by following the gazette, as Lucan has done. The desultory parts of the
historical action must be brought together and be made to elevate and
strengthen each other, so as to press upon the mind with the full force of
their symmetry and unity. Where the events are recent and the actors known,
the only duty imposed by that circumstance on the poet is to do them
historical justice, and not ascribe to one hero the actions of another. But
the scales of justice in this case are not necessarily accompanied by the
calendar and the map.

It will occur to most of my readers that the modern modes of fighting, as
likewise the instruments and terms now used in war, are not yet rendered
familiar in poetical language. It is doubtless from an unwarrantable
timidity, or want of confidence in their own powers of description, that
modern poets have made so little use of this kind of riches that lay before
them. I confess that I imbibed the common prejudice, and remained a long
time in the error of supposing that the ancients had a poetical advantage
over us in respect to the dignity of the names of the weapons used in war,
if not in their number and variety. And when I published a sketch of the
present poem, under the title of The Vision of Columbus, I labored under
the embarrassment of that idea. I am now convinced that the advantage, at
least as to the weapons, is on the side of the moderns. There are better
sounding names and more variety in the instruments, works, stratagems and
other artifices employed in our war system than in theirs. In short, the
modern military dictionary is more copious than the ancient, and the words
at least as poetical.

As to the mode of fighting, we have, poetically speaking, lost something in
one respect, but we have gained much in another. Our battles indeed admit
but few single combats, or trials of individual prowess. They do admit them
however; and it is not impossible to describe them with as much detail and