subjected more or less to the transfiguring power of imagination; and,
4th, Some objects in nature, and some in art, need less of this
transforming magic than others, and are thus _intrinsically_, although
not _immeasurably_, superior in adaptation to the purposes of poetry.

The great point, after all, is, What eye beholds objects, whether
natural or artificial? Is it a poetical eye or not? For given a poet's
eye, then it matters little on what object that eye be fixed, it becomes
poetical; where there is intrinsic poetry--as in mountains, the sea, the
sky, the stars--it comes rushing out to the silent spell of genius;
where there is less--as in artificial objects, or the poorer productions
of nature--the mind of the poet must exert itself tenfold, and shed on
it its own wealth and glory. Now, Pope, we fear, wanted almost entirely
this true second sight. Take, for instance, the "lock" in the famous
"Rape!" What fancy, humour, wit, eloquence, he brings to play around it!
But he never touches it, even _en passant_, with a ray of poetry. You
never could dream of intertwining it with

"The tangles of Neaera's hair,"

far less with the "golden tresses" and "wanton ringlets" of our primeval
parent in the garden of Eden. Shakspeare, on the other hand, would have
made it a dropping from the shorn sun, or a mad moonbeam gone astray, or
a tress fallen from the hair of the star Venus, as she gazed too
intently at her own image in the calm evening sea. Nor will Pope leave
the "lock" entire in its beautiful smallness. He must apply a microscope
to it, and stake his fame on idealising its subdivided, single hairs.
The sylphs are created by combining the agility of Ariel with the lively
impertinence of the inhabitants of Lilliput. Yet with what ease,
elegance, and lingering love does he draw his petty Pucks, till, though