pársilt fionate mind.

sympts on tide whoand urcitus & imitomot If we are rely on bas vorquí asɔ »ycugod to are required to explain, how men could be poets, or orators, before they were aided learning of the scholar and the criticaded by the we may in quire, in our turn, how bodies could fall by their

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weight,

weight, before the laws of gravitation were recorded in books? Mind, as well as body, has laws, which pare exemplified in the course of nature, and which the critic collects only after the example has fhewn what they are.

OCCASIONED, probably, by the phyfical connection we have mentioned, between the emotions of a heated imagination, and the impreffions received from mufic and pathetic founds, every tale among rude nations is repeated in verfe and is made to take the form of a fong. The early hiftory of all nations is uniform in this particular. Priefts, ftatéfmen, and philofophers, in the firft ages of Greece, delivered their inftructions in poetry, and mixed with the dealers in mufic and heroic fable.

It is not fo furprifing, however, that poetry should be the firft fpecies of compofition in every nation, as it is, that aftyle apparently fo difficult, and fo far removed from ordinary ufe, fhould be almost as univerfally the first to attain its maturity. The most admired of all poets lived beyond the reach of hiftory, almost of tradition. The artlefs fong of the favage, the heroic legend of the bard, have fometimes a magnificent beauty, which no change of language can improve, and no refinements of the critic reform *.mul sou

* See Translations of Gallic Poetry, by James M'Pherfon.

UNDER

UNDER' the fuppofed difadvantage of a limited knowledge, and a rude apprehenfion, the fimple poet has impreffions that more than compenfate the defects of his fkill. The beft fubjects of poetry, the characters of the violent and the brave, the ge nerous and the intrepid, great dangers, trials of fortitude and fidelity, are exhibited within his view, or are delivered in traditions which animate like truth, because they are equally believed. He is not engaged in recalling, like Virgil or Taffo, the fentiments or scenery of an age remote from his own: he needs not be told by the critic t, to recollect what another would have thought, or in what manner another would have expreffed his conception. The fimple paffions, friendship, refentment, and love, are the movements of his own mind, and he has no occafion to copy. Simple and vehement in his conceptions and feelings, he knows no diversity of thought, or of ftyle, to mislead or to exercife his judgment. He delivers the emotions of the heart, in words fuggested by the heart: for he knows no other. And hence it is, that while we admire the judgment and invention of Virgil, and of other later poets, thefe terms appear misapplied to Homer. Though intelligent, as well as fublime, in his conceptions, we cannot anticipate the lights of his understanding, nor the movements. of his heart: he appears to fpeak from infpira-, tion, not from invention; and to be guided in the

+ See Longinus.