refinement the reasoning powers are improved at the expense of
the imagination, we acknowledge that to this rule there are many
apparent exceptions. We are not, however, quite satisfied that
they are more than apparent. Men reasoned better, for example,
in the time of Elizabeth than in the time of Egbert; and they
also wrote better poetry. But we must distinguish between poetry
as a mental act, and poetry as a species of composition. If we
take it in the latter sense, its excellence depends not solely on
the vigour of the imagination, but partly also on the instruments
which the imagination employs. Within certain limits, therefore,
poetry may be improving while the poetical faculty is decaying.
The vividness of the picture presented to the reader is not
necessarily proportioned to the vividness of the prototype which
exists in the mind of the writer. In the other arts we see this
clearly. Should a man, gifted by nature with all the genius of
Canova, attempt to carve a statue without instruction as to the
management of his chisel, or attention to the anatomy of the
human body, he would produce something compared with which the
Highlander at the door of a snuff shop would deserve admiration.
If an uninitiated Raphael were to attempt a painting, it would be
a mere daub; indeed, the connoisseurs say that the early works of
Raphael are little better. Yet, who can attribute this to want
of imagination? Who can doubt that the youth of that great
artist was passed amidst an ideal world of beautiful and majestic
forms? Or, who will attribute the difference which appears
between his first rude essays and his magnificent Transfiguration
to a change in the constitution of his mind? In poetry, as in
painting and sculpture, it is necessary that the imitator should
be well acquainted with that which he undertakes to imitate, and
expert in the mechanical part of his art. Genius will not