on the whole, if I had caused my Lectures to be announced only as
continuations of the main subject. But if I be, as perforce I must be,
gratified by the recollection of whatever has appeared to give you
pleasure, I am conscious of something better, though less flattering, a
sense of unfeigned gratitude for your forbearance with my defects. Like
affectionate guardians, you see without disgust the awkwardness, and
witness with sympathy the growing pains, of a youthful endeavour, and
look forward with a hope, which is its own reward, to the contingent
results of practice--to its intellectual maturity.

In my last address I defined poetry to be the art, or whatever better
term our language may afford, of representing external nature and human
thoughts, both relatively to human affections, so as to cause the
production of as great immediate pleasure in each part, as is compatible
with the largest possible sum of pleasure on the whole. Now this
definition applies equally to painting and music as to poetry; and in
truth the term poetry is alike applicable to all three. The vehicle
alone constitutes the difference; and the term 'poetry' is rightly
applied by eminence to measured words, only because the sphere of their
action is far wider, the power of giving permanence to them much more
certain, and incomparably greater the facility, by which men, not
defective by nature or disease, may be enabled to derive habitual
pleasure and instruction from them. On my mentioning these
considerations to a painter of great genius, who had been, from a most
honourable enthusiasm, extolling his own art, he was so struck with
their truth, that he exclaimed, "I want no other arguments;--poetry,
that is, verbal poetry, must be the greatest; all that proves final
causes in the world, proves this; it would be shocking to think
otherwise!"--And in truth, deeply, O! far more than words can express,
as I venerate the Last Judgment and the Prophets of Michel Angelo