LIMITATIONS TO THE IDEAL.

to set it up as the rule.

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It was remarked by Hobbes: 'For as truth is the bound of the historian, so the resemblance of truth is the utmost limit of poetical liberty'. 'Beyond the actual works of nature a poet may go; beyond the possibilities of nature never.' Scott has been blamed by Senior for introducing lucky coincidences' beyond all the bounds of probability, and of admissible exaggeration.

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On the other hand, when we give ourselves up to the enjoyment of what is entirely out of relation to the facts of experience, our first demand is self-consistency. We have entered a new world, but we require that that world should be a conceivable, if not a possible, one. In this element of self-consistency, Gulliver' is conspicuous; all the life and institutions of Lilliput, Brobdignag, &c., being ingeniously fitted to the fundamental idea. In Washington Irving's 'Rip Van Winkle,' the conception of a man coming back to life after many years of sleep, which seemed but a day to himself, with all the misunderstandings resulting, is consistently worked out. Keats's 'Endymion' is deficient in consistent adherence to a definite conception of his imaginary world.

But, further, there must be overpowering interest in the representations; that is to say, they must satisfy the laws that regulate the rise of emotion, its maintenance, its remission and its subsidence. Mere intellectual consistency is not enough. The Midsummer Night's Dream' and the Faërie Queene' sustain this interest by their poetic beauty.

5. The Ideal is powerfully helped by distance, obscurity and mystery. Everything then favours and nothing checks the outgoings of the imagination.

The slightest touch of remoteness in place or in time is apt to have thrilling influence. A good example is afforded in Wordsworth's lines :

Will no one tell me what she sings?

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,

And battles long ago.

The famous Ode on Immortality' is, from its subject, adapted to the suggestiveness and charm of Remoteness; and the poet works up the effect accordingly.

It is in the far Past, that poets have located the Golden Age: to be reproduced somehow in a distant or millennial future.

The mixture of the supernatural with the natural, as in nearly all ancient poetry, and in 'Paradise Lost,' destroys the sense of reality, except in so far as the poet makes his personages work according to human analogies, and provides

expression for human situations. The Homeric Greeks treated the Deities as actual beings, and the Iliad as a representation of actual transactions, slightly coloured. With us, to introduce a supernatural agent, like Hamlet's ghost, is almost to take away our sense of actual life. If we see a murderer found out by everyday means, we are warned of the risks attending the crime; but if a ghost from the other world is necessary, we either treat the story as a mere play of imagination, or draw the lesson that murder may pass undetected.

6. By a nearly total abnegation of the Ideal, we may still achieve what is termed Realistic Art. This depends for its effects on successful IMITATION.

Realism, in its inartistic sense, is truth to fact, irrespective of agreeable or disagreeable consequences. In this sense, to call a work too realistic' is to imply that the harsh or repulsive features of a coarse original have not been withdrawn, covered over, or softened by appropriate handling. The murder of Desdemona on the stage, with scarcely any concealment, is usually considered a piece of admissible realism.

There is another kind of realism, truly artistic in its character, where literality is sought in order to display the power of imitation. Poetry is one of the Imitative Fine Arts. Its subjects are largely derived from nature and life. Now, the skill shown by an artist in imitating or representing natural appearances, or incidents, on canvas, in marble, or in language, is a new and distinct effect, which excites pleasure and admiration; truth in Art is then a name for minute observation, and for the adapting of a foreign material to reproduce some original. This makes the Realistic school of Art: in Painting, Hogarth and Wilkie are examples; in Poetry, Crabbe is a notable instance; while in Prose Fiction, the modern tendency is all in the realistic direction.

The Realistic artist can afford to be so far truthful as not to mislead us with vain expectations. Standing mainly upon the interest of exact imitation, or fidelity to his original, he does not need to leave out the disagreeables and drawbacks inseparable from things in the actual.

ORIGINALITY A CONDITION OF GREATNESS.

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NOVELTY.

1. Under the head of Novelty, we include, also, Variety, Remission and Proportional presentation. The highest form is expressed by Originality.

Novelty is not itself properly an emotion, like Love Revenge or Fear; it is the expression of the highest force of all stimulants when newly applied.

In the real world, few things have the same effect after repetition. So in language; it is usually on the first encounter of a striking image or thought, that the resulting charm is at the highest. Novelty is the condition of many of our chief pleasures.

The literary works that have fascinated mankind, and earned the lofty title of genius, have abounded in strokes of invention or originality: witness Homer, Eschylus, Plato, Lucretius, Virgil, Horace, Dante, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, De Foe, Pope, Swift, Addison, Gray, Goethe, Scott, Byron, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats. No combination of other merits could place any one in the first rank of poetic fame.

2. Originality is qualified by the demands of the other conditions of Style.

A distinction has always been made between Invention and Refinement or Polish; some writers excelling in one, and some in the other. It has been usual to represent this distinction as one of the points in the comparison of Homer and Virgil. Among moderns, Shakespeare is pre-eminent in Originality, while occasionally deficient in the arts that constitute Elegance. Milton combines both merits. Shelley's great poetic force belongs rather to Invention than to Polish; Gray is remarkable for attention to the arts constituting Elegance and Refinement. Seeing that we must take poets as they are, we have to accept superiority in the one excellence as atoning for inferiority in the other.

3. Next to absolute originality is Variety, or the due alternation of effects.

Apart from entire novelty, we may derive enjoyment by remitting, varying or alternating modes of agreeable stimulation. After a sufficient interval, one can take delight in

revisiting impressive scenes, and in re-perusing great literary compositions.

4. Variety is sought in all the constituents of style.

The frequent recurrence of the same sound is unpleasing, Hence it is a law of melody to alternate the letters of the alphabet. (See MELODY.)

So in Metres. While each metre has a definite form, not to be departed from, there may be a great many variations within that form. Shakespeare excels every other writer of blank verse in ringing changes within the type.

5. The varying of Words is a means of rhetorical effect.

The following is an example from Helps:

'The voyage is recommenced. They sail by the sandy shore of Araya, see the lofty cocoa-nut trees that stand over Cumana, pursue their way along that beautiful coast, noticing the Piritu palm of Maracapana, then traverse the difficult waters of the gloomy Golofo Triste, pass the province of Venezuela, catch a glimpse of the white summits of the mountains above Santa Martha, continue on their course to Darien, now memorable for the failure of so many great enterprises-and still no temple, no great idol, no visible creed, no cultus.'

The studied variation of the terms is often carried too far; and there is seen in some eminent writers a readiness to incur repetition to a degree that would once have been reckoned inelegant. In this sentence from Macaulay, we find both variety and repetition: As there is no stronger sign of a mind destitute of the poetical faculty than the tendency to turn images into abstractionsMinerva, for example, into Wisdom-- -so there is no stronger sign of a mind truly poetical than a disposition to reverse the process, and to make individuals out of generalities'.

Copiousness of language is thus a condition of literary genius. Here also Shakespeare stands pre-eminent; his superiority being shown by a numerical computation of his vocabulary. It has been remarked of Victor Hugo that the number of words used in his writings is very great in comparison with other French writers.

The demand for copiousness and variety of diction is opposed to the prescription, sometimes given, to adhere as closely as possible to our purely Saxon vocabulary. Even when Saxon terms are adequate to express our meaning, we need not always forbid ourselves the use of the classical equivalents.

SCOPE FOR VARIETY.

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6. Variety is sought also in the length and structure of Sentences.

However well composed an author's sentences may be, the frequent repetition of the same form becomes wearisome; the more so, if the form is marked in character.

There is a manifest overdoing of one type in the curt sentences of Channing and of Macaulay, and in the artificial balancing of Johnson, and his imitator, Gibbon.

7. Alternation is requisite in Figurative effects.

It is an abuse to deal exclusively in any one figure; while figures altogether may be out of proportion. In the Philippics of Demosthenes, the Interrogation occurs too frequently. Pope's Epigrams are carried to excess. The interest of a composition may be best sustained by employing all the Figures in due alternation; now a simile or a metaphor, at another time a metonymy, then a contrast, again an epigram, a hyperbole, an interrogation or a climax.

8. Still wider in sweep is the demand for varying the Interest as a Whole.

To impart the highest enjoyment by a verbal composition, or any other production of art, it is necessary to work upon the most powerful feelings of the mind. This does not exclude the appeal to the less powerful. On the contrary, every legitimate source of interest should be drawn upon, with the understanding that the space occupied is exactly in proportion to the value as interest. The love passion being, in every respect, a first-class emotion, it occupies a leading place in poetic story. Nevertheless, it is intermitted, and alternated, not merely with other first-class emotions, as malignity, but with minor forms of interest, such as the common utilities of life; and if these are dwelt upon only in proportion to their degree of charm, their introduction is so much gain.

It is possible to protract the glow of any single passion, by varying its embodiment, or multiplying its situations, accessories and surroundings,-as in the invention of a complex plot. This is one of the many forms of poetic invention.

It is only after reviewing the special qualities of style that the various kinds of interest can be classified and their