late, and stop sometimes to think of the dainty before him. All children have this scientific way of eating, when they eat for enjoyment. And so at the festive board, we attempt by the embellishment of the table, by the witchery of music, and, above all, by the fountains of conversation, to raise the entertainment from that of a mere feed up to a banquet whereof a poet might partake, and which might not be unworthy of

his song.

Under the name of touch is comprehended a number of impressions which differ from each other more widely than do the varieties of any other sense; yet few of them blossom into poetry, and still fewer bear the fruits of poesy. Perhaps the reason is not that they are of a grovelling nature, but that, from their being so customary, we pay little attention to them. And if so, we are bound in all modesty not to deny that those who do cultivate the sensations may find them poetical. Scratching the head is a notable way of getting ideas together, and Sir John Suckling seems to have regarded it as not unpoetical; for in his Aglaura, a play which, although it begins in meanness and confusion like a root underground, yet ends in a brilliant flower, he makes not only a lord of the council, but even a prince of the blood perform the operation when feeling at a loss. And have you never read that John Philips, the poet, when at school, would, instead of playing with the other boys, retire to his chamber, and there enjoy what to

him was the sovereign pleasure of sitting hour by hour while his hair was combed for him! Of the fine perceptions of that Eastern princess, who, for three hard lumps, raised by three small peas placed underneath the countless layers of feather and down on which she reclined, was utterly unable to sleep, thereby proving her royalty, who will say that they were unfitted to afford her noble pleasure? And who knows but the happiness of the Hindoo dying with a cowtail in his hand may be sublime as hers who breathes her last in a kiss? About such things we must not dispute the rather, since, of the five palaces built by Vathek to the five senses, that raised to the sense of touch was called the Dangerous. This at least may readily be granted, that a great part of the exhilarating pleasures derived from animal exercise, swimming, riding, running, leaping, and the rest, are contributed by the sense of touch.

Although in the definition of poetry put forth by Bacon and endorsed by Johnson, they deny that those spiritual, and overlook that those other enjoyments which we have been considering, belong to the domain of the poetic; it is right, before leaving this subject, to add that the language of Bacon on this head, as on many another, is sometimes so framed as to stretch like india-rubber, and take in more than he seems to have intended; and that, while Johnson's opinion, as formally expressed in the life of Waller, is thus narrow, and a good illustration of his own oracle, (would it were

not always a true oracle) that to circumscribe poetry by a definition will only show the narrowness of the definer, he has not only in other places given glimpses of a more extended theory, but in one remarkable passage, occurring in the life of Milton, has gone the length of stating with his unfailing downrightness, and so broadly as to shame all other attempts of the kind, that whatever pleasure finds a welcome in every bosom must needs be poetic: "that cannot be unpoetic with which all are pleased."

CHAPTER III.

THE LAW OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS.

MENTION is made in certain histories of a piece of music composed by Al Farabi (the philosopher who spoke seventy languages), and played before Seifeddoula, Sultan of Syria, the first movement of which threw the prince and his courtiers into fits of laughter (mere imaginative activity); the next melted all into tears (the sense of incongruity vanishing, and sympathy or harmony taking its place); while the last, grandest of all, lulled even the performers to sleep. The story may be taken as an allegory showing that the nobler activities of the mind require the unconsciousness not only of those in whom they are awakened, but also of the awakeners. With the unconsciousness of the artists we have nothing at present to do: that is a subject belonging properly to the theory of poesy. Here we are to treat of unconsciousness as the last and highest law of poetry.

To satisfy the ghost of Locke, let the question be waved, whether in very sound sleep the imagination or any other part of the mind is at work. It will,

however, be generally allowed, that in slumber it accomplishes its most astonishing feats, and that this can be said of no other faculty, unless of spirit, whose unconsciousness-the unconsciousness of the entranced seer, is still deeper. This unconsciousness, in the midst of which, and according as it becomes greater, the imagination revels with greater and greater freedom, is the crowning bliss-the native element, of poetry.

We might arrive at the same conclusion by another route. It must be evident that there are but three possible states of the mind, the poetic, the unpoetic or prosaic, and the antipoetic or philosophic. (The prosaic might also be called the unphilosophic.) Prosing cannot be the antipode of poetry, as is sometimes supposed, any more than is indifference the opposite of love; but is that dull, vacant state of the mind, when it has no eye for beauty, and no ear for truth. Philosophy and poetry, however, are true opposites; every active mind being always engaged either in philosophizing or in poetizing, according to its power. And wherein do philosophy and poetry stand opposed? They may be regarded, each as the work of the whole mind, but evolved from opposite poles. The mind, when philosophizing, dwells in the subjective or self; when poetizing, it is thrown into the objective or unself; as a consequence of which it is self-conscious in the one case, in the other self-forgetting. Very much, indeed, of what people study under the name of science or of philosophy ought