etry is so natural to the stronger affections, that the most barbarous nations delight in it. And always it is found, that as the rude war song and eulogy of the dead hero refine, the manners of the age refine also. The history of the stages of poetry is the philosophical history of manners; the only history in which, with certainty, we can behold the true character of past ages. True civilization, and a humanized taste of the mental pleasures, are therefore synonimous terms. And most certain it is, where feeling and affection reside in the breast, these must be most forcibly kindled and called into action by the animated representa-
tions,
they disclose themselves, how they worke, how they vary, how they gather and fortify, how they are inwrapped one within another, and how they doe fight and encounter one with another, and other the like particularities; amongst the which this last is of special use in moral and civile matters."
Here poetry is ranked with history; in the following its effect on the passions is preferred.
"The use of this fained history (Poetry) hath been to give some shadowe of satisfaction to the mind of man in those points in which nature doth deny it: the world being in proportion inferior to the soul: By reason whereof there is agreeable to the spirit of man a more ample greatnesse, a more exact goodnesse, and a more absolute variety than can be found in the nature of things. Therefore, because the events of true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man, Poesy fayneth acts and events greater and more heroicall; because true history propoundeth the successes and issues of actions not so agreeable to the merits of virtue and vice; therefore Poesy faynes them more just in retribution, and more according to revealed Providence: because true History representeth actions and events more ordinary and less interchanged; therefore Poesy endueth them with more rarenesse, and more unexpected and alternate variations. So as it appeareth that Poesie serveth and conferreth to magnanimity, morality, and delectation: and therefore it was ever thought to have some participation of divinenesse, because it doth raise and erect the mind, by submitting the shews of things to the desires of the mind; whereas reason doth humble and bow the mind unto the nature of things."
