The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, vol 2 | Page 4

sometimes been equalised by the power of genius,

and artificial things have often been made to wring the heart or awaken
the fancy, as much or more than the other class. Think, for instance, of
the words in Lear,
"Prithee, undo this button. Thank you, sir."
What more contemptibly artificial than a button? And yet, beating in
the wind of the hysterical passion which is tearing the heart of the poor
dying king, what a powerful index of misery it becomes, and its
"undoing," as the sign of the end of the tragedy, and the letting forth of
the great injured soul, has melted many to tears! When Lady Macbeth
exclaims, in that terrible crisis,
"Give me the daggers!"'
who feels not, that, although a dagger be only an artificial thing, no
natural or supernatural thing, not the flaming sword of the Cherubim
itself, could seem, in the circumstances, more fearfully sublime. What
action more artificial than dancing, and yet how grand it seems, in
Ford's heroine, who continues to dance on till the ball is finished, while
the news of "death, and death, and death" of friend, brother, husband,
are successively recounted to her--and then herself expires! There
seems no comparison between a diamond and a star, and yet a
Shakspeare or a Schiller could so describe the trembling of a diamond
on the brow say of Belshazzar when the apparition of the writing on the
wall disturbed his impious feast, that it would seem more ideal and
more magnificent than a star "trembling on the hand of God" when
newly created, or trembling on the verge of everlasting darkness, when
its hour had come. A slipper seems a very commonplace object; but
how interesting the veritable slipper of Empedocles, who flung himself
into Etna, whose slipper was disgorged by the volcano, and as a link,
connecting the seen with the unseen, the grassy earth with the burning
entrails of the eternal furnace, became intensely imaginative! A feather
in a cap (even though it were an eagle's) seems, from its position, an
object sufficiently artificial; but how affecting the black plume of
Ravenswood floating on the waves which had engulphed the proud
head that once bore it, and which old Caleb took up, dried, and placed
in his bosom!

Nor are we sure that there are any objects so small or vulgar but what
genius could extract poetry from them. In Pope's hands, indeed, the
"clouded cane" and the "amber snuff-box" of Sir Plume assume no
ideal aspect; but in Shakspeare's it might have been different; and the
highest order of genius, like true catholicity of faith, counts "nothing
common or unclean." What poetry Burns has gathered up even in
"Poosie Nancy's," which had been lying unsuspected at the feet of
beggars, prostitutes, and pickpockets! What powerful imagination there
is in Crabbe's descriptions of poorhouses, prisons, and asylums; and in
Wordsworth's "Old Cumberland Beggar," who, although he lived and
died in the "eye of nature," was clothed in rags, and had the vulgar,
mendicant meal-bag slung over his shoulders! What pathos Scott
extracts from that "black bitch of a boat," which Mucklebackit, in the
frenzy of his grief, accuses for the loss of his son! Which of the lower
animals less poetical or coarser than a swine? and yet Shakspeare
introduces such a creature with great effect in "Macbeth," in that weird
dialogue of the witches--
"Where hast thou been, sister?"
"Killing swine."
And Goethe makes it ideal by mingling it with the mad revelry of the
"Walpurgis Night"--
"An able sow, with old Baubo upon her.
Is worthy of glory and
worthy of honour."
The whole truth on this vexed question may perhaps be summed up in
the following propositions:--1st, No object, natural or artificial, is _per
se_ out of the province of imagination; 2d, There is no infinite gulf
between natural and artificial objects, or between the higher and lower
degrees of either, as subjects for the idealising power of poetry; 3d, Ere
any object natural or artificial, become poetical, it must be subjected
more or less to the transfiguring power of imagination; and, 4th, Some
objects in nature, and some in art, need less of this transforming magic
than others, and are thus intrinsically, although not immeasurably,
superior in adaptation to the purposes of poetry.

The great point, after all, is, What eye beholds objects, whether natural
or artificial? Is it a poetical eye or not? For given a poet's eye, then it
matters little on what object that eye be fixed, it becomes poetical;
where there is intrinsic poetry--as in mountains, the sea, the sky, the
stars--it comes rushing out to the silent spell of genius; where there is
less--as in artificial objects, or the poorer productions of nature--the
mind of the poet must exert itself tenfold, and shed on