And mad'st it pregnant: What in me is dark,
Illumine; what is low, raise and support;
That to the height of this great argument
I may assert eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men."
Having thus explained our doctrine, and having seen it corroborated by the testimony of the greatest of poets, I proceed to consider what ground or criterion this doctrine affords us for determining where the poet exercises his imagination properly, and where he exercises it perversely. If the poet's inspiration be a divine derivative, if his ideas of beauty and sublimity be not the indigenous produce of his own mind; but if his mind be, on the contrary, a product resulting from these ideas, does not this impose upon his imagination a stringent obligation to keep aloof all the promptings of his mere subjective carnal nature while exercising his lofty art? If he be the high priest of nature, if God has anointed him with power, what right has he to carry forth into that service the pictures of a sensual soul, or the passions of a fleshly heart? The poet sins against the genius he is endowed with whenever he allows the subjective current of licentious feeling to overflow the boundaries of his objective inspiration. It is not, however, necessary that the feelings should be licentious or immoral to render them amenable to condemnation. That no doubt aggravates the perversion; but it is at all times a most dangerous thing for a poet to draw upon mere subjective feeling for the purpose of giving zest to his descriptions. The feelings to
