Satire's View of Senlimentalism 157 unhesitatingly declared the superiority of Inspiration over the Rules. Thus he wrote of a poor judge of poetry: In Aristotle's scale the Muse he weighs, And damps her little fire with copied lays! 2 Likewise he announced the superiority of Inspiration over imitation of the Ancients: Hail, Inspiration! whose mysterious wings Are strangers to what rigid [Johnson] sings; By him thy airy voyages are curbed, Nor moping wisdom's by thy flight disturbed; To ancient lore and musty precepts bound, Thou art forbid the range of fairy ground.* William Cowper, like Chatterton, denounced the evils of imita- tion. The great defect of the poetry of his day seemed to him to be its artificiality: From him who rears a poem lank and long, To him who strains his all into a song, . . . Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ, The substitute for genius, sense, and wit. And Pope is to blame, who, "as harmony itself exact," Made poetry a mere mechanic art, And every warbler has his tune by heart. 4 But Cowper sees still some hope for English poetry. Some originality even now redeems the moderns from disgrace: While servile trick and imitative knack Confine the million in the beaten track, Perhaps some courser who disdains the road, Snuffs up the wind and flings himself abroad. 8 2 The Poetical Works of Thomas Chatterton with an essay on the Rowley Poems by the Rev. Walter Skeat . . . and a Memoir by Edward Bell (London, 1901), I, 189; Happiness. 3 Ibid., 1, 146; Kew Gardens, first published in 1837. 4 The Poetical Works of William Cowper with notes and a memoir by John Bruce (London, 1896), I, 27, 30-31; Table Talk.
6 Ibid., I, 31.
