Understanding that the definition, or rather description, I gave of poetry in the previous lecture has left no definite idea in the minds of my auditors; and given that the whole of the Fabric I should raise in a manner rested of upon laying the foundation firmly and distinctly, I consider it necessary to add something to what I said before. It is easy to define Gold so as to distinguish it from any of the Earths, or to show the difference between a circle and a square; but with poetry it is as if I were verbally to give to an American a distinction between the English Sycamore and the American Maple—the points of similarity are so numerous that it would require much explanation and attention to show the points of distinction. The intelligibility of almost everything I have to say on the subject of poetry will depend upon me being perspicacious in my definition, because, as I have said before, it often happens that differences between men of good sense arise solely from having attached different ideas to the same words. I have been supposed by some persons to have spoken disrespectfully of that great and admirable writer, Pope—I have not perhaps determined whether or not he deserves the name of poet, but in many cases I think that if the words ‘excellent and delightful writer’ were substituted, persons disputing the merits of individual authors would agree in confessing the instance of Pope that they never looked into his writings without pleasure or laid them down without instruction.

I hope I may first be permitted to express my view that poetry is no proper antithesis to prose—in the correct opposite of poetry is science, and the correct antithesis of prose is metre. The immediate object of science is the communication and acquirement of truth; the immediate object of poetry is the communication of pleasure.