standing the allegorical genius of this great poet, and hesitating before the outer court of his mysterious poetry, have never succeeded in understanding the sublime philosophy which is enclosed therein.
You are not, Messieurs, of those designated by Heraclides
in the words I have just quoted. Members of these celebrated
Academies where Homer and Sophocles have found
so many admirers, defenders, and illustrious disciples, you
can easily admit that I see in these great men more than
ordinary poets, that I place their glory elsewhere than in
their talent, and that I say, particularly of Homer, that
his most just claims to immortality are less in the form than
in the essence of his poetry, because a form, however admirable
it may be, passes and yields to time which destroys it,
whereas the essence or the spirit which animates it, immutable
as the Divinity from which it emanates by inspiration,
resists all vicissitudes and seems to increase in vigour and
éclat, in proportion as the centuries passing away reveal its
force and serve as evidence of its celestial origin. I flatter
myself that my sentiments in this regard are not foreign
to yours and that the successors of Corneille, Racine, and
Boileau hear with pleasure these eulogies given to the creator
of epopœia, to the founders of dramatic art, and agree with
me in regarding them as particular organs of the Divinity,
the instruments chosen for the instruction and civilization
of men.
If you deign, Messieurs, to follow the development of my ideas with as much attention as indulgence, you already know that what I call the essence or spirit of poetry, and which, following upon the steps of the founder of the Academy and of the regenerator of the sciences of Europe, I distinguish from its form, is no other thing than the allegorical genius, immediate production of the inspiration; you also understand that I mean by inspiration, the infusion of this same genius into the soul which, having power only
