Bot-S: Vol 39: The Classics

Much less are natural imperfections the object of derision: but 
when ugliness aims at the applause of beauty, or lameness endeavours 
to display agility; it is then that these unfortunate circumstances, 
which at first moved our compassion, tend only to raise our mirth. 
The poet carries this very far; 
None are for being what they are in fault, 
But for not being what they would be thought. 
Where if the metre would suffer the word Ridiculous to close the 
first line, the thought would be rather more proper. Great vices are 
the proper objects of our detestation, smaller faults of our pity: but 
affectation appears to me the only true source of the Ridiculous. 
But perhaps it may be objected to me, that I have against my own 
rules introduced vices, and of a very black kind into this work. To 
this I shall answer: First, that it is very difficult to pursue a series 
of human actions and keep clear from them. Secondly, that the vices 
to be found here, are rather the accidental consequences of some 
human frailty, or foible, than causes habitually existing in the mind. 
Thirdly, that they are never set forth as the objects of ridicule, but 
detestation. Fourthly, that they are never the principal figure at that 
time on the scene; lastly, they never produce the intended evil. 



PREFACE TO THE 
ENGLISH DICTIONARY 


BY SAMUEL JOHNSON (1755) 


I T IS the fate of those who toil at the lower employments of 
life, to be rather driven by the fear of evil, than attracted by the 
prospect of good; to be exposed to censure, without hape of 
praise; to be disgraced by miscarriage, or punished for neglect, where 
success would have been without applause, and diligence without 
reward. 
Among these unhappy mortals is the writer of dictionaries; whom 
mankind have considered, not as the pupil, but the slave of science, 
the pioneer of literature, doomed only to remove rubbish and clear 
obstructions from the paths through which Learning and Genius 
press forward to conquest and glory, without bestowing a smile on 
the humble drudge that facilitates their progress. Every other author 
may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape re- 
proach, and even this negative recompense has been yet granted to 
very few. 
I have, notwithstanding this discouragement, attempted a Dic- 
tionary of the English Language, which, while it was employed in 
the cultivation of every species of literature, has itself been hitherto 
neglected; suffered to spread, under the direction of chance, into 
wild exuberance; resigned to the tyranny of time and fashion; and 
exposed to the corruptions of ignorance, and caprices of innova- 
tion. 
For a sketch of Johnson's life, see the introduction to "Life of Addison" in the 
volume of English Essays. The interest of his preface to the great Dictionary need 
hardly be pointed out, since the work itself is a landmark in the history of our 
language. The letter to Chesterfield, short though it is, is a document of great 
importance in the freeing of literature from patronage, and is in itself a notable piece 
of literature. The preface to Johnson's edition of Shakespeare's plays not only explains 
the editor's conception of his task, but contains what is perhaps the best appreciation 
of the dramatist written in the eighteenth century. 
182 



TO THE DICTIONARY 183 
When I took the first survey of my undertaking, I found our 
speech copious without order, and energetic without rule: wherever 
I turned my view, there was perplexity to be disentangled and con- 
fusion to be regulated; choice was to be made out of boundless 
variety, without any established principle of selection; adulterations 
were to be detected, without a settled test of purity; and modes of 
expression to be rejected or received, without the suffrages of any 
writers of classical reputation or acknowledged authority. 
Having therefore no assistance but from general grammar, I ap- 
plied myself to the perusal of our writers; and noting whatever 
might be of use to ascertain or illustrate any word or phrase, accumu- 
lated in time the materials of a dictionary, which, by degrees, I 
reduced to method, establishing to myself, in the progress of the 
work, such as experience and analogy suggested to me; experience, 
which practice and observation were continually increasing; and 
analogy, which, though in some words obscure, was evident in others. 
In adjusting the ORTHOGRAPHY, which has been to this time unset- 
tled and fortuitous, I found it necessary to distinguish those irregu- 
larities that are inherent in our tongue, and perhaps coeval with it, 
from others which the ignorance or negligence of later writers has 
produced. Every language has its anomalies, which though incon- 
venient, and in themselves once unnecessary, must be tolerated 
among the imperfections of human things, and which require only 
to be registered, that they may not be increased; and ascertained, 
that they may not be confounded: but every language has likewise 
its improprieties and absurdities, which it is the duty of the lexicogra- 
pher to correct or proscribe. 
As language was at its beginning merely oral, all words of 
necessary or common use were spoken before they were written; 
and ,vhile they were unfixed by any visible signs, must have been 
spoken with great diversity, as we now observe those who cannot 
read to catch sounds imperfectly, and utter them negligently. When 
this wild and barbarous jargon was first reduced to an alphabet, every 
penman endeavored to express, as he could, the sounds which he 
was accustomed to pronounce or to receive, and vitiated in writing 
such words as were already vitiated in speech. The powers of the 
letters, when they were applied to a new language, must have been 



18 4 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
vague and unsettled, and therefore different hands would exhibit 
the same sound by different combinations. 
From this uncertain pronunciation arise in a great part the 
various dialects of the same country, which \vill always be observed 
to grow fewer, and less different, as books are multiplied; and from 
this arbitrary representation of sounds by letters proceeds that 
di versity of spelling observable in the Saxon remains, and I suppose 
in the first books of every nation, which perplexes or destroys 
analogy, and produces anomalous formations, which, being once 
incorporated can never be afterward dismissed or reformed. 
Of this kind are the derivatives length from long, strength from 
strong, darling from dear, breadth from broad, from dry, drought, 
and from high, height, which Milton, in zeal for analogy, writes 
highth. 'Quid te exempt a juvat spinis de pluribus una?' To change 
all would be too much, and to change one is nothing. 
This uncertainty is most frequent in the vowels, which are so 
capriciously pronounced, and so differently modified, by accident or 
affectation, not only in every province, but in every mouth, thdt to 
them, as is well known to etymologists, little regard is to be shown 
in the deduction of one language from another. 
Such defects are not errors in orthography, but spots of barbarity 
impressed so deep in the English language, that criticism can never 
wash then1 away: these, therefore, must be permitted to remain un- 
touched; but many words have likewise been altered by accident, or 
depraved by ignorance, as the pronunciation of the vulgar has been 
weakly followed; and some still continue to be variously written, 
as authors differ in their care or skill: of these it was proper to inquire 
the true orthography, which I have ahvays considered as depending 
on their derivation, and have therefore referred them to their original 
languages; thus I write enchant, enchantment, enchanter, after the 
French, and incantation after the Latin; thus entire is chosen rather 
than in tire, because it passed to us not from the Latin integer, but 
from the French entier. 
Of many words it is difficult to say whether they were immediately 
received from the Latin or the French, since at the time when we had 
dominions in France, we had Latin service in our churches. It is, 
however, my opinion that the French generally 5upplied us; for we 



TO THE DICTIONARY 185 
have few Latin words, among the terms of domestic use, which are 
not French; but many French, which are very remote from Latin. 
Even in \vords of which the derivation is apparent, I have been 
often obliged to sacrifice uniformity to custom; thus I write, in com- 
pliance with a numberless majority, convey and inveigh, deceit and 
receipt, Janey and phantom; sometimes the derivative varies from the 
primiti ve, as explain and explanation, repeat and repetition. 
Some combinations of letters having the same power, are used 
indifferently without any discoverable reason of choice, as in choak, 
choke; soap, sope; Jewel, fuel, and many others; which I have some- 
times inserted twice, that those vvho search for them under either 
form, may not search in vain. 
In examining the orthography of any doubtful word, the mode of 
spelling by which it is inserted in the series of the dictionary, is to 
be considered as that to which I give, perhaps not often rashly, the 
preference. I have left, in the examples, to every author his own 
practice unmolested, that the reader may balance suffrages, and 
judge between us: but this question is not always to be determined by 
reputed or by real learning; some men, intent upon greater things, 
have thought little on sounds and derivations; some, knowing in the 
ancient tongues, have neglected those in which our words are com- 
monly to be sought. Thus Hammond writes fecibleness for feasible- 
ness, because I suppose he imagined it derived immediately from the 
Latin; and some words, such as dependant, dependent; dependance, 
dependence, vary their final syllable, as one or other language is 
present to the writer. 
In this part of the work, where caprice has long wantoned without 
control, and vanity sought praise by petty reformation, I have en- 
deavored to proceed with a scholar's reverence for antiquity, and a 
grammarian's regard to the genius of our tongue. I have attempted 
few alterations, and among those few, perhaps the greater part is 
from the modern to the ancient practice; and I hope I may be 
allowed to recommend to those, whose thoughts have been perhaps 
employed too anxiously on verbal singularities, not to disturb, upon 
narrow views, or for minute propriety, the orthography of their 
fathers. It has been asserted, that for the law to be known, is of more 
importance than to be right. 'Change,' says Hooker, 'is not made 



186 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
without inconvenience, even from worse to better.' There is in 
constancy and stability a general and lasting advantage, which will 
always overbalance the slow improvements of gradual correction. 
Much less ought our written language to comply with the corruptions 
of oral utterance, or copy that which every variation of time or 
place makes different from itself, and imitate those changes, which 
will again be changed, while imitation is employed in observing 
them. 
This recommendation of steadiness and uniformity does not pro- 
ceed from an opinion that particular combinations of letters have 
much influence on human happiness; or that truth may not be 
successfully taught by modes of spelling fanciful and erroneous; I 
am not yet so lost in lexicography as to forget that 'words are the 
daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven.' Language 
is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of 
ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to 
decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which 
they denote. 
In settling the orthography, I have not wholly neglected the pro- 
nunciation, which I have directed, by printing an accent upon the 
acute or elevated syllable. It will sometimes be found that the accent 
is placed by the author quoted, on a different syllable from that 
marked in the alphabetical series; it is then to be understood, that 
custom has varied, or that the author has, in my opinion, pronounced 
wrong. Short directions are sometimes given where the sound of 
letters is irregular; and if they are sometimes omitted, defect in such 
minute observations will be more easily excused, than superfluity. 
In the investigation, both of the orthography and signification 
of words, their ETYMOLOGY was necessarily to be considered, and they 
were therefore to be divided into primitives and derivatives. A primi- 
tive word is that which can be traced no further to any English root; 
thus circumspect, circumvent, circumstance, delude, concave, and 
complicate, though compounds in the Latin, are to us primitives. 
Deri vati ves, are all those that can be referred to any word in English 
of greater simplicity. 
The derivatives I have referred to their primitives, with an accuracy 
sometimes needless; for who does not see that remoteness comes 



TO THE DICTIONARY 


18 7 


from remote, lovely from love, concavity from concave, and demon- 
strative from demonstrate? But this grammatical exuberance the 
scheme of my work did not allow me to repress. It is of great im- 
portance, in examining the general fabric of a language, to trace one 
word from another, by noting the usual modes of derivation and 
inflection; and uniformity must be preserved in systematical works; 
though sometimes at the expense of particular propriety. 
Among other derivatives I have been careful to insert and elucidate 
the anomalous plurals of nouns and preterites of verbs, which in the 
Teutonic dialects are very frequent, and, though familiar to those 
who have always used them, interrupt and embarrass the learners 
of our language. 
The two languages from which our primitives have been derived, 
are the Roman and Teutonic: under the Roman, I comprehend the 
French and provincial tongues; and under the Teutonic, range the 
Saxon, German, and all their kindred dialects. Most of our poly- 
syllables are Roman, and our words of one syllable are very often 
Teutonic. 
In assigning the Roman original, it has perhaps sometimes hap- 
pened that I have mentioned only the Latin, when the word was 
borrowed from the French; and considering myself as employed only 
in the illustration of my own language, I have not been very careful 
to observe whether the Latin would be pure or barbarous, or the 
French elegant or obsolete. 
For the Teutonic etymologies, I am commonly indebted to Junius 
and Skinner, the only names which I have forborne to quote when I 
copied their books; not that I might appropriate their labors or usurp 
their honors, but that I might spare perpetual repetition by one 
general acknowledgment. Of these, whom I ought not to mention 
but with the reverence due to instructors and benefactors, Junius 
appears to have excelled in extent of learning, and Skinner in recti- 
tude of understanding. Junius was accurately skilled in all the 
northern languages, Skinner probably examined the ancient and 
remoter dialects only by occasional inspection into dictionaries; but 
the learning of J uni us is often of no other use than to show him a 
track by which he may deviate from his purpose, to which Skinner 
always presses forward by the shortest way. Skinner is often igno
 



188 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
rant, but never ridiculous: Junius is always full of knowledge; but his 
variety distracts his judgment, and his learning is very frequently 
disgraced by his absurdities. 
The votaries of the northern muses will not perhaps easily restrain 
their indignation, when they find the name of Junius thus degraded 
by a disadvantageous comparison; but whatever reverence is due to 
his diligence, or his attainments, it can be no criminal degree of 
censoriousness to charge that etymologist \vith want of judgment, 
who can seriously derive dream from dran1a, because 'life is a drama 
and a drama is a dream'; and who declares with a tone of defiance, 
that no man can fail to derive moan from JjÃ³vo
, monos, single or soli- 
tary, who considers that grief naturally loves to be alone. 
Our knowledge of the northern literature is so scanty, that of 
words undoubtedly Teutonic, the original is not always to be found 
in an ancient language; and I have therefore inserted Dutch or 
German substitutes, which I consider not as radical, but parallel, not 
as the parents, but sisters of the English. 
The words which are represented as thus related by descent or 
cognation, do not always agree in sense; for it is incident to words, 
as to their authors, to degenerate from their ancestors, and to change 
their manners when they change their country. It is sufficient, in 
etymological inquiries, if the senses of kindred words be found such 
as may easily pass into each other, or such as may both be referred 
to one general idea. 
The etymology, so far as it is yet known, "vas easily found in the 
volumes, where it is particularly and professedly delivered; and, by 
proper attention to the rules of derivation, the orthography was soon 
adjusted. But to COLLECT THE WORDS of our language was a task of 
greater difficulty: the deficiency of dictionaries was immediately 
apparent; and when they were exhausted, what was yet wanting 
must be sought by fortuitous and unguided excursions into books 
and gleaned as industry should find, or chance should offer it, in 
the boundless chaos of a living speech. My search, however, has 
been either skilful or lucky; for I have nluch augmented the 
vocabulary. 
As my design was a dictionary, common or appellative, I have 



TO THE DICTIONARY 


18 9 


omitted all words which have relation to proper names; such as 
Arian, Socinian, Calvinist, Benedictine, Mahometan; but have 
retained those of a more general nature, as Heathen, Pagan. 
Of the terms of art I have received such as could be found either 
in books of science or technical dictionaries; and have often inserted, 
from philosophical writers, words which are supported perhaps only 
by a single authority, and which, being not admitted into general 
use, stand yet as candidates or probationers, and must depend for 
their adoption on the suffrage of futurity.. The words which our 
authors have introduced by their knowledge of foreign languages, 
or ignorance of their own, by vanity or wantonness, by compliance 
with fashion or lust of innovation, I have registered as they occurred, 
though commonly only to censure them, and warn others against the 
folly of naturalizing useless foreigners to the injury of the natives. 
I have not rejected any by design, merely because they \vere unnec- 
essary or exuberant; but have received those which by different 
writers have been differently formed, as viscid, and viscidity, viscous, 
and viscosity. 
Compounded or double words I have seldom noted, except when 
they obtain a signification different from that which the components 
have in their simple state. 
Thus hightvayman, woodman, and horsecourser, require an ex- 
planation; but of thieflike; or coach driver, no notice was needed, 
because the primitives contain the meaning of the compounds.. 
Words arbitrarily formed by a constant and settled analogy, like 
diminutive adjectives in ish, as greenish, bluish; adverbs in ly, as 
dully, openly; substantives in ness, as vileness, faultiness; were less 
diligently sought, and many sometimes have been omitted, when I 
had no authority that invited me to insert them; not that they are not 
genuine, and regular offsprings of English roots, but because their 
relation to the primitive being always the same, their signification 
cannot be mistaken. 
The verbal nouns in ing, such as the keeping of the castle, the 
leading of the army, are always neglected, or placed only to illustrate 
the sense of the verb, except when they signify things as well as 
actions, and have therefore a plural number, as dwelling, living; or 



19 0 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
have an absolute and abstract signification, as coloring, painting, 
learnin g. 
The participles are likewise omitted, unless, by signifying rather 
habit or quality than action, they take the nature of adjectives; as a 
thinking man, a man of prudence; a pacing horse, a horse that can 
pace: these I have ventured to call participial adjectives. But neither 
are these always inserted, because they are commonly to be under- 
stood without any danger of mistake, by consulting the verb. 
Obsolete words are admitted when they are found in authors not 
obsolete, or when they have any force or beauty that may deserve 
revi val. 
As composition is one of the chief characteristics of a language, I 
have endeavored to make some reparation for the universal negli- 
gence of my predecessors, by inserting great numbers of compounded 
words, as may be found under after, fore, new, night, fair, and many 
more. These, numerous as they are, might be multiplied, but that 
use and curiosity are here satisfied, and the frame of our language 
and modes of our combination amply discovered. 
Of some forms of composition, such as that by which re is prefixed 
to note repetition, and un to signify contrariety or privation, all the 
examples cannot be accumulated, because the use of these particles, 
if not wholly arbitrary, is so little limited, that they are hourly affixed 
to new words as occasion requires, or is imagined to require them. 
There is another kind of composition more frequent in our lan- 
guage than perhaps in any other, from which arises to foreigners the 
greatest difficulty. We modify the signification of many verbs by a 
particle subjoined; as to come 00, to escape by a fetch; to fall on, 
to attack; fall 00, to apostatize; to break 00, to stop abruptly; to 
bear out, to justify; to fall in, to comply; to give over, to cease; to 
set 00, to embellish; to set in, to begin a continual tenor; to set out, 
to begin a course or journey; to tal(e 00, to copy; with innumerable 
expressions of the same kind, of which some appear wildly irregular, 
being so far distant from the sense of the simple words, that no 
sagacity will be able to trace the steps by which they arrived at the 
present use. These I have noted with great care; and though I 
cannot flatter myself that the collection is complete, I believe I have 
so far assisted the students of our language that this kind of phrase- 



TO THE DICTIONARY 19 1 
ology will be no longer insuperable; and the combinations of verbs 
and particles, by chance omitted, will be easily explained by compari- 
son with those that may be found. 
Many word
 yet stand supported only by the name of Bailey, 
Ainsworth, Philips, or the contracted Diet. for Dictionaries, sub. 
joined; of these I am not ahvays certain that they are read in any 
book but the works. of lexicographers. Of such I have omitted many, 
because I had never read them; and many I have inserted, because 
they may perhaps exist, though they have escaped my notice: they 
are, however, to be yet considered as resting only upon the credit of 
former dictionaries. Others, which I considered as useful, or know to 
be proper, though I could not at present support them by authorities, 
I have suffered to stand upon my own attestation, claiming the same 
privilege with my predecessors, of being sometimes credited without 
proof. 
The words, thus seleoted and disposed, are grammatically con- 
sidered; they are referred to the different parts of speech; traced 
when they are irregularly inflected, through their various termina- 
tions; and illustrated by observations, not indeed of great or striking 
importance, separately considered, but necessary to the elucidation of 
our language, and hitherto neglected or forgotten by English 
grammanans. 
That part of my work on which I expect malignity most frequently 
to fasten, is the EXPLANATION; in which I cannot hope to satisfy those, 
who are perhaps not inclined to be pleased, since I have not always 
been able to satisfy myself. To interpret a language by itself is very 
difficult; many words cannot be eXplained by synonimes, because the 
idea signified by them has not more than one appellation; nor by 
paraphrase, because simple ideas cannot be described. When the 
nature of things is unkno\vn, or the notion unsettled and indefinite, 
and various in various minds, the words by which such notions are 
conveyed, or such things denoted, will be ambiguous and perplexed. 
And such is the fate of hapless lexicography, that not only darkness, 
but light impedes and distresses it; things may be not only too little, 
but too much known, to be happily illustrated. To explain, requires 
the use of terms less abstruse than that which is to be explained, and 
such terms cannot always be found; for as nothing can be proved but 



19 2 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
by supposing something intuitively kno\vn, and evident without 
proof, so nothing can be defined but by the use of words too plain to 
admit a definition. 
Other words there are, of which the sense is too subtle and evanes- 
cent to be fixed in a paraphrase; such are all those ,vhich are by the 
grammarians termed expletives, and, in dead languages, are suffered 
to pass for empty sounds, of no other use than to fill a verse, or to 
modulate a period, but which are easily perceived in living tongues 
to have power and emphasis, though it be sometimes such as no other 
form of expression can convey. 
My labor has likewise been much increased by a class of verbs too 
frequent in the English language, of which the signification is so 
loose and general, the use so vague and indeterminate, and the 
senses detorted so widely from the first idea, that it is hard to trace 
them through the maze of variation, to catch them on the brink of 
utter inanity, to circumscribe them by any limitations, or interpret 
them by any words of distinct and settled meaning; such are bear ÃŸ 
breakÃŸ come ÃŸ cast ÃŸ full, get ÃŸ give, dO ÃŸ put, set, gOÃŸ run, make, take, 
turn, throtv. If of these the whole power is not accurately delivered, 
it must be remembered, that while our language is yet living, and 
variable by the caprice of everyone that speaks it, these words are 
hourly shifting their relations, and can no more be ascertained in a 
dictionary, than a grove, in the agitation of a storm, can be accurately 
delineated from its picture in the water. 
The partides are among all nations applied with so great latitude, 
that they are not easily reducible under any regular scheme of expli- 
cation: this difficulty is not less, nor perhaps greater, in English, 
than in other languages. I have labored them with diligence, I 
hope with success; such at least as can be expected in a task, which 
no man, however learned or sagacious, has yet been able to per- 
form. 
Some words there are which I cannot explain, because I do not 
understand them; these might have been omitted very often with 
little inconvenience, but I would not so far indulge my vanity as to 
decline this confession: for when Tully owns himself ignorant 
whether lessus ÃŸ in the twelve tables, means a funeral song, or mourn- 
ing garment ÃŸ . and Aristotle doubts whether ovpEÃºr in the Iliad 



TO THE DICTIONARY 193 
signifies a mule, or muleteer, I may surely without shame, leave 
some obscurities to happier industry, or future information. 
The rigor of interpretative lexicography requires that the explana- 
tion, and the word explained should be always reciprocal; this I have 
always endeavoured, but could not always attain. Words are seldom 
exactly synonymous; a new term was not introduced, but because 
the former was thought inadequate: names, therefore, have often 
many ideas, but few ideas have many names. It ,vas then necessary 
to use the proximate word, for the deficiency of single terms can very 
seldom be supplied by circumlocution; nor is the inconvenience 
great of such mutilated interpretations, because the sense may easily 
be collected entire from the examples. 
In every word of extensive use, it was requisite to mark the prog- 
ress of its meaning, and show by \vhat gradations of intermediate 
sense it has passed from its primitive to its remote and accidental 
signification; so that every foregoing explanation should tend to that 
\vhich follows, and the series be regularly concatenated from the 
first notion to the last. 
This is specious, but not always practicable; kindred senses may be 
so interwoven, that the perplexity cannot be disentangled, nor any 
reason be assigned \vhy one should be ranged before the other. When 
the radical idea branches out into parallel ramifications, how can 
a consecutive series be formed of senses in their nature collateral? 
The shades of meaning sometimes pass imperceptibly into each other, 
so that though on one side they apparently differ, yet it is impossible 
to mark the point of contact. Ideas of the same race, though not 
exactly alike, are sometimes so little different, that no words can 
express the dissimilitude, though the mind easily perceives it when 
they are exhibited together; and sometimes there is such a confusion 
of acceptations, that discernment is wearied and distinction puzzled, 
and perseverance herself hurries to an end, by crowding together 
what she cannot separate. 
These complaints of difficulty will, by those that have never con- 
sidered words beyond their popular use, be thought only the jargon 
of a man willing to magnify his labors, and procure veneration to his 
studies by involution and obscurity. But every art is obscure to those 
that have not learned it; this uncertainty of terms, and commixture 



194 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
of ideas, is well known to those who have joined philosophy with 
grammar; and if I have not expressed them very clearly, it must be 
remembered that I am speaking of that which words are insufficient 
to explain. 
The original sense of words is often driven out of use by their 
metaphorical acceptations, yet must be inserted for the sake of a 
regular origination. Thus I know not whether ardor is used for 
material heat, or whether flagrant, in English, ever signifies the 
same with burning; yet such are the primitive ideas of these words, 
which are therefore set first, though without examples, that the 
figurative senses may be commodiously deduced. 
Such is the exuberance of signification which many words have 
obtained, that it was scarcely possible to collect all their senses; some- 
times the meaning of derivatives must be sought in the mother term, 
and sometimes deficient explanations of the primitive may be sup- 
plied in the train of derivation. In any case of doubt or difficulty, 
it will be always proper to examine all the words of the same race; 
for some words are slightly passed over to avoid repetition, some 
admitted easier and clearer explanation than others, and all will be 
better understood, as they are considered in greater variety of struc- 
tures and relations. 
All the interpretations of words are not written with the same 
skill, or the same happiness: things eq uall y easy in themselves, are 
not all equally easy to any single mind. Every writer of a long word 
commits errors, where there appears neither ambiguity to mislead, 
nor obscurity to confound him; and in a search like this, many 
felicities of expression will be casually overlooked, many convenient 
parallels will be forgotten, and many particulars will admit im- 
provement from a mind utterly unequal to the whole performance. 
But many seeming faults are to be imputed rather to the nature 
of the undertaking, than the negligence of the performer. Thus 
some explanations are unavoidably reciprocal or circular, as hind, the 
female of the stag; stag, the male of the hind: sometimes easier 
words are changed into harder, as burial into sepulture, or interment, 
drier into desiccative, dryness into siccity or aridity, fit into parox- 
ysm; for the easiest word, whatever it be, can never be translated into 
one more easy. But easiness and difficulty are merely relative; and 



TO THE DICTIONARY 195 
if the present prevalence of our language should invite foreigners to 
this Dictionary, many will be assisted by those words which now 
seem only to increase or produce obscurity. For this reason I have 
endeavoured frequently to join a Teutonic and Roman interpreta- 
tion, as to cheer, to gladden or exhilarate, that every learner of 
English may be assisted by his o,vn tongue. 
The solution of all difficulties, and the supply of all defects must 
be sought in the examples, subjoined to the various senses of each 
word, and ranged according to the time of their authors. 
When I first collected these authorities, I was desirous that every 
quotation should be useful to some other end than the illustration of 
a word; I therefore extracted from philosophers principles of science; 
from historians remarkable facts; from chymists complete processes; 
from divines striking exhortations; and from poets beautiful descrip- 
tions. Such is design, while it is yet at a distance from execution. 
When the time called upon me to range this accumulation of ele- 
gance and wisdom into an alphabetical series, I soon discovered that 
the bulk of my volumes would fright away the student, and was 
forced to depart from my scheme of including all that was pleasing 
or useful in English literature, and reduce my transcripts very often 
to clusters of words, in \vhich scarcely any meaning is retained; thus 
to the weariness of copying, I was condemned to add the vexation 
of expunging. Some passages I have yet spared, which may relieve 
the labor of verbal searches, and intersperse with verdure and flowers 
the dusty desarts of barren philology. 
The examples, thus mutilated, are no longer to be considered as 
conveying the sentiments or doctrine of their authors; the word for 
the sake of which they are inserted, with all its appendant clauses, 
has been carefully preserved; but it may sometimes happen, by hasty 
detruncation, that the general tendency of the sentence may be 
changed: the divine may desert his tenets, or the philosopher his 
system. 
Some of the examples have been taken from writers who were 
never mentioned as masters of elegance, or models of style; but words 
must be sought where they are used; and in what pages, eminent 
for purity, can terms of manufacture or agriculture be found? Many 
quotations serve no other purpose than that of proving the bare 



196 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
existence of words, and are therefore selected with less scrupulous- 
ness than those which are to teach their structures and relations. 
My purpose was to admit no testimony of living authors, that I 
might not be misled by partiality, and that none of my contempo- 
raries might have reason to complain; nor have I departed from 
this resolution, but when some performance of uncommon excellence 
excited my veneration, when my memory supplied me, from late 
books, with an example that was wanting, or when my heart, in the 
tenderness of friendship, solicited admission for a favorite name. 
So far have I been fron1 any care to grace my pages with modern 
decorations, that I have studiously endeavored to collect examples 
and authorities from the writers before the Restoration, whose works 
I regard as the 'wells of English undefiled,' as the pure sources of 
genuine diction. Our language, for almost a century, has, by the 
concurrence of many causes, been gradually departing from its 
original Teutonic character and deviating towards a Gallic structure 
and phraseology, from which it ought to be our endeavor to recall it, 
by making our ancient volumes the ground-work of style, admitting 
among the additions of later times, only such as may supply real 
deficiencies, such as are readily adopted by the genius of our tongue, 
and incorporate easily with our native idioms. 
But as every language has a time of rudeness antecedent to perfec- 
tion, as well as of false refinement and declension, I have been cau- 
tious lest my zeal for antiquity might drive me into times too remote, 
and crowd my book with words now no longer understood. I have 
fixed Sidney's work for the boundary, beyond which I make few 
excursions. From the authors which rose in the time of Elizabeth, 
a speech might be formed adequate to all the purposes of use and 
elegance. If the language of theology were extracted from Hooker 
and the translation of the Bible; the terms of natural knowledge from 
Bacon; the phrases of policy, war, and navigation from Raleigh; 
the dialect of poetry and fiction from Spenser and Sidney; and the 
diction of common life from Shakespeare, few ideas would be lost 
to mankind, for want of English words in which they might be 
expressed. 
It is not sufficient that a word is found, unless it be so combined as 
that its meaning is apparently determined by the tract and tenor of 



TO THE DICTIONARY 


197 


the sentence; such passages I have therefore chosen, and when it 
happened that any author gave a definition of a term, or such an 
explanation as is equivalent to a definition, I have placed his author- 
ity as a supplement to my own, without regard to the chronological 
order that is otherwise observed. 
Some words, indeed, stand unsupported by any authority, but they 
are commonly derivative nouns or adverbs, formed from their primi- 
tives by regular and constant analogy, or names of things seldom 
occurring in books, or words of which I have reason to doubt the 
existence. 
There is more danger of censure from the multiplicity than paucity 
of examples; authorities will sometimes seem to have been accumu- 
lated without necessity or use, and perhaps some will be found, which 
might, without loss, have been omitted. But a work of this kind is 
not hastily to be charged with superfluities; those quotations, which 
to careless or unskillful perusers appear only to repeat the same sense, 
will often exhibit, to a more accurate examiner, diversities of signifi- 
cation, or, at least, afford different shades of the same meaning: one 
will show the word applied to persons, another to things; one will 
express an ill, another a good, and a third a neutral sense; one will 
prove the expression genuine from an ancient author; another \\Till 
show it elegant from a modern: a doubtful authority is corroborated 
by another of more credit; an ambiguous sentence is ascertained by a 
passage clear and determinate: the word, how often soever repeated, 
appears with new associates and in different combinations, and every 
quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of 
the language. 
When words are used equivocally, I receive them in either sense; 
when they are metaphorical, I adopt them in their primitive accep- 
tation. 
I have sometimes, though rarely, yielded to the temptation of 
exhibiting a genealogy of sentiments, by showing how one author 
copied the thoughts and diction of another: such quotations are 
indeed little more than repetitions, which might justly be censured, 
did they not gratify the mind, by affording a kind of intellectual 
history. 
The various syntactical structures occurring in the examples have 



19 8 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
been carefully noted; the license or negligence with which many 
words have been hitherto used, has made our style capricious and 
indeterminate; when the different combinations of the same word 
are exhibited together, the preference is readily given to propriety, 
and I have often endeavored to direct the choice. 
Thus have I labored by settling the orthography, displaying the 
analogy, regulating the structures, and ascertaining the signification 
of English words, to perform all the parts of a faithful lexicographer : 
but I have not always executed my own scheme, or satisfied my own 
expectations. The work, whatever proofs of diligence and attention 
it may exhibit, is yet capable of many improvements: the orthog- 
raphy which I recommend is still controvertible; the etymology 
which I adopt is uncertain, and perhaps frequently erroneous; the 
explanations are sometimes too much contracted, and sometimes 
too much diffused, the significations are distinguished rather with 
subtlety than skill, and the attention is harassed with unnecessary 
min uteness. 
The examples are too often injudiciously truncated, and perhaps 
sometimes-I hope very rarely-alleged in a mistaken sense; for in 
making this collection I trusted more to memory, than, in a state 
of disquiet and embarrassment, memory can contain, and purposed 
to supply at the review what was left incomplete in the first trans- 
scription. 
Many terms appropriated to particular occupations, though neces- 
sary and significant, are undoubtedly omitted; and of the words most 
studiously considered and exemplified, many senses have escaped 
observation. 
Yet these failures, however frequent, may admit extenuation and 
apology . To have attempted much is always laudable, even when 
the enterprise is above the strength that undertakes it: to rest below 
his own aim is incident to everyone whose fancy is active, and whose 
views are comprehensive; nor is any man satisfied with himself 
because he has done much, but because he can conceive little. When 
first I engaged in this work, I resolved to leave neither words nor 
things unexamined, and pleased myself with a prospect of the 
hours which I should revel away in feasts of literature, the obscure 
recesses of northern learning which I should enter and ransack, the 



TO THE DICTIONARY 199 
treasures with which I expected every search into those neglected 
mines to reward my labor, and the triumph with which I should 
display my acquisitions to mankind. When I had thus inquired into 
the original of words, I resolved to show likewise my attention to 
things; to pierce deep into every science, to inquire the nature of 
every substance of which I inserted the name, to limit every idea by a 
definition strictly logical, and exhibit every production of art or 
nature in an accurate description, that my book might be in place 
of all other dictionaries whether appellative or technical. But these 
were the dreams of a poet doomed at last to wake a lexicographer. I 
soon found that it is too late to look for instruments, when the work 
calls for execution, and that whatever abilities I had brought to my 
task, \vith those I must finally perform it. To deliberate whenever 
I doubted, to inquire whenever I was ignorant, would have pro- 
tracted the undertaking without end, and, perhaps, without much 
improvement; for I did not find by my first experiments, that what 
I had not of my own was easily to be obtained: I saw that one 
inquiry only gave occasion to another, that book referred to book, 
that to search was not always to find, and to find was not always to 
be informed; and that thus to pursue perfection, was, like the first 
inhabitants of Arcadia, to chase the sun, which, when they had 
reached the hill where he seemed to rest, was still beheld at the same 
distance from them. 
I then contracted my design, determining to confide in myself, 
and no longer to solicit auxiliaries \vhich produced more incum- 
brance than assistance: by this I obtained at least one advantage, that 
I set limits to my work, which would in time be ended, though not 
completed. 
Despondency has never so far prevailed as to depress me to negli- 
gence; some faults will at last appear to be the effects of anxious 
diligence and persevering activity. The nice and subtle ramifications 
of meaning were not easily avoided by a mind intent upon accuracy, 
and convinced of the necessity of disentangling combinations, and 
separating similitudes. Many of the distinctions which to common 
readers appear useless and idle, will be found real and important 
by men versed in the school philosophy, without which no dictionary 
can ever be accurately compiled, or skillfully examined. 



200 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
Some senses, however, there are, which, though not the same, are 
yet so nearly allied, that they are often confounded. Most men think 
indistinctly, and therefore cannot speak with exactness; and conse- 
quently some examples might be indifferently put to either significa- 
tion: this uncertainty is not to be imputed to me, who do not form, 
but register the language; who do not teach men how they should 
think, but relate how they have hitherto expressed their thoughts. 
The imperfect sense of some examples I lamented, but could not 
remedy, and hope they will be compensated by innumerable passages 
selected with propriety, and preserved with exactness; some shining 
with sparks of imagination, and some replete with treasures of 
wisdom. 
The orthography and etymology, though imperfect, are not im- 
perfect for want of care, but because care will not always be success- 
ful, and recollection or information come too late for use. 
That many terms of art and manufacture are omitted, must be 
frankly acknowledged; but for this defect I may boldly allege that 
it is unavoidable; I could not visit caverns to learn the miner's 
language, nor take a voyage to perfect my skill in the dialect of 
na vigation, nor visit the warehouses of merchants, and shops of 
artificers, to gain the names of wares, tools, and operations, of which 
no mention is found in books; what favorable accident or easy in- 
quiry brought within my reach, has not been neglected; but it had 
been a hopeless labor to glean up words, by courting living informa- 
tion, and contesting with the sullenness of one, and the roughness 
of another. 
To furnish the Academicians della Crusca with words of this 
kind, a series of comedies called La Fiera, or The Fair, was pro- 
fessedly written by Buonaroti; but I had no such assistant, and 
therefore was content to want what they must have wanted likewise, 
had they not luckily been so supplied. 
Nor are all words which are not found in the vocabulary, to be 
lamented as omissions. Of the laborious and mercantile part of the 
people, the diction is in a great measure casual and mutable; many 
of their terms are formed for some temporary or local convenience, 
and though current at certain times and places, are in others utterly 
unknown. This fugitive cant, which is always in a state of increase 



TO THE DICTIONARY 201 
or decay, cannot be regarded as any part of the durable materials of 
a language, and therefore must be suffered to perish with other 
things unworthy of preservation. 
Care will sometimes betray to the appearance of negligence. He 
that is catching opportunities which seldom occur, will suffer those 
to pass by unregarded, which he expects hourly to return; he that is 
searching for rare and remote things, will neglect those that are 
obvious and familiar: thus many of the most common and cursory 
words have been inserted with little illustration, because in gathering 
the authorities, I forebore to copy those which I thought likely to 
occur whenever they were wanted. It is remarkable that, in review- 
ing my collection, I found the word sea unexemplified. 
Thus it happens, that in things difficult there is danger from 
ignorance, and in things easy, from confidence; the mind, afraid of 
greatness, and disdainful of littleness, hastily withdraws herself 
from painful searches, and passes with scornful rapidity over tasks 
not adequate to her powers; sometimes too secure for caution, and 
again too anxious for vigorous effort; sometimes idle in a plain path, 
and sometimes distracted in labyrinths, and dissipated by different 
intentions. 
A large work is difficult because it is large, even though all its parts 
might singly be performed with facility; where there are many 
things to be done, each must be allowed its share of time and labor, 
in the proportion only which it bears to the whole; nor can it be 
expected, that the stones which form the dome of a temple, should 
be squared and polished like the diamond of a ring. 
Of the event of this work, for which, having labored it with so 
much application, I cannot but have some degree of parental fond- 
ness, it is natural to form conjectures. Those who have been per- 
suaded to think well of my design, will require that it should fix 
our language, and put a stop to those alterations which time and 
chance have hitherto been suffered to make in it without opposition. 
With this consequence I will confess that I flattered myself for a 
while; but now begin to fear that I have indulged expectation 
which neither reason nor experience can justify. When we see men 
grow old and die at a certain time one after another, from century 
to century, we laugh at the elixir that promises to prolong life to a 



202 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
thousand years; and with equal justice may the lexicographer be 
derided, who being able to produce no example of a nation that has 
preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall imagine 
that his dictionary can embalm his language, and secure it from 
corruption and decay, that it is in his power to change sublunary 
nature, and clear the world at once from folly
 vanity, and affectation. 
With this hope, however, academies have been instituted, to guard 
the avenues of their languages, to retain fugitives, and repulse 
intruders; but their vigilance and activity have hitherto been vain; 
sounds are too volatile and subtile for legal restraints; to enchain 
syllables, and to lash the wind, are equally the undertakings of pride, 
unwilling to measure its desires by its strength. The French lan- 
guage has visibly changed under the inspection of the Academy; 
the style of Amelot's translation of Father Paul is observed by Le 
Courayer to be un peu passÃ©; and no Italian will maintain that the 
diction of any modern writer is not perceptibly different from that 
of Boccace, Machiavel, or Caro. 
Total and sudden transformations of a language seldom happen; 
conquests and migrations are now very rare: but there are other 
causes of change, which, though slow in their operation, and invisible 
in their progress, are perhaps as much superior to human resistance, 
as the revolutions of the sky, or intumescence of the tide. Commerce, 
however necessary, however lucrative, as it depraves the manners, 
corrupts the language; they that have frequent intercourse with 
strangers, to whom they endeavor to accommodate themselves, must 
in time learn a mingled dialect, like the jargon which serves the 
traffickers on the Mediterranean and Indian coasts. This will not 
always be confined to the exchange, the warehouse, or the port, 
but will be communicated by degrees to other ranks of the people, 
and be at last incorporated with the current speech. 
There are likewise internal causes equally forcible. The language 
most likely to continue long without alterations, would be that of a 
nation raised a little, and but a little, above barbarity, secluded from 
strangers, and totally employed in procuring the conveniences of 
life; either without books, or, like some of the Mahometan countries, 
with every few: men thus busied and unlearned, having only such 
words as common use requires, would perhaps long continue to 



TO THE DICTIONARY 20 3 
express the same notions by the same signs. But no such constancy 
can be expected in a people polished by arts, and classed by sub- 
ordination, where one part of the community is sustained and 
accommodated by the labor of the other. Those who have much 
leisure to think, will always be enlarging the stock of ideas; and 
every increase of knowledge, whether real or fancied, will produce 
new words, or combination of words. When the mind is unchained 
from necessity, it will range after convenience: when it is left at large 
in the fields of speculation, it will shift opinions; as any custom is 
disused, the words that expressed it must perish with it; as any 
opinion grows popular, it will innovate speech in the same proportion 
as it alters practice. 
As by the cultivation of various sciences a language is amplified, 
it will be more furnished with words deflected from their original 
sense; the geometrician will talk of a courtier's zenith or the eccentric 
virtue of a wild hero, and the physician, of sanguine expectations 
and phlegmatic delays. Copiousness of speech will give opportunities 
to capricious choice, by which some words will be preferred, and 
others degraded; vicissitudes of fashion will enforce the use of new, 
or extend the signification of known terms. The tropes of poetry will 
make hourly encroachments, and the metaphorical \vill become the 
current sense: pronunciation will be varied by levity or ignorance, 
and the pen must at length comply with the tongue: illiterate writers 
will, at one time or other, by public infatuation, rise into renown, 
who, not knowing the original import of words, will use them with 
colloquial licentiousness, confound distinction, and forget propriety. 
As politeness increases, some expressions will be considered as too 
gross and vulgar for the delicate, others as too formal and cere- 
monious for the gay and airy; new phrases are therefore adopted, 
which must for the same reasons be in time dismissed. Svvift, in his 
petty treatise on the English language, allows that new \vords must 
sometimes be introduced, but proposes that none should be suffered 
to become obsolete. But what makes a word obsolete, more than 
general agreement to forbear it? and how shall it be continued, when 
it conveys an offensive idea, or recalled again into the mouths of 
mankind, when it has once become unfamiliar by disuse, and 
unpleasing by unfamiliarity? 



204 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
There is another cause of alteration more prevalent than any other, 
which yet in the present state of the world cannot be obviated. A 
mixture of two languages will produce a third distinct from both, 
and they will always be mixed, where the chief parts of education, 
and the most conspicuous accomplishment, is skill in ancient or in 
foreign tongues. He that has long cultivated another language, will 
find its words and combinations crowd upon his memory; and haste 
and negligence, refinement and affectation, will obtrude borrowed 
terms and exotic expressions. 
The great pest of speech is frequency of translation. No book was 
ever turned from one language into another, without imparting 
something of its native idiom; this is the most mischievous and 
comprehensive innovation; single words may enter by thousands, 
and the fabric of the tongue continue the same; but new phraseology 
changes much at once; it alters not the single stones of the building, 
but the order of the columns. If an academy should be established 
for the cultivation of our style-which I, who can never wish 
to see dependence multiplied, hope the spirit of English liberty will 
hinder or destroy-let them, instead of compiling grammars and 
dictionaries, endeavor, with all their influence, to stop the license 
of translators, whose idleness and ignorance, if it be suffered to 
proceed, will reduce us to babble a dialect of France. 
If the changes that we fear be thus irresistible, what remains but 
to acquiesce with silence, as in the other insurmountable distresses of 
humanity? It remains that we retard what we cannot repel, that we 
palliate what we cannot cure. Life may be lengthened by care, 
though death cannot be ultimately defeated: tongues, like govern- 
ments, have a natural tendency to degeneration; we have long 
preserved our constitution, let us make some struggles for our 
language. 
In hope of giving longevity to that which its own nature forbids to 
be immortal, I have devoted this book, the labor of years, to the 
honor of my country, that we may no longer yield the palm of 
philology without a contest, to the nations of the continent. The 
chief glory of every people arises from its authors: whether I shall 
add any thing by my own writings to the reputation of English 
literature, must be left to time: much of my life has been lost under 



TO THE DICTIONARY 205 
the pressures of disease; much has been trifled away; and much has 
always been spent in provision for the day that was passing over me; 
but I shall not think my employment useless or ignoble, if by my 
assistance foreign nations, and distant ages, gain access to the propa- 
gators of knowledge, and understand the teachers of truth; if my 
labors afford light to the repositories of science, and add celebrity 
to Bacon, to Hooker, to Milton, and to Boyle. 
When I am animated by this wish, I look with pleasure on my 
book, however defective, and deliver it to the world with the spirit 
of a man that has endeavored well. That it will immediately become 
popular I have not promised to myself: a few wild blunders, and 
risible absurdities, from which no work of such multiplicity was ever 
free, may for a time furnish folly vvith laughter, and harden ignor- 
ance into contempt; but useful diligence will at last prevail, and 
there never can be wanting some who distinguish desert; who will 
consider that no dictionary of a living tongue ever can be perfect, 
since, while it is hastening to publication, some words are budding, 
and some falling away; that a whole life cannot be spent upon syntax 
and etymology, and that even a whole life would not be sufficient; 
that he, whose design includes whatever language can express, must 
often speak of what he does not understand; that a writer will some- 
times be hurried by eagerness to the end, and sometimes faint with 
weariness under a task which Scaliger compares to the labors of the 
anvil and the mine; that what is obvious is not always known, and 
what is known is not always present; that sudden fits of inadvertency 
will surprise vigilance, slight avocations will seduce attention, and 
casual eclipses of the mind will darken learning; and that the writer 
shall often in vain, trace his memory at the moment of need, for that 
which yesterday he knew with intuitive readiness, and which will 
come uncalled into his thoughts to-morrow. 
In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it 
not be forgotten that much likewise is performed; and though no 
book was ever spared out of tenderness to the author, and the 
world is little solicitous to know whence proceed the faults of that 
which it condemns; yet it may gratify curiosity to inform it, that the 
English Dictionary was written with little assistance of the learned, 
and without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities of 



206 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
retirement, or under the shelter of academic bowers, but amidst 
inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow. It may 
repress the triumph of malignant criticism to observe, that if our 
language is not here fully displayed, I have only failed in an attempt 
which no human powers have hitherto completed. If the lexicons 
of ancient tongues, now immutably fixed, and comprised in a few 
volumes, be yet, after the toil of successive ages, inadequate and 
delusive; if the aggregated knowledge, and co-operating diligence 
of the Italian academicians, did not secure them from the censure 
of Beni; if the embodied critics of France, when fifty years had been 
spent upon their work, were obliged to change its economy, and 
give their second edition another form, I may surely be contented 
without the praise of perfection, which, if I could obtain, in this 
gloom of solitude, what would it avail me? I have protracted my 
work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the 
grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds: I therefore 
dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from 
censure or from praise. 


TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE THE EARL 
OF CHESTERFIELD 


February 7, 1755. 


My LORD: 
I HAVE lately been informed by the proprietor of T he World, 
that two papers, in which my Dictionary is recommended to the 
public, were written by your Lordship. To be so distinguished is 
an honor which, being very little accustomed to favours from the 
great, I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to 
acknowledge. 
When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your Lord- 
ship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchant- 
ment of your address; and I could not forbear to wish that I might 
boast myself 'Le vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre'; that I might 
obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending; but I 
found my attendance so little encouraged, that neither pride nor 
modesty would suffer me to continue it. When I had once addressed 
your Lordship in public, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing 



LETTER TO CHESTERFIELD 207 
which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had done all 
that I could; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, 
be it ever so little. 
Seven years, my Lord, have now passed, since I waited in your 
outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time 
I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is 
useless to complain, and have brought it at last to the verge of 
publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encourage- 
ment, or one smile of favor. Such treatment I did not expect, for I 
never had a Patron before. 
The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and 
found him a native of the rocks. 
Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man 
struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, 
encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased 
to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been 
delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, 
and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is 
no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit 
has been received, or to be unwilling that the Public should con- 
sider me as owing that to a Patron, which Providence has enabled 
me to do for myself. 
Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to 
any favorer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I should 
conclude it, if less be possible, with less; for I have been long wakened 
from that dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so 
much exultation, 
My Lord, Your Lordship's most humble, 
Most obedient servant, SAM. JOHNSON. 



PREFACE TO SHAKESPEARE 


BY SAMUEL JOHNSON. (1165) 


T HAT praises are without reason lavished on the dead, and 
that the honours due only to excellence are paid to antiquity, 
is a complaint likely to be always continued by those, who, 
being able to add nothing to truth, hope for eminence from the 
heresies of paradox; or those, who, being forced by disappointment 
upon consolatory expedients, are willing to hope from posterity what 
the present age refuses, and flatter themselves that the regard which 
is yet denied by envy, will be at last bestowed by time. 
Antiquity, like every other quality that attracts the notice of man- 
kind, has undoubtedly votaries that reverence it, not from reason, but 
from prejudice. Some seem to admire indiscriminately whatever 
has been long preserved, without considering that time has some- 
times co-operated with chance; all perhaps are more willing to 
honour past than present excellence; and the mind contemplates 
genius through the shades of age, as the eye surveys the sun through 
artificial opacity. The great contention of criticism is to find the 
faults of the moderns, and the beauties of the ancients. While an 
author is yet living we estimate his powers by his worst performance, 
and when he is dead, we rate them by his best. 
To works, however, of which the excellence is not absolute and 
definite, but gradual and comparative; to works not raised upon 
principles demonstrative and scientifick, but appealing wholly to 
observation and experience, no other test can be applied than length 
of duration and continuance of esteem. What mankind have long 
possessed they have often examined and compared; and if they 
persist to value the possession, it is because frequent comparisons 
have confirmed opinion in its favour. As among the works of 
nature no man can properly call a river deep, or a mountain high, 
without the knowledge of many mountains, and many rivers; so 
208 



TO SHAKESPEARE 209 
in the productions of genius, nothing can be stiled excellent till it has 
been compared with other works of the same kind. Demonstration 
immediately displays its power, and has nothing to hope or fear 
from the flux of years; but works tentative and experimental must 
be estimated by their proportion to the general and collective ability 
of man, as it is discovered in a long succession of endeavours. Of 
the first building that was raised, it might be with certainty deter- 
mined that it was round or square; but whether it was spacious or 
lofty must have been referred to time. The Pythagorean scale of 
numbers was at once discovered to be perfect; but the poems of 
Horner we yet know not to transcend the common limits of human 
intelligence, but by remarking, that nation after nation, and cen- 
tury after century, has been able to do little more than transpose 
his incidents, new-name his characters, and paraphrase his senti- 
ments. 
The reverence due to writings that have long subsisted arises 
therefore not from any credulous confidence in the superior wisdom 
of past ages, or gloomy persuasion of the degeneracy of mankind, 
but is the consequence of acknowledged and indubitable positions, 
that what has been longest known has been most considered, and 
what is most considered is best understood. 
The Poet, of whose works I have undertaken the revision, may 
now begin to assume the dignity of an ancient, and claim the 
privilege of established fame and prescriptive veneration. He has 
long outlived his century, the term commonly fixed as the test 
of literary merit. Whatever advantages he might once derive from 
personal allusions, local customs, or temporary opinions, have for 
many years been lost; and every to pick of merriment, or motive of 
sorrow, which the modes of artificial life afforded him, now only 
obscure the scenes which they once illuminated. The effects of favour 
and competition are at an end; the tradition of his friendships and his 
enemies has perished; his works support no opinion with arguments, 
nor supply any faction with invectives; they can neither indulge 
vanity nor gratify malignity; but are read without any other 
reason than the desire of pleasure, and are therefore praised only as 
pleasure is obtained; yet, thus unassisted by interest or passion, they 
have past through variations of taste and changes of manners, and, 



210 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
as they devolved from one generation to another, have received new 
honours at every transmission. 
But because human judgment, though it be gradually gaining 
upon certainty, never becomes infallible; and approbation, though 
long continued, may yet be only the approbation of prejudice or 
fashion; it is proper to inquire, by what peculiarities of excellence 
Shakespeare has gained and kept the favour of his countrymen. 
Nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations 
of general nature. Particular manner, can be known to few, and 
therefore few only can judge how nearly they are copied. The 
irregular combinations of fanciful invention may delight a-while, 
by that novelty of which the common satiety of life sends us all in 
quest; but the pleasures of sudden wonder are soon exhausted, and 
the mind can only repose on the stability of truth) 
Shakespeare is above all writers, at least above all modern writers, 
the poet of nature; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful 
mirrour of manners and of life. His characters are not modified by 
the customs of particular places, unpractised by the rest of the world; 
by the peculiarities of studies or professions, which can operate but 
upon small numbers; or by the accidents of transient fashions or 
temporary opinions: they are the genuine progeny of common 
humanity, such as the world will always supply, and observation will 
always find. His persons act and speak by the influence of those 
general passions and principles by which all minds are agitated, and 
the whole system of life is continued in motion. In the writings of 
other poets a character is too often an individual; in those of Shake- 
speare it is commonly a species. 
It is from this wide extension of design that so much instruction 
is derived. It is this which fills the plays of Shakespeare with prac- 
tical axioms and domestic wisdom. It was said of Euripides, that 
every verse was a precept; and it may be said of Shakespeare, that 
from his works may be collected a system of civil and oeconomical 
prudence. Yet his real power is not shewn in the splendour of 
particular passages, but by the progress of his fable, and the tenour 
of his dialogue; and he that tries to recommend him by select quota- 
tions, will succeed like the pedant in Hierocles, who, when he offered 
his house to sale, carried a brick in his pocket as a specimen. 



TO SHAKESPEARE 2 I I 
It will not easily be imagined how much Shakespeare excells in 
accommodating his sentiments to real 
, but by comparing him 
with other authors. It was observed of the ancient schools of declama- 
tion, that the more diligently they were frequented, the more was 
the student disqualified for the world, because he found nothing 
there which he should ever meet in any other place. The same 
remark may be applied to every stage but that of Shakespeare. The 
theatre, when it is under any other direction, is peopled by such 
characters as were never seen, conversing in a language which 
was never heard, upon topicks which will never rise in the commerce 
of mankind. But the dialogue of this author is often so evidently 
determined by the incident which produces it, and is pursued with 
so much ease and simplicity, that it seems scarcely to claim the 
merit of fiction, but to have been gleaned by diligent selection out 
of common conversation, and common occurrences. 
Upon every other stage the universal agent is love, by whose 
power all good and evil is distributed, and every action quickened 
or retarded. To bring a lover, a lady and a rival into the fable; to 
entangle them in contradictory obligations, perplex them with 
oppositions of interest, and harrass them with violence of desires 
inconsistent with each other; to make them meet in rapture and part 
in agony; to fill their mouths with hyperbolical joy and outrageous 
sorrow; to distress them as nothing human ever was distressed; 
to deliver them as nothing human ever was delivered; is the business 
of a modern dramatist. For this probability is violated, life is 
misrepresented, and language is depraved. But love is only one of I 
many passions; and as it has no great influence upon the sum of ' I 
life, it has little operation in the dramas of a poet, who caught his 
ideas from the living world, and exhibited only what he saw before 
him. He knew, that any other passion, as it was regular or exorbi- 
tant, was a cause of happiness or calamity. 
Characters thus ample and general were not easily discriminated 
and preserved, yet per ha ps no poet ever kept his personages more 
distinct from each other. I will not say with Pope, that every speech 
may be assigned to the proper speaker, because many speeches there 
are which have nothing characteristical; but perhaps, though some 
may be equally adapted to every person, it will be difficult to find 



212 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
any that can be properly transferred from the present possessor to 
another claimant. The choice is right, when there is reason for 
choice. 
Other dramatists can only gain attention by hyperbolical or aggra- 
vated characters, by fabulous and unexampled excellence or de- 
pravity, as the writers of barbarous romances invigorated the reader 
by a giant and a dwarf; and he that should form his expectations of 
human affairs from the play, or from the tale, would be equally 
deceived. Shakespeare has no heroes; his scenes are occupied only 
by men, who act and speak as the reader thinks that he should 
himself have spoken or acted on the same occasion: Even where the 
agency is supernatural the dialogue is level with life. Other writers 
disguise the most natural passions and most frequent incidents; 
so that he who contemplates them in the book will not know them 
in the world: Shakespeare approximates the remote, and familiarizes 
the wonderful; the event which he represents will not happen, but 
if it were possible, its effects would probably be such as he has 
assigned; and it may be said, that he has not only shewn human 
nature as it acts in real exigencies, but as it would be found in trials, 
to which it cannot be exposed. 
This therefore is the praise of Shakespeare, that his drama is the 
mirrour of life; that he who has mazed his imagination, in following 
the phantoms which other writers raise up before him, may here 
be cured of his delirious extasies, by reading human sentiments in 
human language, by scenes from which a hermit may estimate the 
transactions of the world, and a confessor predict the progress of 
the passions. 
His adherence to general nature has exposed him to the censure 
of criticks, who form their judgments upon narro\" principles. 
Dennis and Rhymer think his Romans not sufficiently Roman; and 
V oltaire censures his kings as not completely royal. Dennis is 
offended, that Menenius, a senator of Rome, should play the buffoon; 
and Voltaire perhaps thinks decency violated when the Danish 
Usurper is represented as a drunkard. But Shakespeare always 
makes nature predominate over accident; and if he preserves the 
essential character, is not very careful of distinctions superinduced 
and adventitious. His story requires Romans or kings, but he thinks 



TO SHAKESPEARE 2 13 
only on men. He knew that Rome, like every other city, had men of 
all dispositions; and wanting a buffoon, he went into the senate- 
house for that which the senate-house would certainly have afforded 
him. He was inclined to shew an usurper and a murderer not only 
odious but despicable, he therefore added drunkenness to his other 
qualities, knowing that kings love wine like other men, and that 
wine exerts its natural power upon kings. These are the petty cavils 
of petty minds; a poet overlooks the casual distinction of country and 
condition, as a painter, satisfied with the figure, neglects the drapery. 
The censure which he has incurred by mixing cornick and tragick 
scenes, as it extends to all his works, deserves more consideration. 
Let the fact be first stated, and then examined. 
Shakespeare's plays are not in the rigorous and critical sense 
either tragedies or comedies, but compositions of a distinct kind; 
exhibiting the real state of sublunary nature, which partakes of good 
and evil, joy and sorro,,', mingled with endless variety of proportion 
and innumerable modes of combination; and expressing the course 
of the world, in which the loss of one is the gain of another; in which, 
at the same time, the reveller is hasting to his wine, and the mourner 
burying his friend; in which the malignity of one is sometimes 
defeated by the frolick of another; and many mischiefs and many 
benefits are done and hindered without design. 
Out of this chaos of mingled purposes and casualties the ancient 
poets, according to the laws which custom had prescribed, selected 
some the crimes of men, and some their absurdities; some the 
momentous vicissitudes of life, and some the lighter occurrences; 
some the terrours of distress, and some the gayeties of prosperity. 
Thus rose the two modes of imitation, known by the names of 
tragedy and comedy, compositions intended to promote different 
ends by contrary means, and considered as so little allied, that I do 
not recollect among the Greeks or Romans a single writer who at- 
tern pted both. 
Shakespeare has united the powers of exciting laughter and sor- 
row not only in one mind, but in one composition. Almost all his 
plays are divided between serious and ludicrous characters, and, in 
the successive evolutions of the design, sometimes produce serious- 
ness and sorrow, and sometimes levity and laughter. 



21 4 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
That this is a practice contrary to the rules of criticism will be 
readily allowed; but there is ahvays an appeal open from criticism 
to nature. The end of writing is to instruct; the end of poetry is to 
instruct by pleasing. That the mingled drama may convey all the 
instruction of tragedy or comedy cannot be denied, because it in- ""' 
cludes both in its alterations of exhibition and approaches nearer 
than either to the appearance of life, by shewing how great machina- 
tions and slender designs may promote or obviate one another, and 
the high and the low co-operate in the general system by unavoidable 
concatenation. 
It is objected, that by this change of scenes the passions are inter- 
rupted in their progression, and that the principal event, being not 
advanced by a due gradation of preparatory incidents, wants at 
last the power to move, which constitutes the perfection of dramatick 
poetry. This reasoning is so specious, that it is received as true even 
by those who in daily experience feel it to be false. The interchanges 
of mingled scenes seldom fail to produce the intended vicissitudes 
of passion. Fiction cannot move so much, but that the attention 
may be easily transferred; and though it must be allowed that pleas- 
- ing melancholy be sometimes interrupted by un,velcome levity, yet 
let it be considered likewise, that melancholy is often not pleasing, 
and that the disturbance of one man may be the relief of another; 
that different auditors have different habitudes; and that, upon the 
whole, all pleasure consists in variety. 
The players, who in their edition divided our authour's works 
into comedies, histories, and tragedies, seem not to have distinguished 
the three kinds by any very exact or definite ideas. 
And action which ended happily to the principal persons, however 
serious or distressful through its intermediate incidents, in their 
opinion, constituted a comedy. This idea of a comedy continued long 
amongst us; and plays were written, which, by changing the catas- 
trophe, were tragedies to-day, and comedies to-morrow. 
Tragedy was not in those times a poem of more general dignity 
or elevation than comedy; it required only a calamitous conclusion, 
with which the common criticism of that age was satisfied, whatever 
lighter pleasure it afforded in its progress. 
History was a series of actions, with no other than chronological 



TO SHAKESPEARE 21 5 
succession, independent on each other, and without any tendency 
to introduce or regulate the conclusion. It is not always very nicely 
distinguished from tragedy. There is not much nearer approach to 
unity of action in the tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra, than in the 
history of Richard the Second. But a history might be continued 
through many plays; as it had no plan, it had no limits. 
Through all these denominations of the drama, Shakespeare's 
mode of composition is the same; an interchange of seriousness and 
merriment, by which the mind is softened at one time, and exhil- 
arated at another. But whatever be his purpose, whether to gladden 
or depress, or to conduct the story, without yehemence or emotion, 
through tracts of easy and familiar dialogue, he never fails to attain 
his purpose; as he commands us, we laugh or mourn, or sit silent 
with quiet expectation, in tranquillity without indifference. 
When Shakespeare's plan is understood, most of the criticisms of 
Rhymer and Voltaire vanish away. The play of Hamlet is opened, 
without impropriety, by two sentinels; [ago bellows at Brabantio's 
window, without injury to the scheme of the play, though in terms 
which a modern audience would not easily endure; the character of 
Polonius is seasonable and useful; and the Grave-diggers themselves 
may be heard with applause. 
Shakespeare engaged in dramatick poetry with the world open 
before him; the rules of the ancients were yet known to few; but 
publick judgment was unfÃ§rmed; he had no example of such fame 
as might force him upon imitation, nor criticks of such authority as 
might restrain his extravagance: He therefore indulged his natural 
disposition, and his disposition, as Rhymer has remarked, led him 
to comedy. In tragedy he often writes, with great appearance of toil 
and study, what is written at last with little felicity; but in his cornick 
scenes, he seems to produce without labour what no labour can 
improve. In tragedy he is always struggling after some occasion to 
be cornick; but in comedy he seems to repose, or to luxuriate, as in a 
mode of thinking congenial to his nature. In his tragick scenes there 
is always something wanting, but his comedy often surpasses expec- 
tation or desire. His comedy pleases by the thoughts and the lan- 
guage, and his tragedy for the greater part by incident and action. 
His tragedy seems to be skill, his comedy to be instinct. 



216 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
The force of his comick scenes has suffered little diminution from 
the changes made by a century and a half, in manners or in words. 
As his personages act upon principles arising from genuine passion: 
very little modified by particular forms, their pleasures and vexations 
are communicable to all times and to all places; they are natural: 
and therefore durable; the adventitious peculiarities of personal 
habits, are only superficial dies, bright and pleasing for a little while: 
yet soon fading to a dim tinct, without any remains of former lustre; 
but the discriminations of true passion are the colours of nature; they 
pervade the whole mass, and can only perish with the body that 
exhibits them. The accidental compositions of heterogeneous modes 
are dissolved by the chance which combined them; but the unifornl 
simplicity of primitive qualities neither admits increase, nor suffers 
decay. The sand heap by one flood is scattered by another, but the 
rock always continues in its place. The streanl of tilne, which is 
continually washing the dissoluble fabricks of other poets, passes 
\vithout injury by the adamant of Shakespeare. 
If there be, what I believe there is, in every nation, a stile which 
. - 
never becomes obsolete, a certaIn mode of phraseology so consonant 
and congenial to the analogy and principles of its respective language 
as to remain settled and unaltered; this style is probably to be sought 
in the common intercourse of life, among those who speak only to 
be understood, without ambition of elegance. The polite are always 
catching modish innovations, and the learned depart from established 
fornls of speech, in hope of finding or making better; those who wish 
for distinction forsake the vulgar, when the vulgar is right; but there 
is a conversation above grossness and below refinement, where 
propriety resides, and \vhere this poet seems to have gathered his 
comick dialogue. He is therefore more agreeable to the ears of the 
present age than any other authour equally remote, and among his 
other excellencies deserves to be studied as one of the original masters 
of our language. - 
These observations are to be considered not as unexceptionally 
constant, but as containing general and predominant truth. Shake- 
speare's familiar dialogue is affirmed to be smooth and clear, yet not 
wholly without ruggedness or difficulty; as a country may be emi- 
nently fruitful, though it has spots unfit for cultivation: His char- 



TO SHAKESPEARE 2 I 7 
acters are praised as natural, though their sentiments are sometimes 
forced, and their actions improbable; as the earth upon the whole is 
spherical, though its surface is varied with protuberances and cavities. 
Shakespeare with his excellencies has likewise faults, and faults 
sufficient to obscure and overwhelm any other merit. I shall shew 
them in the proportion in which they appear to me, without envious 
malignity or superstitious veneration. No question can be more 
innocently discussed than a dead poet's pretensions to renown; and 
little regard is due to that bigotry which sets candour higher than 
truth. 
His first defect is that to which may be imputed most of the evil 
in books or in men. He sacrifices virtue to convenience, and is so 
much more careful to ple;se than to instruct, that he seems to write 
without any moral purpose. From his writings indeed a system of 
social duty may be selected, for he that thinks reasonably must think 
morally; but his precepts and axioms drop casually from him; he 
makes no just distribution of good or evil, nor is always careful to 
shew in the virtuous a disapprobation of the wicked; he carries his 
persons indifferently through right and wrong, and at the close 
dismisses them without further care, and leaves their examples to 
operate by chance. This fault the barbarity of his age cannot exten- 
uate; for it is always a writer's duty to make the world better, and 
justice is a virtue independent on time or place. 
The plots are often so loosely formed, that a very slight considera- 
tion may improve them, and so carelessly pursued, that he seems not 
always fully to comprehend his own design. He omits opportunities 
of instructing or delighting which the train of his story seems to 
force upon him, and apparently rejects those exhibitions which 
would be more affecting, for the sake of those which are more easy. 
It may be observed, that in many of his plays the latter part is 
evidently neglected. When he found himself near the end of his 
work, and, in view of his reward, he shortened the labour to snatch 
the profit. He therefore remits his efforts where he should most 
vigorously exert them, and his catastrophe is improbably produced 
or imperfectly represented. 
He had no regard to distinction of time or place, but gives to one 
age or nation, without scruple, the customs, institutions, and opinions 


\ 



218 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
of another, at the expence not only of likelihood, but of possibility. 
These faults Pope has endeavoured, with more zeal than judgment, 
to transfer to his imagined interpolators. We need not wonder to 
find Hector quoting Aristotle, when we see the loves of Theseus 
and Hippolyta combined with the Gothick mythology of fairies. 
Shakespeare, indeed, was not the only violator of chronology, for in 
the same age Sidney, who wanted not the advantages of learning, 
has, in his Arcadia, confounded the pastoral with the feudal times, 
the days of innocence, quiet and security, with those of turbulence, 
violence, and adventure. 
In his cornick scenes he is seldom very successful, when he engages 
his characters in reciprocations of smartness and contests of sarcasm; 
their jests are commonly gross, and their pleasantry licentious; 
neither his gentlemen nor his ladies have much 
elicacy, nor are 
sufficiently distinguished from his clowns by any appearance of 
refined manners. Whether he represented the real conversation of 
his time is not easy to determine; the reign of Elizabeth is com- 
monly supposed to have been a time of stateliness, formality and 
reserve; yet perhaps the relaxations of that severity were not very 
elegant. There must, however, have been always some modes of 
gayety preferable to others, and a writer ought to chuse the best. 
In tragedy his performance seems constantly to be worse, as his 
labour is more. The effusions of passion which exigence forces out 
are for the most part striking and energetick; but wheÃ±ever he 
solicits his invention, or strains his faculties, the offspring of his 
throes is tumour, meanness, tediousness, and obscurity. 
In narration he affects a disproportionate pomp of diction, and a 
wearisome train of circumlocution, and tells the incident imperfectly 
in many words, which might have been more plainly delivered in 
few. Narration in dramatick poetry is naturally tedious, as it is 
unanimated and inactive, and obstructs the progress of the action; 
it should therefore always be rapid, and enlivened by frequent inter- 
ruption. Shakespeare found it an encumberance, and instead of 
lightening it by brevity, endeavoured to recommend it by dignity 
and splendour. 
His declamations or set speeches are commonly cold and weak, for 
his power was the power of nature; when he endeavoured, like 



TO SHAKESPEARE 219 
other tragick writers, to catch opportunities of amplification, and 
instead of inquiring what the occasion demanded, to show how 
much his stores of knowledge could supply, he seldom escapes 
without the pity or resentment of his reader. 
It is incident to him to be now and then entangled with an un- 
wieldy sentiment, which he cannot well express, and will not reject; 
he struggles with it a while, and if it continues stubborn, comprises 
it in words such as occur, and leaves it to be disentangled and 
evolved by those who have more leisure to bestow upon it. 
Not that always where the language is intricate the thought is 
subtle, or the image always great where the line is bulky; the equality 
of words to things is very often neglected, and trivial sentiments and 
vulgar ideas disappoint the attention, to which they are recom- 
mended by sonorous epithets and swelling figures. 
But the admirers of this great poet have never less reason to 
indulge their hopes of supreme excellence, than when he seems 
fully resolved to sink them in dejection, and mollify them with 
tender emotions by the fall of greatness, the danger of innocence, 
or the crosses of love. He is not long soft and pathetick without some 
idle conceit, or contemptible equivocation. He no sooner begins to 
move, than he counteracts himself; and terrour and pity, as they 
are rising in the mind, are checked and blasted by sudden fri- 
gidity. 
A quibble is to Shakespeare, what luminous va pours are to the 
traveller; he follows it at all adventures; it is sure to lead him out 
of his way, and sure to engulf him in the mire. It has some malig- 
nant power over his mind, and its fascinations are irresistible. What- 
ever be the dignity or profundity of his disquisition, whether he be 
enlarging knowledge or exalting affection, whether he be amusing 
attention with incidents, or enchaining it in suspense, let but a 
quibble spring up before him, and he leaves his work unfinished. A 
quibble is the golden apple for which he will always turn aside from 
his career, or stoop from his elevation. A quibble, poor and barren 
as it is, gave him such delight, that he was content to purchase it, 
by the sacrifice of reason, propriety and truth. A quibble was to him 
the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and was content to 
lose it. 



220 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
It will be thought strange, that, in enumerating the defects of this 
writer, I have not yet mentioned his neglect of the unities; his 
violation of those la\vs which have been instituted and established 
by the joint authority of poets and criticks. 
For his other deviations from the art of writing I resign him to 
critical justice, without making any other demand in his favour, than 
that which must be indulged to all human excellence: that his 
virtues be rated with his failings: But, from the censure which this 
irregularity may bring upon him, I shaH, with due reverence to 
that learning which I must oppose, adventure to try how I can 
defend him. 
 
His histories, being neither tragedies nor comedies are not subject 
to any of their laws; nothing more is necessary to all the praise which 
they expect, than that the changes of action be so prepared as to be 
understood, that the incidents be var:ious and affecting, and the 
characters consistent, natural, and distinct. No other unity is 
intended, and therefore none is to be sought. 
In his other works he has well enough preserved the unity of 
action. He has not, indeed, an intrigue regularly perplexed and 
regularly unravelled: he does not endeavour to hide his design only 
to discover it, for this is seldom the order of real events, and Shake- 
speare is the poet of nature: But his plan has commonly what 
Aristotle requires, a beginning, a middle, and an end; one event is 
concatenated with another, and the conclusion follows by easy con- 
sequence. There are perhaps some incidents that might be spared, 
as in other poets there is much talk that only fills up time upon the 
stage; but the general system makes gradual advances, and the 
end of the play is the end of expectation. 
To the unities of time and place he has shewn no regard; and per- 
haps a nearer view of the principles on which they stand will dimin- 
ish their value, and withdraw from them the veneration which, from 
the time of Corneille, they have very generally received, by discover- 
ing that they have given more trouble to the poet, than pleasure to 
the auditor. 
The necessity of observing the unities of time and place arises from 
the supposed necessity of making the drama credible. The criticks 
hold it impossible, that an action of months or years can be possibly 



TO SHAKESPEARE 


221 


believed to pass in three hours; or that the spectator can suppose 
himself to sit in the theatre, while ambassadors go and return be- 
tween distant kings while armies are levied and towns besieged, 
while an exile wanders and returns, or till he whom they saw 
courting his mistress, shall lament the untimely fall of his son. The 
mind revolts from evident falsehood, and fiction loses its force when 
it departs from the resemblance of reality. 
From the narrow limitation of time necessarily arises the contrac
 
tion of place. The spectator, who knows that he saw the first act at 
Alexandria, cannot suppose that he sees the next at Rome, at a dis- 
tance to which not the dragons of Medea could, in so short a time, 
have transported him; he knows with certainty that he has not 
changed his place, and he knows that place cannot change itself; 
that what was a house cannot become a plain; that what was Thebes 
can never be Persepolis. 
Such is the triumphant language with which a critick exults over 
the misery of an irregular poet, and exults commonly without resist- 
ance or reply. It is time therefore to tell him by the authority of 
Shakespeare, that he assumes, as an unquestionable principle, a 
position, which, while his breath is forming it into words, his under- 
standing pronounces to be false. It is false, that any representation 
is mistake for reality; that any dramatick fable in its materiality was 
ever credible, or, for a single moment, was ever credited. 
The objection arising from the impossibility of passing the first 
hour at Alexandria, and the next at Rome, supposes, that when the 
play opens, the spectator really imagines himself at Alexandria, and 
believes that his walk to the theatre has been a voyage to Egypt, and 
that he lives in the days of Antony and Cleopatra. Surely he that 
imagines this may imagine more. He that can take the stage at one 
time for the palace of the Ptolemies, may take it in half an hour for 
the promontory of Actium. p
u
on, if delusion be admitted, has 
no certain limitation; if the spectator can be once persuaded, that his 
Ãµla Ã¥ÃªqÃ¹amtÃ nce are Alexander and CÃ¦sar, that a room illuminat;d 
with candles is the plain of Pharsalia, or the bank of Granicus, 
he is in a state of elevation above the reach of reason, or of truth, and 
from the heights of empyrean poetry, may despise the circumscrip- 
tions of terrestrial nature. There is no reason why a mind thus 



222 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
wandering in extacy should count the clock, or why an hour should 
not be a century in that calenture of the brains that can make the 
stage a field. 
The truth is, that the spectators are always in their senses, and 
know, from the first act to the last, that the stage is only a stage, and 
that the players are only players. They came to hear a certain num- 
ber of lines recited with just gesture and elegant modulation. The 
lines relate to some action, and an action must be in some place; but 
the different actions that complete a story may be in places very re- 
mote from each other; and where is the absurdity of allowing that 
space to represent first Athens, and then Sicily, which was always 
known to be neither Sicily nor Athens, but a modern theatre? 
By supposition, as place is introduced, times may be extended; the 
time required by the fable elapses for the most part between the acts; 
for, of so much of the action as is represented, the real and poetical 
duration is the same. If, in the first act, preparations for war against 
Mithridates are represented to be made in Rome, the event of the 
war may, without absurdity, be represented, in the catastrophe, as 
happening in Pontus; we know that there is neither war, nor prepa- 
ration for war; we know that we are neither in Rome nor Pontus; 
that neither Mithridates nor Lucullus are before us. The drama 
exhibits successive imitations of successive actions; and why may not 
the second imitation represent an action that happened years after 
the first, if it be so connected with it, that nothing but time can be 
supposed to intervene? Time is, of all modes of existence, most 
obsequious to the imagination; a lapse of years is as easily conceived 
as a passage of hours. In contemplation we easily contract the time 
of real actions, and therefore willingly permit it to be contracted 
when we only see their imitation. 
It will be asked, how the drama moves, if it is not credited. It is 
credited with all the credit due to a drama. It is credited, whenever 
it moves, as a just picture of a real original; as representing to thÃ¨
 
auditor what he would himself feel, if he were to do or suffer what 
is there feigned to be suffered or to be done. The reflection that 
strikes the heart is not, that the evils before us are real evils, but that 
they are evils to which we ourselves may be exposed. If there be any 
fallacy, it is not that we fancy the players, but that we fancy our- 



TO SHAKESPEARE 223 
selves unhappy for a moment; but we rather lament the possibility 
than suppose the presence of misery, as a mother weeps over her 
babe, when she remembers that death may take it from her. The 
delight of tragedy proceeds from our consciousness of fiction; if we 
thought murders and treasons real, they would please no more. 
Imitations produce pain or pleasure, not because they are mistaken 
for realities, but because they bring realities to mind. When the 
imagination is recreated by a painted landscape, the trees are not 
supposed capable to give us shade, or the fountains coolness; but 
we consider, how we should be pleased with such fountains playing 
beside us, and such woods waving over us. We are agitated in 
reading the history of Henry the Fifth, yet no man takes his book 
for the field of Agencourt. A dramatick exhibition is a book recited 
with concomitants that encrease or diminish its effect. Familiar 
comedy is often more powerful in the theatre, than on the page; 
imperial tragedy is always less. The humour of Petruchio may be 
heightened by grimace; but what voice or what gesture can hope to 
add dignity or force to the soliloquy of Cato. 
A play read, affects the mind like a play acted. It is therefore 
evident, that the action is not supposed to be real; and it follows, 
that between the acts a longer or shorter time may be allowed to pass, 
and that no more account of space or duration is to be taken by the 
auditor of a drama, than by the reader of a narrative, before whom 
may pass in an hour the life of a hero, or the revolutions of an 
empire. 
Whether Shakespeare knew the unities, and rejected them by 
design, or deviated from them by happy ignorance, it is, I think, 
impossible to decide, and useless to enquire. We may reasonably 
suppose, that, when he rose to notice, he did not want the counsels 
and admonitions of scholars and criticks, and that he at last deliber- 
ately persisted in a practice, which he might have begun by chance. 
-As nothing is essential to the fable, but unity of action, and as the 
unities of time and place arise evidently from false assumptions, and, 
by circumscribing the extent of the drama, lessen its variety, I cannot 
think it much to be lamented, that they were not known by him, or 
not observed: Nor, if such another poet could arise, should I very 
vehemently reproach him, that his first act passed at Venice, and his 



224 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
next in Cyprt!s. Such violations of rules merely positive, become the 
comprehensive genius of Shakespeare, and such censures are suitable 
to the minute and slender criticism of Voltaire: 


Non usque adeo permiscuit imis 
Longus summa dies, ut non, si voce Metelli 
Serventur leges, malint a CÃ¦sare tolli. 


Yet when I speak thus slightly of dramatick rules, I cannot but 
recollect how much wit and learning may be produced against me; 
before such authorities I am afraid to stand, not that I think the 
present question one of those that are to be decided by mere 
authority, but because it is to be suspected, that these precepts have 
not been so easily received but for better reasons than I have yet been 
able to find. The result of my enquiries, in which it would be ludi- 
crous to boast of impartiality, is, that the unities of time and place 
are not essential to a just drama, that though they may sometimes 
conduce to pleasure, they are always to be sacrificed to the nobler 
beauties of variety and instruction; and that a play, written with nice 
observation of critical rules, is to be contemplated as an elaborate 
curiosity, as the product of superfluous and ostentatious art, by which 
is shewn, rather what is possible, than what is necessary. 
He that, without diminution of any other excellence, shall preserve 
all the unities unbroken, deserves the like applause with the archi- 
tect, who shall display all the orders of architecture in a citadel, 
\vithout any deduction from its strength; but the principal beauty 
of a citadel is to exclude the enemy; and the greatest graces of a play, 
are to copy nature and instruct life. ... 
Perhaps what I have here not dogmatically but deliberatively 
written, may recal the principles of the drama to a new examination. 
I am almost frighted at my own temerity; and when I estimate the 
fame and the strength of those that maintain the contrary opinion, 
am ready to sink down in reverential silence; as Ã†neas withdrew 
from the defence of Troy, when he saw Neptune shaking the wall, 
and Juno heading the besiegers. 
Those whom my arguments cannot persuade to give their appro- 
bation to the judgment of Shakespeare, will easily, if they consider 
the condition of his life, make some allo\vance for his ignorance. 



TO SHAKESPEARE 225 
Every man's performances, to be rightly estimated, must be com- 
pared with the state of the age in which he lived, and with his own 
particular opportunities; and though to the reader a book be not 
worse or better for the circumstances of the authour, yet as there is 
always a silent reference of human works to human abilities, and as 
the enquiry, how far man may extend his designs, or how high he 
may rate his native force, is of far greater dignity than in what rank 
\ve shall place any particular performance, curiosity is always busy 
to discover the instruments, as well as to survey the workmanship, 
to know how much is to be ascribed to original powers, and how 
much to casual and adventitious help. The palaces of Peru or Mexico 
\vere certainly mean and incommodious habitations, if compared to 
the houses of European monarchs; yet who could forbear to view 
them with astonishment, who remembered that they were built 
without the use of iron? 
The English nation, in the time of Shakespeare, was yet struggling 
to emerge from barbarity. The philology of Italy had been trans- 
planted hither in the reign of Henry the Eighth; and the learned 
languages had been successfully cultivated by Lilly, Linacer, and 
Afore; by Pole, Cheke, and Gardiner; and afterwards by Smith, 
Clerk, Haddon, and Ascham. Greek was now taught to boys in the 
principal schools; and those who united elegance with learning, 
read, with great diligence, the Italian and Spanish poets. But litera- 
ture was yet confined to professed scholars, or to men and women 
of high rank. The publick was gross and dark; and to be able to 
read and write, was an accomplishment still valued for its rarity. 
Nations, like individuals, have their infancy. A people newly 
awakened to literary curiosity, being yet unacquainted with the true 
state of things, knows not how to judge of that which is proposed as 
its resemblance. Whatever is remote from common appearances is 
always welcome to vulgar, as to childish credulity; and of a country 
unenlightened by learning, the whole people is the vulgar. The 
study of those who then aspired to plebeian learning was laid out 
upon adventures, giants, dragons, and enchantments. The Death of 
Arthur was the favourite volume. 
The mind, which has feasted on the luxurious wonders of fiction, 
has no taste of the insipidity of truth. A play which imitated only the 



226 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
common occurrences of the world, would, upon the admirers of 
Paltnerin and Guy of fVarwick, have made little impression; he that 
wrote for such an audience was under the necessity of looking round 
for strange events and fabulous transactions, and that incredibility, 
by which maturer knowledge is offended, was the chief recommenda- 
tion of writings, to unskilful curiosity. 
Our authour's plots are generally borrowed from novels, and it is 
reasonable to suppose, that he chose the most popular, such as wÃ©re 
read by many, and related by more; for his audience could not have 
followed him through the intricacies of the drama, had they not held 
the thread of the story in their hands. 
The stories, which we now find only in remoter authours, were in 
his time accessible and familiar. The fable of As you like it, which 
is supposed to be copied from Chaucer's Gamelyn, was a little pam- 
phlet of those times; and old Mr. Cibber remembered the tale of 
Ha1nlet in plain English prose, which the criticks have now to seek 
in Saxo Grammaticus. 
His English histories he took from English chronicles and English 
ballads; and as the ancient writers were made known to his country- 
men by versions, they supplied him with new subjects; he dilated 
some of Plutarch's lives into plays, when they had been translated 
by North. 
His plots, whether historical or fabulous, are always crouded with 
incidents, by which the attention of a rude people was more easily 
caught than by sentiment or argumentation; and such is the power 
of the marvellous even over those who despise it, that every man 
finds his mind more strongly seized by the tragedies of Shakespeare 
than of any other writer; others please us by particular speeches, but 
he always makes us anxious for the event, and has perhaps excelled 
all but Homer in securing the first purpose of a writer, by exciting 
restless and unquenchable ....curiosity and compelling him that reads 
his work to read it through. The shows and bustle with which his 
plays abound have the same original. As knowledge advances, 
pleasure passes from the eye to the ear, but returns, as it declines, 
from the ear to the eye. Those to whom our authour's labours were 
exhibited had more skill in pomps or processions than in poetical 
language, and perhaps wanted some visible and discriminated events, 
--I 



TO SHAKESPEARE 227 
as comments on the dialogue. He knew how he should most please; 
and whether his practice is more agreeable to nature, or whether his 
example has prej udiced the nation, we still find that on our stage 
something must be done as well as said, and inactive declamation 
is very coldly heard, however musical or elegant, passionate or 
sublime. 
V o/taire expresses his wonder, that our authour's extravagances 
are endured by a nation, which has seen the tragedy of Cato. Let him 
be answered, that Addison speaks the language of poets, and Shakes- 
peare, of men. We find in Cato innumerable beauties which en- 
amour us of its authour, but we see nothing that acquaints us with 
human sentiments or human actions; we place it with the fairest 
and the noblest progeny which judgment propagates by conjunc- 
tion with learning, but Othello is the vigorous and vivacious off- 
spring of observation impregnated by genius. Cato affords a splen- 
did exhibition of artificial and fictitious manners, and delivers just 
and noble sentiments, in diction easy, elevated and harmonious, but 
its hopes and fears communicate no vibration to the heart; the com- 
position refers us only to the writer; we pronounce the name of Cato, 
but we think on Addison. 
The work of a correct and regular writer is a garden accurately 
formed and diligently planted, varied with shades, and scented with 
flowers; the comÃ¾osition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks 
extend their branches, and pines tower in the air, interspersed some- 
times with weeds and brambles, and sometimes giving shelter to 
myrtles and to roses; filling the eye with awful pomp, and gratifying 
the mind with endless diversity. Other poets display cabinets of 
precious rarities, minutely finished, wrought into shape, and polished 
into brightness. Shakespeare opens a mine which contains gold and 
diamonds in unexhaustible plenty, though clouded by incrustations, 
debased by impurities, and mingled with a mass of meaner minerals. 
It has been much disputed, whether Shakespeare owed his excel- 
lence to his own native force, or whether he had the common helps 
of scholastick education, the precepts of critical science, and the exam- 
ples of ancient authours. 
There has always prevailed a tradition, that Shakespeare wanted 
learning, that he had no regular education, nor much skill in the 



228 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
dead languages. I ohnson, his friend, affirms, that he had small Latin, 
and no Greek; who, besides that he had no imaginable temptation 
to falsehood, wrote at a time when the character and acquisitions of 
Shakespeare were known to multitudes. His evidence ought there- 
fore to decide the controversy, unless some testimony of equal force 
could be opposed. 
Some have imagined, that they have discovered deep learning in 
many imitations of old writers; but the examples which I have 
known urged, were drawn from books translated in his time; or 
were such easy coincidences of thought, as will happen to all who 
consider the same subjects; or such remarks on life or axioms of 
morality as float in conversation, and are transmitted through the 
world in proverbial sentences. 
I have found it remarked, that, in this important sentence, Go 
hefore, I'll follow, we read a translation of, I Ã¾rae, sequar. I have 
been told, that when Caliban, after a pleasing dream, says, I cry'd to 
sleep again, the authour imitates Anacreon, who had, like every other 
man, the same wish on the same occasion. 
There are a few passages which may pass for imitations, but so 
few, that the exception only confirms the rule; he obtained them 
from accidental quotations, or by oral communication, and as he 
used what he had, would have used more if he had obtained it. 
The Comedy of Errors is confessedly taken from the MenÃ¦chmi 
of Plautus; from the only play of Plautus which was then in English. 
What can be more probable, than that he who copied that, would 
have copied more; but that those which were not translated were 
inaccessible? 
Whether he knew the modern languages is uncertain. That his 
plays have some French scenes proves but little; he might easily 
procure them to be written, and probably, even though he had 
known the language in the common degree, he could not have 
written it without assistance. In the story of Romeo and Juliet he is 
observed to have followed the English translation, where it deviates 
from the Italian; but this on the other part proves nothing against 
his knowledge of the original. He was to copy, not what he kne\v 
himself, but what was known to his audience. 
It is most likely that he had learned Latin sufficiently to make him 



TO SHAKESPEARE 229 
acquainted with construction, but that he never advanced to an easy 
perusal of the Roman authours. Concerning his skill in modern 
languages, I can find no sufficient ground of determination; but as no 
imitations of French or Italian authours have been discovered, 
though the Italian poetry was then high in esteem, I am inclined 
to believe, that he read little more than English
 and chose for his 
fables only such tales as he found translated. 
That much knowledge is scattered over his works is very justly 
observed by Pope, but it is often such knowledge as books did not 
supply. He that will understand Shakespeare, must not be content 
to study him in the closet, he must look for his meaning sometimes 
among the sports of the field, and sometimes among the manufac- 
tures of the shop. 
There is however proof enough that he was a very diligent reader, 
nor was our language then so indigent of books, but that he might 
very liberally indulge his curiosity without excursion into foreign 
literature. Many of the Roman authours were translated, and some 
of the Greek; the reformation had filled the kingdom with theolog- 
icallearning; most of the topicks of human disquisition had found 
English writers; and poetry had been cultivated, not only with dili- 
gence, but success. This was a stock of knowledge sufficient for a 
mind so capable of appropriating and improving it. 
But the greater part of his excellence was the product of his own 
genius. He found the English stage in a state of the utmost rudeness; 
no essays either in tragedy or comedy had appeared, from which it 
could be discovered to what degree of delight either one or other 
might be carried. Neither character nor dialogue were yet under.. I 
stood. Shakespeare may be truly said to have introduced them both 
amongst us, and in some of his happier scenes to have carried them 
both to the utmost height. 
By what gradations of improvement he proceeded, is not easily 
known; for the chronology of his works is yet unsettled. Row
 is of 
opinion, that perhaps we are not to look for his beginning, like those 
of other writers, in his least perfect works; art had .(0 little, and' 
nature so large a share in tvhat he did, that for ought I know, says he, 
the performances of his youth, as they were the most vigorous, were 
the best. But the power of nature is only the power of using to any 



23 0 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
certain purpose the materials which diligence procures, or oppor- 
tunity supplies. Nature gives no man knowledge, and when images 
are collected by study and experience, can only assist in combining 
or applying them. Shakespeare, however favoured by nature, could 
impart only what he had learned; and as he must increase his ideals, 
like other mortals, by gradual acquisition, h
, like them, grew wiser 
as he grew older, could display life better, as he knew it more, and 
instruct with more efficacy, as he was himself more amply instructed. 
There is a vigilance of observation and accuracy of distinction 
which books and precepts cannot confer; from this almost all original 
and native excellence proceeds. Shakespeare must have looked upon 
mankind with perspicacity, in the highest degree curious and atten- 
tive. Other writers borrow their characters from preceding writers, 
and diversify them only by the accidental appendages of present 
manners; the dress is a little varied, but the body is the same. Our 
authour had both matter and form to provide; for except the char- 
acters of Chaucer, to whom I think he is not much indebted, there 
were no writers in English, and perhaps not many in other modern 
languages, which shewed life in its native colours. 
The contest about the original benevolence or malignity of man 
had not yet commenced. Speculation had not yet attempted to 
analyse the mind, to trace the passions to their sources, to unfold 
the seminal principles of vice and virtue, or sound the depths of the 
heart for the motives of action. All those enquiries, which from that 
time that human nature became the fashionable study, have been 
made sometimes with nice discernment, but often with idle subtilty, 
were yet unattempted. The tales, with which the infancy of learning 
was satisfied, exhibited only the superficial appearances of action, 
related the events but omitted the causes, and were formed for such 
as delighted in wonders rather than in truth. Mankind was not then 
to be studied in the closet; he that would know the world, was under 
the necessity of gleaning his own remarks, by mingling as he could 
in its business and amusements. 
Boyle congratulated himself upon his high birth, because it 
favoured his curiosity, by facilitating his access. Shakespeare had 
no such advantage; he came to London a needy adventurer, and 
lived for a time by very mean employments. Many works of genius 



TO SHAKESPEARE 23 I 
and learning have been performed in states of life, that appear very 
little favourable to thought or to enquiry; so many, that he who con- 
siders them is inclined to think that he sees enterprise and persever- 
ance predominating over all external agency, and bidding help and 
hindrance vanish before them. The genius of Shakespeare was not 
to be depressed by the weight of poverty, nor limited by the narrow 
conversation to which men in want are inevitably condemned; the 
incumbrances of his fortune were shaken from his mind, as dewdrops 
from a lion's mane. 
Though he had so many difficulties to encounter, and so little 
assistance to surmount them, he has been able to obtain an exact 
knowledge of many modes of life, and many casts of native disposi- 
tions; to vary them with great multiplicity; to mark them by nice 
distinctions; and to shew them in full view by proper combinations. 
In this part of his performances he had none to imitate, but has him- 
self been imitated by all succeeding writers; and it may be doubted, 
whether from all his successors more maxims of theoretical knowl- 
edge, or more rules of practical prudence, can be collected, than he 
alone has given to his country. 
Nor was his attention confined to the actions of men; he was an 
exact surveyor of the inanimate world; his descriptions have always 
some peculiarities, gathered by contemplating things as they really 
exist. It may be observed, that the oldest poets of many nations 
preserve their reputation, and that the following generations of wit, 
after a short celebrity, sink into oblivion. The first, whoever they 
be, must take their sentiments and descriptions immediately from 
knowledge; the resemblance is therefore just, their descriptions are 
verified by every eye, and their sentiments acknowledged by every 
breast. Those whom their fame invites to the same studies, copy 
partly them, and partly nature, till the books of one age gain such 
authority, as to stand in the place of nature to another, and imitation, 
always deviating a little, becomes at. last capricious and casual. 
Shakespeare, whether life or nature be his subject, shews plainly, that 
he has seen with his own eyes; he gives the image which he receives, 
not weakened or distorted by the intervention of any other mind; 
the ignorant feel his representations to be just, and the learned see 
that they are compleat. 



232 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
Perhaps it would not be easy to find any authour, except Homer, 
who invented so much as Shakespeare, who so much advanced the 
studies which he cultivated, or effused so much novelty upon his age 
or country. The form, the characters, the language, and the shows 
of the English drama are his. He seems, says Dennis, to have been 
the very original of our English tragical harmony, that is, the har- 
mony of blank verse, diversified often by dissyllable and trissyllable 
terminations. For the diversity distinguishes it from heroick har- 
mony, and by bringing it nearer to common use makes it more 
proper to gain attention, and more fit for action and dialogue. Such 
verse we make when we are writing prose; we make such verse in 
common conversation. 
I know not whether this praise is rigorously just. The dissyllable 
termination, which the critic rightly appropriates to the drama, is 
to be found, though, I think, not in Gorboduc which is confessedly 
before our author; yet in Hieronnymo, of which the date is not cer- 
tain, but which there is reason to believe at least as old as his earliest 
plays. This however is certain, that he is the first who taught either 
tragedy or comedy to please, there being no theatrical piece of any 
older writer, of which the name is known, except to antiquaries and 
collectors of books, which are sought because they are scarce, and 
would not have been scarce, had they been much esteemed. 
To him we must ascribe the praise, unless Spenser may divide 
it with him, of having first discovered to how much smoothness and 
harmony the English language could be softened. He has speeches, 
perhaps sometimes scenes, which have all the delicacy of Rowe, 
without his effeminacy. He endeavours indeed commonly to strike 
by the force and vigour of his dialogue, but he never executes his 
purpose better, than when he tries to sooth by softness. 
Yet it must be at last confessed, that as we owe every thing to him, 
he owes something to us; that, if much of his praise is paid by per- 
ception and judgement, much is likewise given by custom and 
veneration. We fix our eyes upon his graces, and turn them from 
his deformities, and endure in him what we should in another loath 
or despise. If we endured without praising, respect for the father 
of our drama might excuse us; but I have seen, in the book of some 
modern critick, a collection of anomalies, which shew that he has 



TO SHAKESPEARE 233 
corrupted language by every mode of depravation, but which his 
admirer has accumulated as a monument of honour. 
He has scenes of undoubted and perpetual excellence, but perhapi 
not one play, which, if it were now exhibited as the work of a con- 
temporary writer, would be heard to the conclusion. I am indeed far 
from thinking, that his \vorks were wrought to his own ideas of 
perfection; when they were such as would satisfy the audience, they 
satisfied the writer. It is seldom that authours, though more studious 
of fame than Shakespeare, rise much above the standard of their own 
age; to add a little of what is best will always be sufficient for present 
praise, and those \vho find themselves exalted into fame, are willing 
to credit their encomiasts, and to spare the labour of contending 
with themselves. 
It does not appear, that Shakespeare thought his works worthy of 
posterity, that he levied any ideal tribute upon future times, or had 
any further prospect, than of present popularity and present profit. 
When his plays had been acted, his hope \vas at an end; he solicited 
no addition of honour from the reader. He therefore made no scru- 
ple to repeat the same jests in many dialogues, or to entangle different 
plots by the same knot of perplexity, which may be at least forgiven 
him, by those who recollect, that of Congreve's four comedies, two 
are concluded by a marriage in a mask, by a deception, which perhaps 
never happened, and which, whether likely or not, .he did not 
invent. 
So careless was this great poet of future fame, that, though he 
retired to ease and plenty, while he was yet little declined into the 
vale of years, before he could be disgusted with fatigue, or disabled 
by infirmity, he made no collection of his works, nor desired to res- 
cue those that had been already published from the depravations 
that obscured them, or secure to the rest a better destiny, by giving 
them to the world in their genuine state. 
Of the plays which bear the name of Shakespeare in the late edi- 
tions, the greater part were not published till about seven years after 
his death, and the few which appeared in his life are apparently 
thrust into the world without the care of the authour, and therefore 
probably without his knowledge. 
Of all the publishers, clandestine or professed, their negligence and 



234 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
unskilfulness has by the late revisers been sufficiently shown. The 
faults of all are indeed numerous and gross, and have not only 
corrupted many passages perhaps beyond recovery, but have brought 
others into suspicion, which are only obscured by obsolete phrase- 
ology, or by the writer's unskilfulness and affectation. To alter is 
more easy than to explain, and temerity is a more common quality 
than diligence. Those who saw that they must employ conjecture 
to a certain degree, \-vere willing to indulge it a little further. Had 
the author published his own \vorks, we should have sat quietly 
down to disentangle his intricacies, and clear his obscurities; but now 
we tear what \ve cannot loose, and eject \vhat we happen not to 
understand. 
The faults are more than could have happened \vithout the con- 
currence of many causes. The stile of Shakespeare was in itself 
ungrammatical, perplexed and obscure; his works were transcribed 
for the players by those who may be supposed to have seldom under- 
stood them; they were transmitted by copiers equally unskilful, who 
still multiplied errours; they were perhaps sometimes mutilated by 
the actors, for the sake of shortening the speeches; and were at last 
printed without correction of the press. 
In this state they remained, not as Dr. Warburton supposes, be- 
cause they were unregarded, but because the editor's art was not yet 
applied to modern languages, and our ancestors were accustomed to 
so much negligence of English printers, that they could very patiently 
endure it. At last an edition was undertaken by Rowe,. not because 
a poet was to be published by a poet, for Rowe seems to have thought 
very little on correction or explanation, but that our authour's works 
might appear like those of his fraternity, \vith the appendages of a 
life and recommendatory preface. Rowe has been clamorously 
blamed for not performing what he did not undertake, and it is 
time that justice be done him, by confessing, that though he seems 
to have had no thought of corruption beyond the printer's errours, 
yet he has made many emendations, if they were not made before, 
\vhich his successors have received \vithout ackno\vledgement, and 
\vhich, if they had produced them, would have filled pages and pages 
with censures of the stupidity by which the faults were committed, 
with displays of the absurdities which they involved, with ostel1ta- 



TO SHAKESPEARE 235 
tious expositions of the new reading, and self congratulations on the 
happiness of discovering it. 
Of Rowe, as of all the editors, I have preserved the preface, and 
have likewise retained the authour's life, though not written with 
much elegance or spirit; it relates however what is now to be known, 
and therefore deserves to pass through all succeeding publications. 
The nation had been for many years content enough with Mr. 
Rowe's performance, when Mr. Pope made them acquainted with 
the true state of Shakespeare's text, shewed that it was extremely 
corrupt, and gave reason to hope that there were means of reforming 
it. He collated the old copies, which none had thought to examine 
before, and restored many lines to their integrity; but, by a very 
compendious criticism, he rejected whatever he disliked, and thought 
more of amputation than of cure. 
I know not why he is commended by Dr . Warburton for dis- 
tinguishing the genuine from the spurious plays. In this choice he 
exerted no judgement of his own; the plays which he received, were 
given by Hemings and Condel, the first editors; and those which he 
rejected, though, according to the licentiousness of the press in those 
times, they were printed during Shakespeare's life, with his name, 
had been omitted by his friends, and were never added to his works 
before the edition of 1664, from which they were copied by the later 
printers. 
This was a work which Pope seems to have thought unworthy 
of his abilities, being not able to suppress his contempt of the dull 
duty of an editor. He understood but half his undertaking. The 
duty of a collator is indeed dull, yet, like other tedious tasks, is very 
necessary; but an emendatory critick would ill discharge his duty, 
without qualities very different from dullness. In perusing a cor- 
rupted piece, he must have before him all possibilities of meaning, 
with all possibilities of expression. Such must be his comprehension 
of thought, and such his copiousness of language. Out of many 
readings possible, he must be able to select that which best suits with 
the state, opinions, and modes of language prevailing in every age, 
and with his authour's particular cast of thought, and turn of expres- 
sion. Such must be his 
nowledge, and such his taste. Conjectural 
criticism demands more than humanity possesses, and he that exer- 



236 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
cises it with most praise has very frequent need of indulgence. Let 
us now be told no more of the dull duty of an editor. 
Confidence is the common consequence of success. They whose 
excellence of any kind has been loudly celebrated, are ready to con- 
clude, that their powers are universal. Pope's edition fell below his 
own expectations, and he was so much offended, when he was found 
to have left any thing for others to do, that he past the latter part of 
his life in a state of hostility with verbal criticism. 
I have retained all his notes, that no fragment of so great a writer 
may be lost; his preface, valuable alike for elegance of composition 
and justness of remark, and containing a general criticism on his 
authour, so extensive, that little can be added, and so exact, that 
little can be disputed, every editor has an interest to suppress, but 
that every reader would demand its insertion. 
Pope was succeeded by Theobald, a man of narrow comprehen- 
sion and small acquisitions, with no native and intrinsick splendour 
of genius, with little of the artificial light of learning, but zealous for 
minute accuracy, and not negligent in pursuing it. He collated the 
ancient copies, and rectified many errours. A man so anxiously 
scrupulous might have been expected to do more, but what little he 
did was commonly right. 
In his report of copies and editions he is not to be trusted, without 
examination. He speaks sometimes indefinitely of copies, when he 
has only one. In his enumeration of editions, he mentions the two 
first folios as of high, and the third folio as of middle authority; but 
the truth is, that the first is equivalent to all others, and that the rest 
only deviate from it by the printer's negligence. Whoever has any 
of the folios has all, excepting those diversities which mere reitera- 
tion of editions will produce. I collated them all at the beginning, 
but afterwards used only the first. 
Of his notes I have generally retained those which he retained 
himself in his second edition, except when they were confuted by 
subsequent annotators, or were too minute to merit preservation. 
I have sometimes adopted his restoration of a comma, without insert- 
ing the panegyrick in which he celebrated himself for his achieve- 
ment. The exuberant excrescence of his diction I have often lopped, 
his triumphant exultations over Pope and Rowe I have sometimes 



TO SHAKESPEARE 237 
suppressed, and his contemptible ostentation I have frequently con.. 
cealed; but I have in some places shewn him, as he would have shewn 
himself, for the reader's diversion, that the inflated emptiness of 
some notes may justify or excuse the contraction of the rest. 
Theobald, thus weak and ignorant, thus mean and faithless, thus 
petulant and ostentatious, by the good luck of having Pope for his 
enemy, has escaped, and "escaped alone, with reputation, from this 
undertaking. So willingly does the world support those who solicite 
favour, against those who command reverence; and so easily is he 
praised, whom no man can envy. 
Our authour fell then into the hands of Sir Thomas Hanmer, the 
Oxford editor, a man, in my opinion, eminently qualified by nature 
for such studies. He had, what is the first requisite to emendatory 
criticism, that intuition by which the poet's intention is immediately 
discovered, and that dexterity of intellect which despatches its work 
by the easiest means. He had undoubtedly read much; his acquain- 
tance with customs, opinions, and traditions, seems to have been 
large; and he is often learned without shew. He seldom passes what 
he does not understand, without an attempt to find or to make a 
meaning, and son1etimes hastily makes what a little more attention 
would have found. He is solicitous to reduce to grammar, what he 
could not be sure that his authour intended to be grammatical. 
Shakespeare regarded more the series of ideas, than of words; and 
his language, not being designed for the reader's desk, was all that 
he desired it to be, if it conveyed his meaning to the audience. 
Hanmer's care of the metre has been too violently censured. He 
found the measures reformed in so many passages, by the silent 
labours of some editors, with the silent acquiescence of the rest, that 
he thought himself allowed to extend a little further the license, 
which had already been carried so far without reprehension; and 
of his corrections in general, it must be confessed, that they are often 
just, and made commonly with the least possible violation of the 
text. 
But, by inserting his emendations, whether invented or borrowed, 
into the page, \vithout any notice of varying copies, he has appropri.. 
ated the labour of his predecessors, and made his own edition of 
little authority. His confidence indeed, both in himself and others, 



238 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
\vas too great; he supposes all to be right that was done by Pope and 
T 12 eo bald ,. he seems not to suspect a critick of fallibility, and it ,vas 
but reasonable that he should claim what he so liberally granted. 
As he never writes without careful enquiry and diligent considera- 
tion, I have received all his notes, and believe that every reader will 
\vish for more. 
Of the last editor it is more difficult to speak. Respect is due to 
high place, tenderness to living reputation, and veneration to genius 
and learning; but he cannot be justly offended at that liberty of 
which he has himself so frequently given an example, nor very 
solicitous what is thought of notes, which he ought never to have 
considered as part of his serious employments, and which, I suppose, 
since the ardour of composition is remitted, he no longer numbers 
among his happy effusions. 
The original and predominant errour of his commentary, is acqui- 
escence in his first thoughts; that precipitation which is produced 
by consciousness of quick discernment; and that confidence which 
presumes to do, by surveying the surface, what labour only can 
perform, by penetrating the bottom. His notes exhibit sometimes 
perverse interpretations, and sometimes improbable conjectures; he 
at one time gives .the authour more profundity of meaning, than the 
sentence admits, and at another discovers absurdities, where the sense 
is plain to every other reader. But his emendations are likewise often 
happy and just; and his interpretation of obscure passages learned 
and sagacious. 
Of his notes, I have commonly rejected those, against which the 
general voice of the publick has exclaimed, or which their own incon- 
gruity immediately condemns, and which, I suppose, the authour 
himself would desire to be forgotten. Of the rest, to part I have 
gi ven the highest approbation, by inserting the offered reading in 
the text; part I have left to the judgment of the reader, as doubtful, 
though specious; and part I have censured without reserve, but I am 
sure without bitterness of malice, and, I hope, without wantonness 
of insult. 
It is no pleasure to me, in revising my volumes, to observe how 
much paper is wasted in confutation. Whoever considers the revolu- 
tions of learning, and the various questions of greater or less im- 



TO SHAKESPEARE 


239 


portance, upon which wit and reason have exercised their powers, 
must lament the unsuccessfulness of enquiry, and the slow advances 
of truth, when he reflects, that great part of the labour of every writer 
is only the destruction of those that went before him. The first care 
of the builder of a new system, is to demolish the fabricks which 
are standing. The chief desire of him that comments an authour, 
is to shew how much other commentators have corrupted and 
obscured him. The opinions prevalent in one age, as truths above 
the reach of controversy, are confuted and rejected in another, and 
rise again to reception in remoter times. Thus the human mind is 
kept in motion without progress. Thus sometimes truth and errour, 
and sometimes contrarieties of errour, take each other's place by 
reciprocal invasion. The tide of seeming knowledge which is poured 
over one generation, retires and leaves another naked and barren; 
the sudden meteors of intelligence \vhich for a while appear to shoot 
their beams into the regions of obscurity, on a sudden withdraw 
their lustre, and leave mortals again to grope their way. 
These elevations and depressions of renown, and the contradic- 
tions to which all improvers of knowledge must for ever be exposed, 
since they are not escaped by the highest and brightest of mankind, 
may surely be endured with patience by criticks and annotators, who 
can rank themselves but as the satellites of their authours. How 
canst thou beg for life, says Achilles to his captive, when thou kno\v- 
est that thou art now to suffer only what must another day be 
suffered by Achilles? 
Dr . Warburton had a name sufficient to confer celebrity on those 
who could exalt themselves into antagonists, and his notes have 
raised a clamour too loud to be distinct. His chief assailants are the 
authours of the Canons of criticism and of the Review of Shakes- 
peare's text; of whom one ridicules his errours with airy petulance, 
suitable enough to the levity of the controversy; the other attacks 
them with gloomy malignity, as if he were dragging to justice an 
assassin or incendiary. The one stings like a fly, sucks a little blood, 
takes a gay flutter, and returns for more; the other bites like a viper, 
and would be glad to leave inflammations and gangrene behind him. 
When I think on one, with his confederates, I remember the danger 
of Coriolanus, who was afraid that girls with spits, and boys with 



24 0 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
stones, should slay hil1l in puny battle; when the other crosses my 
imagination, I remember the prodigy in Macbeth 1 
An eagle tou/ring in his pride of place, 
Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd. 
Let me however do them justice. One is a wit, and one a scholar. 
They have both shown acuteness sufficient in the discovery of faults, 
and have both advanced some probable interpretations of obscure 
passages; but when they aspire to conjecture and emendation, it 
appears ho\v falsely we all estimate our own abilities, and the little 
which they have been able to perform might have taught them more 
candour to the endeavours of others. 
Before Dr. Warburton's edition, Critical observations on Shakes- 
peare had been published by Mr. Upton, a man skilled in languages, 
and acquainted with books, but who seems to have had no great 
vigour of genius or nicety of taste. Many of his explanations are 
curious and useful, but he likewise, though he professed to oppose 
the licentious confidence of editors, and adhere to the old copies, is 
unable to restrain the rage of emendation, though his ardour is ill 
seconded by his skill. Every cold empirick, \vhen his heart is ex- 
panded by a successful experiment, swells into a theorist, and the 
laborious collator at some unlucky moment frolicks in conjecture. 
Critical, historical and explanatory notes have been likewise pub- 
lished upon Shakespeare by Dr. Grey, whose diligent perusal of the 
old English writers has enabled him to make some useful observa- 
tions. What he undertook he has well enough performed, but as he 
neither attempts judicial nor emendatory criticism, he employs 
rather his memory than his sagacity. It \vere to be \vished that all 
would endeavour to imitate his modesty who have not been able to 
surpass his knowledge. 
I can say with great sincerity of all my predecessors, what I hope 
will hereafter be said of me, that not one has left Shakespeare without 
improvement, nor is there one to \vhom I have not been indebted 
for assistance and information. Whatever I have taken from them it 
was my intention to refer to its original authour, and it is certain, 
that what I have not given to another, I believed when I wrote it to 
be my own. In some perhaps I have been anticipated; but if I am 



TO SHAKESPEARE 241 
ever found to encroach upon the remarks of any other commentator, 
I am willing that the honour, be it more or less, should be trans- 
ferred to the first claimant, for his right, and his alone, stands above 
dispute; the second can prove his pretensions only to himself, nor 
can himself always distinguish invention, \vith sufficient certainty, 
from recollection. 
They have all been treated by me with candour, which they have 
not been careful of observing to one another. It is not easy to dis- 
cover from what cause the acrimony of a scholiast can naturally 
proceed. The subjects to be discussed by him are of very small 
importance; they involve neither property nor liberty; nor favour 
the interest of sect or party. The various readings of copies, and 
different interpretations of a passage, seem to be questions that 
might exercise the wit, \vithout engaging the passions. But, whether 
it be, that small things make mean men proud, and vanity catches 
small occasions; or that all contrariety of opinion, even in those that 
can defend it no longer, makes proud men angry; there is often 
found in commentaries a spontaneous strain of invective and con- 
tempt, more eager and venomous than is vented by the most furious 
controvertist in politicks against those whom he is hired to defame. 
Perhaps the lightness of the matter may conduce to the vehemence 
of the agency; when the truth to be investigated is so near to inex- 
istence, as to escape attention, its bulk is to be enlarged by rage 
and exclamation: That to which all would be indifferent in its 
original state, may attract notice when the fate of a name is appended 
to it. A commentator has indeed great temptations to supply by 
turbulence what he \vants of dignity, to beat his little gold to a 
spacious surface, to work that to foam which no art or diligence can 
exalt to spirit. 
The notes which I have borro\ved or written are either illustrative, 
by which difficulties are explained; or judicial by which faults and 
beauties are remarked; or emendatory, by which depravations are 
corrected. 
The explanations transcribed from others, if I do not subjoin any 
other interpretation, I suppose comrtlonly to be right, at least I 
intend by acquiescence to confess, that I have nothing better to 
propose. 



24 2 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
After the labours of all the editors, I found many passages which 
appeared to me likely to obstruct the greater number of readers, 
and thought it my duty to facilitate their passage. It is impossible 
for an expositor not to write too little for some, and too much for 
others. He can only judge what is necessary by his own experience; 
and how long soever he may deliberate, will at last explain many 
lines which the learned will think impossible to be mistaken, and 
omit many for which the ignorant will want his help. These are 
censures merely relative, and must be quietly endured. I have en- 
deavoured to be neither superfluously copious, nor scrupulously 
reserved, and hope that I have made my authour's meaning accessible 
to many who before were frighted from perusing him, and con- 
tributed sornething to the publick, by diffusing innocent and rational 
pleasure. 
The compleat explanation of an authour not systematick and 
consequential, but desultory and vagrant, abounding in casual allu- 
sions and light hints, is not to be expected from any single scholiast. 
All personal reflections, when names are suppressed, must be in a 
few years irrecoverably obliterated; and custorns, too minute to 
attract the notice of law, such as modes of dress, formalities of con- 
versation, rules of visits, disposition of furniture, and practices of 
ceremony, which naturally find places in familiar dialogue, are so 
fugitive and unsubstantial, that they are not easily retained or 
recovered. What can be known, will be collected by chance, from 
the recesses of obscure and obsolete papers, perused cornmonly with 
some other view. Of this knowledge every man has some, and none 
has much; but when an authour has engaged the publick attention, 
those who can add any thing to his illustration, comrnunÃŒcate their 
discoveries, and time produces what had eluded diligence. 
To time I have been obliged to resign many passages, which, 
though I did not understand them, will perhaps hereafter be ex- 
plained, having, I hope, illustrated some, which others have neglected 
or mistaken, sometimes by short remarks, or marginal directions, 
such as every editor has added at his will, and often by comments 
more laborious than the matter will seem to deserve; but that which 
is most difficult is not always most important, and to an editor 
nothing is a trifle by which his authour is obscured. 



TO SHAKESPEARE 243 
The poetical beauties or defects I have not been very diligent to 
observe. Some plays have more, and some fewer judicial observa- 
tions, not in proportion to their difference of merit, but because I 
gave this part of my design to chance and to caprice. The reader, I 
believe, is seldom pleased to find his opinion anticipated; it is natural 
to delight more in \vhat we find or make, than in \vhat we receive. 
Judgement, like other faculties, is improved by practice, and its 
advancement is hindered by submission to dictatorial decisions, as 
the memory grows torpid by the use of a table book. Some initiation 
is however necessary; of all skill, part is infused by precept, and part 
is obtained by habit; I have therefore shewn so much as may enable 
the candidate of criticism to discover the rest. 
To the end of most plays, I have added short strictures, containing 
a general censure of faults, or praise of excellence; in ,vhich I know 
not how much I have concurred ,vith the current opinion; but I 
have not, by any affectation of singularity, deviated from it. Noth- 
ing is minutely and particularly examined, and therefore it is to be 
supposed, that in the plays which are condemned ,there is much 
to be praised, and in these which are praised much to be con- 
demned. 
The part of criticism in which the whole succession of editors has 
laboured with the greatest diligence, which has occasioned the most 
arrogant ostentation, and excited the keenest acrimony, is the emen- 
dation of corrupted passages, to which the publick attention having 
been first drawn by the violence of contention between Pope and 
Theobald, has been continued by the persecution, which, with a 
kind of conspiracy, has been since raised against all the publishers 
of Shakespeare. 
That many passages have passed in a state of depravation through 
all the editions is indubitably certain; of these the restoration is only 
to be attempted by collation of copies or sagacity of conjecture. The 
collator's province is safe and easy, the conjecturer's perilous and 
difficult. Yet as the greater part of the plays are extant only in one 
copy, the peril must not be avoided, nor the difficulty refused. 
Of the readings which this emulation of amendment has hitherto 
produced, some from the labours of every publisher I have advanced 
into the text; those are to be considered as in my opinion sufficiently 



244 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
supported; some I have rejected without mention, as evidently 
erroneous; some I have left in the notes without censure or appro- 
bation, as resting in equipoise between objection and defence; and 
some, which seemed specious but not right, I have inserted \vith a 
subsequent animadversion. 
Having classed the observations of others, I was at last to try what 
I could substitute for their mistakes, and how I could supply their 
omissions. I collated such copies as I could procure, and wished for 
more, but have not found the collectors of these rarities very com- 
municative. Of the editions which chance or kindness put into 
my hands I have given an enumeration, that I may not be blamed for 
neglecting \vhat I had not the power to do. 
By examining the old copies, I soon found that the later publishers, 
with all their boasts of diligence, suffered many passages to stand 
unauthorised, and contented themselves with Rowe's regulation of 
the text, even where they kne\v it to be arbitrary, and with a little 
consideration might have found it to be wrong. Some of these altera- 
tions are only the ejection of a word for one that appeared to him 
more elegant or more intelligible. These corruptions I have often 
silently rectified; for the history of our language, and the true force 
of our words, can only be preserved, by keeping the text of authours 
free from adulteration. Others, and those very frequent, smoothed 
the cadence, or regulated the measure; on these I have not exercised 
the same rigour; if only a word \vas transposed, or a particle inserted 
or omitted, I have sometimes suffered the line to stand; for the 
inconstancy of the copies is such, as that some liberties may be easily 
permitted. But this practice I have not suffered to proceed far, hav- 
ing restored the primitive diction wherever it could for any reason 
be preferred. 
The emendations, \\Thich comparison of copies supplied, I have 
inserted in the text; sometimes where the improvement was slight, 
without notice, and sometimes with an account of the reasons of the 
change. 
Conjecture, though it be sometimes unavoidable, I have not 
wantonly nor licentiously indulged. It has been my settled principle, 
that the reading of the ancient books is probably true, and therefore 
is not to be disturbed for the sake of elegance, perspicuity, or mere 



TO SHAKESPEARE 245 
improvement of the sense. For though much credit is not due to the 
fidelity, nor any to the judgement of the first publishers, yet they 
who had the copy before their eyes were more likely to read it right, 
than \ve who read it only by imagination. But it is evident that they 
have often made strange mistakes by ignorance or negligence, and 
that therefore something may be properly attempted by criticism, 
keeping the middle way between presumption and timidity. 
Such criticism I have attempted to practice, and where any 
passage appeared inextricably perplexed, have endeavoured to dis- 
cover how it may be recalled to sense, with least violence. But my 
first labour is, always to turn the old text on every side, and try if 
there be any interstice, through which light can find its way; nor 
would Huetius himself condemn me, as refusing the trouble of 
research, for the ambition of alteration. In this modest industry I 
have not been unsuccessful. I have rescued many lines from the 
violations of temerity, and secured many scenes from the inroads 
of correction. I have adopted the Roman sentiment, that it is more 
honourable to save a citizen, than to kill an enemy, and have been 
more careful to protect than to attack. 
I have preserved the common distribution of the plays into acts, 
though I believe it to be in alrnost all the plays void of authority. 
Some of those which are divided in the later editions have no division 
in the first folio, and some that are divided in the folio have no 
di vision in the preceding copies. The settled mode of the theatre 
requires four intervals in the play, but few, if any, of our authour's 
cornpositions can be properly distributed in that manner. An act 
is so much of the drama as passes without intervention of time or 
change of place. A pause makes a new act. In every real, and there- 
fore in every imitative action, the intervals may be more or fewer, 
the restriction of five acts being accidental and arbitrary. This 
Shakespeare knew, and this he practised; his plays were written, 
and at first printed in one unbroken continuity, and ought now to be 
exhibited with short pauses, interposed as often as the scene is 
changed, or any considerable time is required to pass. This method 
would at once quell a thousand absurdities. 
In restoring the author's works to their integrity, I have con- 
sidered the punctuation as \vholly in my power; for what could be 



246 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
their care of colons and commas, who corrupted \vords and sentences. 
Whatever could be done by adjusting points is therefore silently 
performed, in some plays with much diligence, in others with less; 
it is hard to keep a busy eye steadily fixed upon evanescent atoms, 
or a discursive mind upon evanescent truth. 
The same liberty has been taken with a few particles, or other 
words of slight effect. I have sometimes inserted or omitted them 
without notice. I have done that sometimes, which the other editors 
have done ahvays, and which indeed the state of the text may 
sufficient! y justify. 
The greater part of readers, instead of blaming us for passing 
trifles, will wonder that on mere trifles so much labour is expended, 
with such importance of debate, and such solemnity of diction. 
To these I answer with confidence, that they are judging of an art 
which they do not understand; yet cannot much reproach them with 
their ignorance, nor promise that they would become in general, by 
learning criticism, more useful, happier or wiser. 
As I practised conjecture more, I learned to trust it less; and after 
I had printed a few plays, resolved to insert none of my o\vn readings 
in the text. Upon this caution I now congratulate myself, for every 
day encreases my doubt of my emendations. 
Since I have confined my imagination to the margin, it must not be 
considered as very reprehensible, if I have suffered it to play some 
freaks in its own dominion. There is no danger in conjecture, if it 
be proposed as conjecture; and while the text remains uninjured, 
those changes may be safely offered, which are not considered even 
by him that offers them as necessary or safe. 
If my readings are of little value, they have not been ostentatiously 
displayed or importunately obtruded. I could have \vritten longer 
notes, for the art of writing notes is not of difficult attainment. The 
work is performed, first by railing at the stupidity, negligence, igno- 
rance, and asinine tastelessness of the former editors, and she\ving, 
from all that goes before and all that follows, the inelegance and 
absurdity of the old reading; then by proposing something which to 
superficial readers would seem specious, but which the editor rejects 
with indignation; then by producing the true reading, with a long 
paraphrase, and concluding with loud acclamations on the discovery, 



TO SHAKESPEARE 247 
and a sober \vish for the advancement and prosperity of genuine 
criticism. 
All this may be done, and perhaps done sometimes without impro- 
priety. But I have always suspected that the reading is right, which 
requires many words to prove it wrong; and the emendation wrong, 
that cannot without so much labour appear to be right. The justness 
of a happy restoration strikes at once, and the moral precept may be 
well applied to criticism, quod dubitas ne feceris. 
To dread the shore which he sees spread with wrecks, is natural 
to the sailor. I had before my eye, so many critical adventures ended 
in miscarriage, that caution was forced upon me. I encountered in 
every page Wit struggling with its own sophistry, and Learning con- 
fused by the multiplicity of its views. I was forced to censure those 
whom I admired, and could not but reflect, while I \vas dispossessing 
their emendations, how soon the same fate might happen to my own, 
and how many of the readings \vhich I have corrected may be by 
some other editor defended and established. 
Criticks, I saw, that other's names efface, 
And fix their own, with labour, in the place; 
Their own, like others, soon their place resign'd, 
Or disappear'd, and left the first behind. 
POPE. 
That a conjectural critick should often be mistaken, cannot be 
\vonderful, either to others or himself, if it be considered, that in his 
art there is no system, no principal and axiomatical truth that regu- 
lates subordinate positions. His chance of errour is renewed at every 
attempt; an oblique view of the passage, a slight misapprehension of 
a phrase, a casual inattention to the parts connected, is sufficient to 
make him not only fail, but fail ridiculously; and when he succeeds 
best, he produces perhaps but one reading of many probable, and he 
that suggests another will always be able to dispute his claims. 
It is an unhappy state, in which danger is hid under pleasure. The 
allurements of emendation are scarcely resistible. Conjecture has all 
the joy and all the pride of invention, and he that has once started a 
happy change, is too much delighted to consider what objections may 
rise against it. 
Yet conjectural criticism has been of great use in the learned 



248 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
world; nor is it my intention to depreciate a study, that has exercised 
so many mighty minds, from the revival of learning to our own age, 
from the Bishop of Aleria to English Bentley. The criticks on ancient 
authours have, in the exercise of their sagacity, many assistances, 
which the editor of Shakespeare is condemned to \vant. They are 
employed upon grammatical and settled languages, whose construc- 
tion contributes so much to perspicuity, that Homer has fewer pass- 
ages unintelligible than Chaucer. The \vords have not only a known 
regimen, but invariable quantities, which direct and confine the 
choice. There are commonly more manuscripts than one; and they 
do not often conspire in the same mistakes. Yet Scali ger could con- 
fess to Salmasius how little satisfaction his emendations gave him. 
llludunt nobis conjecturÃ¦ nostrÃ¦, quarum nos pudet, posteaquam in 
meliores codices incidimus. And Lipsius could complain, that 
criticks were making faults, by trying to remove them, U t olim 
vitiis, ita nunc remediis laboratur. And indeed, where mere conjec- 
ture is to be used, the emendations of Scaliger and Lipsius, notwith- 
standing their wonderful sagacity and erudition, are often vague 
and disputable, like mine or Theobald' s. 
Perhaps I may not be more censured for doing wrong, than for 
doing little; for raising in the publick expectations, which at last I 
have not answered. The expectation of ignorance is indefinite, and 
that of knowledge is often tyrannical. It is hard to satisfy those 
who know not what to demand, or those who demand by design 
what they think impossible to be done. I have indeed disappointed 
no opinion more than my own; yet I have endeavoured to perform 
my task with no slight solicitude. Not a single passage in the whole 
work has appeared to me corrupt, which I have not attempted to 
restore; or obscure, which I have not endeavoured to illustrate. In 
many I have failed like others; and from many, after all my efforts, 
I have retreated, and confessed the repulse. I have not passed over, 
with affected superiority, what is equally difficult to the reader and 
to myself, but where I could not instruct him, have owned my igno- 
rance. I might easily have accumulated a mass of seeming learning 
upon easy scenes; but it ought not to be imputed to negligence, that, 
where nothing was necessary, nothing has been done, or that, where 
others have said enough, I have said no more. 



TO SHAKESPEARE 249 
Notes are often necessary, but they are necessary evils. Let him, 
that is yet unacquainted with the powers of Shakespeare, and who 
desires to feel the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read 
every play from the first scene to the last, with utter negligence of all 
his commentators. When his fancy is once on the wing, let it not 
stoop at correction or explanation. When his attention is strongly 
engaged, let it disdain alike to turn aside to the name of Theobald 
and of Pope. Let him read on through brightness and obscurity, 
through integrity and corruption; let him preserve his comprehen- 
sion of the dialogue and his interest in the fable. And when the 
pleasures of novelty have ceased, let him attempt exactness, and read 
the commentators. 
Particular passages are cleared by notes, but the general effect of 
the work is weakened. The mind is refrigerated by interruption; 
the thoughts are diverted from the principal subject; the reader is 
weary, he suspects not why; and at last thro,vs a\vay the book, which 
he has too diligently studied. 
Parts are not to be examined till the whole has been surveyed; 
there is a kind of intellectual remoteness necessary for the compre- 
hension of any great work in its full design and its true proportions; 
a close approach shews the smaller niceties, but the beauty of the 
,vhole is discerned no longer. 
It is not very grateful to consider how little the succession of 
editors has added to this authour's power of pleasing. He was read, 
admired, studied, and imitated, while he was yet deformed with all 
the improprieties which ignorance and neglect could accumulate 
upon him; \vhile the reading was yet not rectified, nor his allusions 
understood; yet then did Dryden pronounce "that Shakespeare was 
the man, who, of all modern and perhaps ancient poets, had the 
largest and most comprehensive sou1." All the images of nature 
were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but 
luckily: when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you 
feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him 
the greater commendation: he was naturally learned: he needed not 
the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked in\vards, and found 
her there. I cannot say he is every where alike; were he so, I should 
do him injury to compare him \vith the greatest of mankind. He 



250 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
is many times flat and insipid; his cornick wit degenerating into 
clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great, 
when some great occasion is presented to him: No man can say, 
he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself 
as high above the rest of poets, 
"Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi." 


It is to be lamented, that such a writer should want a commen- 
tary; that his language should become obsolete, or his sentiments 
obscure. But it is vain to carry wishes beyond the condition of 
human things; that which must happen to all, has happened to 
Shakespeare, by accident and time; and more than has been suffered 
by any other writer since the use of types, has been suffered by him 
through his own negligence of fame, or perhaps by that superiority 
of mind, which despised its own performances, when it compared 
them with its powers, and judged those works unworthy to be 
preserved, which the criticks of following ages were to contend for 
the fame of restoring and explaining. 
Among these candidates of inferiour fame, I am now to stand the 
judgment of the publick; and wish that I could confidently produce 
my commentary as equal to the encouragement which I have had the 
honour of receiving. Every work of this kind is by its nature 
deficient, and I should feel little solicitude about the sentence, were 
it to be pronounced only by the skilful and the learned. 



INTRODUCTION 
TO THE PROPYLÃ„EN 


BY J. W. VON GOETHE. (179 8 ) 


T HE youth, when Nature and Art attract him, thinks that 
with a vigorous effort he can soon penetrate into the inner- 
most sanctuary; the man, after long wanderings, finds 
himself still in the outer court. 
Such an observation has suggested our title. It is only on the step, 
in the gateway, the entrance, the vestibule, the space between the 
outside and the inner chamber, between the sacred and the common, 
that we may ordinarily tarry with our friends. 
If the word Propylaea recalls particularly the structure through 
which was reached the citadel of Athens and the temple of Minerva, 
this is not inconsistent with our purpose; but the presumption of 
intending to produce here a similar work of art and splendor should 
not be laid to our charge. The name of the place may be understood 
as symbolizing what might have happened there; one may expect 
conversations and discussions such as would perhaps not be un- 
worthy of that place. 
Are not thinkers, scholars, artists, in their best hours allured 
to those regions, to dwell (at least in imagination) among a people to 
whom a perfection which we desire but never attain \vas natural, 
among whom in the course of time and life, a culture developed 
in a beautiful continuity, which to us appears only in passing frag- 
ments? What modern nation does not owe its artistic culture to the 


The PropylÃ¤en was a periodical founded in July, 1798, by Goethe and his friend 
Heinrich Meyer. During its short existence of three years, there were published in 
it, besides the writings of the editors, short contributions by Schiller and Humboldt. 
Its purpose was to spread sound ideas about the aims and methods of art; and in this 
notable introduction Goethe set forth with clearness and profundity his fundamental 
ideas on these subjects. The present translation has been made expressly for the 
Harvard Classics. 


25 1 



25 2 GOETHE 
Greeks, and, in certain branches, \vhat nation more than the 
German? 
So much by way of excuse for the symbolic title, if indeed an 
excuse be necessary. May the title be a reminder that we are to 
depart as little as possible from classic ground; may it, through its 
brevity and signification, modify the demands of the friends of art 
\vhom we hope to interest through the present work, which is to 
contain observations and reflections concerning Nature and Art by 
a harmonious circle of friends. 
He \vho is called to be an artist will give careful heed to everything 
around him; objects and their parts will attract his attention, and by 
making practical use of such experience he will gradually train 
himself to observe more sharply. He will, in his early career, apply 
everything, so far as possible, to his own advantage; later he will 
gladly make himself serviceable to others. Thus we also hope to 
present and relate to our readers many things which we regard as 
useful and agreeable, things which, under various circumstances, 
have been noted by us during a number of years. 
But who will not willingly agree that pure observation is more 
rare than is believed? Weare apt to confuse our sensations, our opin- 
ion, our judgment, with what we experience, so that \ve do not 
remain long in the passive attitude of the observer, but soon go on 
to make reflections; and upon these no greater weight can be placed 
than may be more or less justified by the nature and quality of our 
individual intellects. 
In this matter we are able to gain stronger confidence from our 
harmony with others, and from the knowledge that we do not think 
and work alone, but in common. The perplexing doubt whether our 
method of thought belongs only to us-a doubt which often comes 
over us when others express the direct opposite of our convictions- 
is softened, even dispelled, when we find ourselves in agreement 
with others; only then do we go on rejoicing with assurance in the 
possession of those principles which a long experience, on our own 
part and on the part of others, has gradually confirmed. 
When several persons thus live united, so that they may call one 
another friends, because they have a common interest in bringing 
about their progressive cultivation and in advancing towards closely 



INTRODUCTION TO PROPYLAEN 253 
related aims, then they may be certain that they will meet again in 
the most varied ways, and that even the courses which seemed to 
separate them from one another will nevertheless soon bring them 
happily together again. 
Who has not experienced what advantages are afforded in such 
cases by conversation? But conversation is ephemeral; and while 
the results of a mutual development are imperishable, the memory 
of the means by \vhich it was reached disappears. Letters preserve 
better the stages of a progress which friends achieve together; every 
moment of gro\vth is fixed, and if the result attained affords us 
agreeable satisfaction, a look backward at the process of development 
is instructive since it permits us to hope for an unflagging advance 
in the future. 
Short papers, in \vhich are set down from time to time one's 
thoughts, convictions, and wishes, in order to find entertainment in 
one's past self after a lapse of time, are excellent auxiliary means for 
the development of oneself and of others, none of which should be 
neglected when one considers the brief period allotted to life and the 
many obstacles that stand in the way of every advance. 
It is self evident that we are talking here particularly of an 
exchange of ideas between such friends as are striving for cultivation 
in the sphere of science and art; although life in the world of affairs 
and industry should not lack similar advantages. 
In the arts and sciences, however, in addition to this close associa- 
tion among their votaries, a relation to the public is as favorable as it 
is necessary. Whatever of universal interest one thinks or accom- 
plishes belongs to the world, and the world brings to maturity what- 
ever it can utilize of the efforts of the individual. The desire for 
approval which the author feels is an impulse implanted by Nature 
to draw him toward something higher; he thinks he has attained the 
laurel wreath, but soon becomes aware that a more laborious 
training of every native talent is necessary in order to retain the 
public favor; though it may be attained for a short moment through 
fortune or accident also. 
The relation of the author to his public is important in his early 
period; even in later days he cannot dispense with it. However little 
he may be fitted to teach others, he wishes to share his thoughts with 



254 GOETHE 
those whom he feels congenial, but who are scattered far and wide 
in the world. By this means he wishes to re-establish his relation with 
his old friends, to continue it with new ones, and to gain in the 
younger generation still others for the remainder of his life. He 
wishes to spare youth the circuitous paths upon which he himself 
went astray, and while observing and utilizing the advantages of 
the present, to maintain the memory of his praiseworthy earlier 
efforts. 
With this serious view, a small society has been brought together; 
may cheerfulness attend our undertakings, and time may show 
whither we are bound. 
The papers \vhich \ve intend to present, though they are composed 
by several authors, will, it is hoped, never be contradictory in the 
main points, even though the methods of thought may not be the 
same in all. No two persons regard the world in exactly the same 
way, and different characters will often apply in different ways a 
principle \vhich they all acknowledge. Indeed, a person is not 
always consistent with himself in his views and judgments: early 
convictions must give way to later ones. The individual opinions 
that a man holds and expresses may stand all tests or not; the main 
thing is that he continue on his way, true to himself and to 
others! 
Much as the authors wish and hope to be in harmony \vith one 
another and with a large part of the public, they must not shut their 
eyes to the fact that from various quarters many a discord will ring 
out. They must expect this all the more since they differ from pre- 
vailing opinions in more than one point. Though far from wishing 
to dominate or change the way of thinking of a third person, still 
they will firmly express their own opinion, and, as circumstances 
dictate, will avoid or take up a quarrel. On the whole, however, 
they will adhere to one creed, and especially will they repeat again 
and again those conditions which seem to them indispensable in the 
training of an artist. Whoever takes an interest in this matter, must 
be ready to take sides; otherwise he does not deserve to be effective 
anywhere. 
If, therefore, we promise to present reflections and observations 
concerning Nature, we must at the same time indicate that these 



INTRODUCTION TO PROPYLÃ„EN 255 
remarks will chiefly have reference, first, to plastic art; then, to art in 
general; finally, to the general training of the artist. 
The highest demand that is made on an artist is this: that he be 
true to Nature, study her, imitate her, and produce something that 
resembles her phenomena. How great, how enormous, this demand 
is, is not always kept in mind; and the true artist himself learns it 
by experience only, in the course of his progressive development. 
Nature is separated from Art by an enormous chasm, which genius 
itself is unable to bridge without external assistance. 
All that we perceive around us is merely raw material; if it hap- 
pens rarely enough that an artist, through instinct and taste, through 
practice and experiment, reaches the point of attaining the beautiful 
exterior of things, of selecting the best from the good before him, 
and of producing at least an agreeable appearance, it is still more 
rare, particularly in modern times, for an artist to penetrate into 
the depths of things as well as into the depths of his own soul, in 
order to produce in his works not only something light and super- 
ficially effective, but, as a rival of Nature, to produce something 
spiritually organic, and to give his work of art a content and a form 
through which it appears both natural and beyond Nature. 
Man is the highest, the characteristic subject of plastic art; to 
understand him, to extricate oneself from the labyrinth of his 
anatomy, a general knowledge of organic nature is imperative. The 
artist should also acquaint himself theoretically with inorganic 
bodies and with the general operations of Nature, particularly if, 
as in the case of sound and color, they are adaptable to the purposes 
of art; but what a circuitous path he would be obliged to take if he 
wanted to seek laboriously in the schools of the anatomist, the natur- 
alist, and the physicist, for that which serves his purposes! It is, 
indeed, a question whether he would find there what must be most 
important for him. Those men have the entirely different needs of 
their own pupils to satisfy, so that they cannot be expected to think 
of the limited and special needs of the artist. For that reason it is our 
intention to take a hand, and, even though we cannot see prospects 
of completing the necessary work ourselves, both to give a view of 
the whole and to begin the elaboration of details. 
The human figure cannot be understood merely through observa- 



25 6 GOETHE 
tion of its surface; the interior must be laid bare, its parts must be 
separated, the connections perceived, the differences noted, action 
and reaction observed, the concealed, constant, and fundamental 
elements of the phenomena impressed on the mind, if one really 
wishes to contemplate and imitate what moves before our eyes in 
living waves as a beautiful, undivided whole. A glance at the sur- 
face of a living being confuses the observer; we may cite here, as 
in other cases, the true proverb, "One sees only what one knows." 
For just as a short-sighted man sees more clearly an object from 
\vhich he draws back than one to \vhich he draws near, because his 
intellectual vision comes to his aid, so the perfection of observation 
really depends on knowledge. Ho\v \vell an expert naturalist, who 
can also draw, imitates objects by recognizing and emphasizing 
the important and significant parts from which is derived the 
character of the whole! 
Just as the artist is greatly helped by an exact kno\vledge of the 
separate parts of the human figure, which he must in the end regard 
again as a whole, so a general view, a side glance at related objects, 
is higWy advantageous, provided the artist is capable of rising to 
ideas and of grasping the close relationship of things apparently 
remote. Comparative anatomy has prepared a general conception of 
organic creatures; it leads us from form to form, and by observing 
organisms closely or distantly related, we rise above them all to see 
their characteristics in an ideal picture. If \ve keep this picture in 
mind, we find that in observing objects our attention takes a definite 
direction, that scattered facts can be learned and retained more easily 
by comparison, that in the practice of art we can finally vie with 
Nature only when we have learned from her, at least to some extent, 
her method of procedure in the creation of her works. 
Furthermore, we would encourage the artist to gain knowledge 
also of the inorganic world; this can be done all the more easily 
since now we can conveniently and quickly acquire knowledge of the 
mineral kingdom. The painter needs some knowledge of stones 
in order to imitate their characteristics; the sculptor and architect, 
in order to utilize them; the cutter of precious stones cannot be 
without a knowledge of their nature; the connoisseur and amateur, 
too, will strive for such information. 



INTRODUCTION TO PROPYLÃ„EN 257 
No\v that we have advised the artist to gain a conception of the 
general operations of Nature, in order to become acquainted with 
those which particularly interest him, partly to develop himself in 
more directions, partly to understand better that which concerns 
him; we shall add a few further remarks on this significant point. 
Up to the present the painter has been able merely to wonder 
at the physicist's theory of colors, without gaining any advantage 
from it. The natural feeling of the artist, ho\vever, constant training, 
and a practical necessity led him into a way of his own. He felt 
the vivid contrasts out of the union of which harmony of color. 
arises, he designated certain characteristics through approximate 
sensations, he had warm and cold colors, colors which express 
proximity, others \vhich express distance, and what not; and thus 
in his own way he brought these phenomena closer to the most gen- 
erallaws of Nature. Perhaps the supposition is confirmed that the 
operations of Nature in colors, as well as magnetic, electric, and 
other operations, depend upon a mutual relation, a polarity, or 
whatever else we might call the two-fold or manifold aspects of a 
distinct unity. 
\Ve shall make it our duty to present this matter in detail and in 
a form comprehensible to the artist; and we can be the more hopeful 
of doing something welcome to him, since we shall be concerned 
only with eXplaining and tracing to fundamental principles things 
\vhich he has hitherto done by instinct. 
So much for what we hope to impart in regard to Nature; now 
for \vhat is most necessary in regard to Art. 
Since the arrangement of this work proposes the presentation of 
single treatises, some of these only in part, and since it is not our 
desire to dissect a whole, but rather to build up a whole from many 
parts, it will be necessary to present, as soon as possible and in a 
general summary, those things which the reader will gradually find 
unfolded in our detailed elaborations. We shall, therefore, be 
occupied first with an essay on plastic art, in which the familiar 
rubrics will be presented according to our interpretation and method. 
Here it will be our main concern to emphasize the importance of 
every branch of Art, and to show that the artist must not neglect a 
single one, as has unfortunately often happened, and still happens. 



258 GOETHE 
Hitherto we have regarded Nature as the treasure chamber of 
material in general; now, however, we reach the important point 
where it is shown how Art prepares its materials for itself. 
When the artist takes any object of Nature, the object no longer 
belongs to Nature; indeed, we can say that the artist creates the 
object in that moment, by extracting from it all that is significant, 
characteristic, interesting, or rather by putting into it a higher 
value. In this way finer proportions, nobler forms, higher character- 
istics are, as it were, forced upon the human figure; the circle of 
regularity, perfection, signification, and completeness is drawn, in 
which Nature gladly places her best possessions even though else- 
where in her vast extent she easily degenerates into ugliness and 
loses herself in indifference. 
The same is' true of composite works of art, of their subject and 
content, whether the theme be fable or history. Happy the artist 
who makes no mistake in undertaking the work, who knows how 
to choose, or rather to determine what is suitable for art! He who 
wanders uneasily among scattered myths and far-stretching history 
in search of a theme, he who wishes to be significantly scholarly or 
allegorically interesting, will often be checked in the midst of his 
work by unexpected obstacles, or will miss his finest aim after the 
completion of the work. He who does not speak clearly to the senses, 
will not address himself clearly to the mind; and we regard this point 
as so important, that we insert at the very outset a more extended 
discussion of it. 
A theme having been happily found or invented, it is subjected 
to treatment which we would divide into the spiritual, the sensuous, 
and the mechanical. The spiritual develops the subject according to 
its inner relations, it discovers subordinate motives; and, if we can 
at all judge the depth of an artistic genius by the choice of subject, 
we can recognize in his selection of themes his breadth, wealth, full- 
ness, and power of attraction. The sensuous treatment we should 
define as that through which the work becomes thoroughly compre- 
hensible to the senses, agreeable, delightful, and irresistible through 
its gentle charm. The mechanical treatment, finally, is that which 
works upon given material through any bodily organ, and thus 
brings the work into existence and gives it reality. 



INTRODUCTION TO PROPYLÃ„EN 259 
While we hope to be useful to the artist in this way, and earnestly 
wish that he may avail himself of advice and of suggestions in his 
work, the disquieting observation is forced upon us that every under- 
taking, like every man, is likely to suffer just as much from its period 
as it is to derive occasional advantage from it, and in our own case 
we cannot altogether put aside the question concerning the reception 
we are likely to meet with. 
Everything is subject to constant change, and since certain things 
cannot exist side by side, they displace one another. This is true of 
kinds of knowledge, of certain methods of instruction, of methods 
of representation, and of maxims. The aims of men remain nearly 
always the same: they still desire to become good artists or poets 
as they did centuries ago; but the means through which the goal is 
reached are not clear to everybody, and why should it be denied that 
nothing would be more agreeable than to be able to carry out joy... 
fully a great design? 
Naturally the public has a great influence upon Art, since in 
return for its approval and its money it demands work that may 
give satisfaction and immediate enjoyment; and the artist will for 
the most part be glad to adapt himself to it, for he also is a part of 
the public, he has received his training during the same years, he 
feels the same needs, strives in the same direction, and thus moves 
along happily with the multitude \vhich supports him and which 
is invigorated by him. In this matter we see whole nations and 
epochs delighted by their artists, just as the artist sees himself reflected 
in his nation and his epoch, without either having even the slightest 
suspicion that their path might not be right, that their taste might be 
at least one-sided, their art on the decline, and their progress in the 
wrong direction. 
Instead of proceeding to further generalities on this point, we shall 
make a remark which refers particularly to plastic art. 
For the German artist, in fact for modern and northern artists 
in general, it is difficult-indeed almost impossible-to make the 
transition from formless matter to form, and to maintain himself at 
that point, even should he succeed in reaching it. Let every artist 
who has lived for a time in Italy ask himself whether the presence 
of the best works of ancient and modern art have not aroused in him 



260 


GOETHE 


the incessant endeavour to study and imitate the human figure in 
its proportions, forms, and characteristics, to apply all diligence and 
care in the execution in order to approach those artistic works, so 
entirely complete in themselves, in order to produce a work which, 
in gratifying the sense, exalts the spirit to the greatest heights. Let 
him also admit, however, that after his return he must gradually 
relax his efforts, because he finds few persons who will really see, 
enjoy, and comprehend what is depicted; but, for the most part, finds 
only those who look at a work superficially, receive from it mere 
random impres
ons, and in some way of their own try to get out 
of it any kind of sensation and pleasure. 
The worst picture can appeal to our senses and imagination by 
arousing their activity, setting them free, and leaving them to them- 
selves; the best work of art also appeals to our senses, but in a higher 
language which, of course, we must understand; it enchains the 
feelings and imagination; it deprives us of caprice, we cannot deal 
with a perfect work at our will; we are forced to give ourselves up 
to it, in order to receive ourselves from it again, exalted and refined. 
That these are no dreams we shall try to show gradually, in detail, 
and as clearly as possible; we shall call attention particularly to a 
contradiction in which the moderns are often involved. They call 
the ancients their teachers, they acknowledge in their works an 
unattainable excellence, yet they depart both in theory and practice 
far from the maxims which the ancients continually observed. In 
starting from this important point and in returning to it often, we 
shall find others about \vhich something falls to be said. 
One of the principal signs of the decay of art is the mixture of its 
various kinds. The arts themselves, as well as their branches, are 
related to one another, and have a certain tendency to unite, even 
to lose themselves in one another; but it is in this that the duty, the 
merit, the dignity of the real artist consists, namely, in being able to 
separate the field of art in which he works from others, in placing 
every art and every branch of art on its own footing, and in isolating 
it as far as possible. 
It has been noticed that all plastic art strives toward painting, all 
literary art toward the drama, and this observation may in the future 
give us occasion for important reRections. 



INTRODUCTION TO PROPYLÃ„EN 


261 


The genuine law-giving artist strives for the truth of art, the 
lawless artist who follows a blind impulse strives for the reality of 
Nature; through the former, art reaches its highest summit, through 
the latter its lowest stage. 
What holds good of art in general holds good also of the kinds of 
art. The sculptor must think and feel differently from the painter, 
indeed he must proceed when he wishes to produce a work in relief, 
in a different fashion from that which he will employ for a work 
in the round. By the raising of low reliefs higher and higher, by 
the making of various parts and figures stand out completely, and 
finally by the adding of buildings and landscapes, so that work was 
produced which was half painting and half puppet-show, true art 
steadily declined. Excellent artists of modern times have unfor- 
tunately pursued this course. 
When in the future we express such maxims as we think sound, 
\ve should like, since they are deduced from works of art, to have 
them put to the test of practice by the artist. How rarely one can 
come to a theoretical agreement with anyone else on a fundamental 
principle. That which is applicable and useful, on the other hand, 
is decided upon much more quickly. How often we see artists 
in embarrassment over the choice of subjects, over the general type of 
composition adapted to their art, and the detailed arrangement; how 
often the painter over the choice of colors! Then is the time to test 
a principle, then will it be easier to decide whether it is bringing us 
closer to the great models and to everything that we value and love 
in them, or whether it leaves us entangled in the empirical confusion 
of an experience that has not been sufficiently thought out. 
If such maxims hold good in training the artist, in guiding him in 
many an embarrassment, they will serve also in the development, 
valuation, and judgment of old and new works of art, and will in 
turn arise from an observation of these works. Indeed, it is all the 
more necessary to adhere to this, because, notwithstanding the uni- 
versally praised excellences of antiquity, individuals and whole 
nations among the moderns often fail to recognize wherein lies the 
highest excellence of those works. 
An exact test will protect us best from this evil. For that reason 
let us cite only one example to show what usually happens to the 



262 


GOETHE 


amateur in plastic art, so that we may make clear how necessary it 
is that criticism of ancient as well as modern works should be exact 
if it is to be of any use. 
Upon him who has an eye for beauty, though untrained, even a 
blurred, imperfect plaster cast of an excellent antique will always 
have a great effect; for in such a reproduction there always remain 
the idea, the simplicity and greatness of form, in short, the general 
outlines; as much, at all events, as one could perceive with poor eyes 
at a distance. 
It may be noticed that a strong inclination toward art is often 
enkindled by such quite imperfect reproductions. But the effect is 
like the object; it is rather that an obscure indefinite feeling is 
aroused, than that the object in all its worth and dignity really 
appears to such beginners in art. These are they who usually express 
the theory that too minute a critical investigation destroys the enjoy- 
ment, who are accustomed to oppose and resist regard for details. 
If gradually, however, after further experience and training, they 
are confronted with a sharp cast instead of a blurred one, an original 
instead of a cast, their pleasure grows with their insight, and increases 
when the originals themselves, the perfect originals, finally become 
known to them. 
The labyrinth of exact observations is willingly entered when the 
details as well as the whole are perfect; indeed one learns to realize 
that the excellences can be appreciated only in proportion as the 
defects are percei ved. To discriminate the restoration from the 
genuine parts, and the copy from the original, to see in the smallest 
fragments the ruined glory of the whole-this is the joy of the fin- 
ished expert; and there is a great difference between observing and 
comprehending an imperfect whole with obscured vision, and a 
perfect whole with clear vision. 
He who concerns himself with any branch of knowledge, should 
stri ve for the highest! Insight is different from practice, for in 
practical work everyone must soon resign himself to the fact that 
only a certain measure of strength is allotted to him; far more people, 
however, are capable of knowledge and insight. Indeed, one may 
well say that everyone is thus capable who can deny himself and 
subordinate himself to external objects, everyone who does not 



INTRODUCTION TO PROPYLÃ„EN 263 
strive with rigid and narrow-minded obstinacy to impose upon the 
highest works of Nature and Art his own personality and his petty 
onesideness. 
To speak of works of art fitly and with true benefit to oneself and 
others, the discussion should take place only in the presence of the 
works themselves. Everything depends on the objects being in 
view; on whether something absolutely definite is suggested by the 
word with which one hopes to illuminate the work of art; for, other- 
wise, nothing is thought of at all. This is why it so often happens 
that the writer on art dwells merely on generalities, through which, 
indeed, ideas and sensations are aroused in all readers, but no satisfac- 
tion is given to the man who, book in hand, steps in front of the work 
of art itself. Precisely on this account, however, we may in several 
essays be in a position to arouse rather than to satisfy the desire of the 
readers; for nothing is more natural than that they should wish to 
have before their eyes immediately an excellent work of art which is 
minutely dissected, in order to enjoy the whole which we are discuss- 
ing, and, so far as the parts are concerned, to subject to their own 
judgment the opinion which they reaÃ¥. 
While the authors, however, write on the assumption that their 
readers either have seen the works, or will see them in the f
ture, yet 
they hope to do everything in their power for those who are in 
neither case. We shall mention reproductions, shall indicate where 
casts of antique works of art and antique works themselves are 
accessible, particularly to Germans; and thus try, as far as we can, to 
minister to the genuine love and knowledge of art. 
A history of art can be based only upon the highest and most 
detailed comprehension of art; only when one knows the finest 
things that man can produce can one trace the psychological and 
chronological course taken in art, as in other fields. This course 
began with a limited activity, busied about a dry and even gloomy 
imitation of the insignificant as well as the significant, whence devel- 
oped a more amiable, more kindly feeling toward Nature, till finally, 
under favorable circumstances, accompanied by knowledge, regu- 
larity, seriousness, and severity, art rose to its height. There at last 
it became possible for the fortunate genius, surrounded by all these 
auxiliaries, to produce the charming and the complete. 



26 4 


GOETHE 


Unfortunately, however, works of art with such ease of expression, 
which instil into man cheerfulness, freedom, and a pleasant feeling 
of his own personality, arouse in the striving artist the idea that the 
process of production is also agreeable. Since the pinnacle of what 
art and genius produce is an appearance of ease, the artists ,vho 
come after are tempted to make things easy for themselves, and to 
work for the sake of appearances. Thus art gradually declines from 
its high position, as to the whole as ,veIl as details. But if we wish to 
gain a fair conception, we must come down to details of details, an 
occupation not always agreeable or charming, but by and by richly 
rewarded with a more certain view of the whole. 
If the experience of observing ancient and mediaeval works of art 
has shown us that certain maxims hold good we need these most of 
all in judging the most recent modern productions; for, since 
personal relations, love and hatred of individuals, favor or disfavor 
of the multitude so easily enter into the valuation of living or recently 
deceased artists, we are in all the more need of principles in order 
to pass judgment on our contemporaries. The inquiry can be con- 
ducted in two ways: by diminishing the influence of caprice; by 
bringing the question before a higher tribunal. The principle can be 
tested as well as its application; and even if we should not agree, the 
point in dispute can still be definitely and clearly pointed out. 
Especially should we wish that the vivifying artist, in whose works 
we might perhaps have found something to remember, might test 
our judgments carefully in this way; for everyone who deserves this 
name is forced in our times to form, as a result of his work and 
his reflections, a theory, or at least a certain conception of theoretical 
means, by the use of which he gets along tolerably well in a variety 
of cases. It will often be noticed, however, that in this way he sets up 
as laws such maxims as are in accordance with his talent, his inclina- 
tion, and his convenience. He is subject to a fate that is common to 
all mankind. How many act in this very way in other fields! But 
we are not cultivating ourselves when we merely set in motion with 
ease and convenience that which lies in us. Every artist, like every 
man, is only an individual, and will always lean to one side. For 
that reason, man should pursue so far as possible, both theoretically 
and practically, that which is contrary to his nature. Let the easy- 



INTRODUCTION TO PROPYLÃ„EN 26 5 
going seek what is serious and severe; let the stern keep before his 
eyes the light and agreeable; the strong, loveliness; the amiable, 
strength; and everyone will develop his own nature the more, the 
farther he seems to remove himself from it. Every art requires the 
whole man; the highest possible degree of art requires all mankind. 
The practice of the plastic arts is mechanical, and the training 
of the artist rightly begins in his earliest youth with the mechanical 
side; the rest of his education, on the other hand, is often neglected
 
for it ought to be far more careful than the training of others who 
have opportunity of deriving advantage from life itself. Society 
soon makes a rough person courteous, a business life makes the most 
simple person prudent; literary labors, which through pride come 
before a great public, find opposition and correction everywhere: 
only the plastic artist is, for the most part, limited to a lonely work- 
shop; he has dealings almost solely with the man who orders and 
pays for his labor, with a public which frequently follows only certain 
morbid impressions, with connoisseurs who make him restless, 
with auctioneers \vho receive every new work with praise and esti- 
mates of value such as would fitly honor the most superlative pro- 
duction. 
But it is time to conclude this introduction lest it anticipate and 
forestall the work, instead of merely preceding it. We have so far at 
least designated the point from which we intend to set out; how far 
our views can and will spread, must at first develop gradually. The 
theory and criticism of literary art will, we hope, soon occupy us; 
and whatever life, travel, and daily events suggest to us, shall not be 
excluded. In closing, let us say a word on an important concern 
of this moment. 
For the training of the artist, for the enjoyment of the friend of 
art, it was from time immemorial of the greatest significance in what 
place the works of art happened to be. There was a time when, 
except for slight changes of location, they remained for the most part 
in one place; now, however, a great change has occurred, which 
will have important consequences for art in general and in particular. 
At present we have perhaps more cause than ever to regard Italy 
as a great storehouse of art-as it still was until recently. When 
it is possible to give a general review of it, then it will be sho\vn 



266 


GOETHE 


\vhat the world lost at the moment when so many parts were torn 
from this great and ancient whole. 
What was destroyed in the very act of tearing away will probably 
remain a secret forever; but a description of the new storehouse that 
is being formed in Paris will be possible in a few years. Then the 
method by which an artist and a lover of art is to use France and 
Italy can be indicated; and a further important and fine question 
will arise: what are other nations, particularly Germany and Eng- 
land, to do in this period of scattering and loss, to make generally 
useful the manifold and widely strewn treasures of art-a task 
requiring the true cosmopolitan mind which is found perhaps 
nowhere purer than in the arts and sciences? And what are they 
to do to help to form an ideal storehouse, which in the course of 
time may perhaps happily compensate us. for what the present 
moment tears a way when it does not destroy? 
So much in general of the purpose of a work in which we desire 
many earnest and friendly sympathizers. 



PREFACES TO VARIOUS 
VOLUMES OF POEMS 
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH l 


ADVERTISEMENT- 
TO LYRICAL BALLADS 
(179 8 ) 
I T is the honourable characteristic of Poetry that its materials are 
to be found in every subject which can interest the human mind. 
The evidence of this fact is to be sought, not in the writings 
of Critics, but in those of Poets themselves. 
The majority of the following poems are to be considered as 
experiments. They were written chiefly with a view to ascertain 
how far the language of conversation in the middle and lower classes 
of society is adapted to the purposes of poetic pleasure. Readers 
accustomed to the gaudiness and inane phraseology of many modern 
writers, if they persist in reading this book to its conclusion, will 
perhaps frequenÃ¹y have to struggle with feelings of strangeness and 
awkwardness: they will look round for poetry, and will be induced 
to inquire by what species of courtesy these attempts can be per- 
mitted to assume that title. It is desirable that such readers, for their 
own sakes, should not suffer the solitary word Poetry, a word of 
very disputed meaning, to stand in the way of their gratification; 
but that, while they are perusing this book, they should ask them- 
selves if it contains a natural delineation of human passions, human 
characters, and human incidents; and if the answer be favourable 
1 William Wordsworth (1770-1850), probably the greatest of the poets of the 
Romantic Movement in England, was also foremost in the critical defence of that 
movement. The Prefaces and Essays printed here form a kind of manifesto of the 
reaction from the poetical traditions of the eighteenth century; and contain besides 
some of the soundest theorizing on the nature of poetry to be found in English. They 
afford an interesting comparison with the parallel protest in Victor Hugo's Preface 
to "Cromwell," to be found later in the volume. 
26 7 



268 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
to the author's wishes, that they should consent to be pleased in 
spite of that most dreadful enemy to our pleasures, our own pre- 
established codes of decision. 
Readers of superior judgement may disapprove of the style in 
v.-hich many of these pieces are executed; it must be expected that 
many lines and phrases will not exactly suit their taste. It will per- 
haps appear to them, that wishing to avoid the prevalent fault of the 
day, the author has son1etimes descended too low, and that many of 
his expressions are too familiar, and not of sufficient dignity. It is 
apprehended that the more conversant the reader is ,vith our elder 
,vriters, and with those in modern times "vho have been the most 
successful in painting manners and passions, the fewer complaints 
of this kind will he have to make. 
An accurate taste in poetry, and in all the other arts, Sir Joshua 
Reynolds has observed, is an acquired talent, which can only be 
produced by severe thought, and a long continued intercourse with 
the best models of composition. This is mentioned not with so 
ridiculous a purpose as to prevent the most inexperienced reader 
from judging for himself; but merely to temper the rashness of 
decision, and to suggest that if poetry be a subject on which much 
time has not been bestowed, the judgement may be erroneous, and 
that in many cases it necessarily will be so. 
The tale of Goody Blake and Harry Gill is founded on a well- 
authenticated fact which happened in Warwickshire. Of the other 
poems in the collection, it may be proper to say that they are either 
absolute inventions of the author, or facts which took place within 
his personal observation or that of his friends. The poem of The 
Thorn, as the reader will soon discover, IS not supposed to be spoken 
in the author's own person: the character of the loquacious narrator 
will sufficiently show itself in the course of the story. The RinJe of 
the Ancyent Marinere was professedly written in imitation of the 
style, as well as of the spirit of the elder poets; but with a few excep- 
tions, the Author believes that the language adopted in it has been 
equally intelligible for these three last centuries. The lines entitled 
Expostulation and Reply, and those which follo,v, arose out of con- 
versation with a friend who was somewhat unreasonably attached 
to modern books of moral philosophy. 



PREFACE TO 
LYRICAL BALLADS 


(1800) 


T HE first volume of these Poems has already been submitted 
to general perusal. It was published, as an experiment, 
which, I hoped, might be of some use to ascertain, how far, 
by fitting to metrical arrangement a selection of the real language 
of men in a state of vivid sensation, that sort of pleasure and that 
quantity of pleasure may be if!1parted, which a Poet may rationally 
endeavour to impart. 
I had formed no very inaccurate estimate of the probable effect 
of those Poems: I flattered myself that they who should be pleased 
with them would read them with more than common pleasure: and, 
on the other hand, I was well aware, that by those who should 
dislike them, they would be read with more than common dislike. 
The result has differed from my expectation in this only, that a 
greater number have been pleased than I ventured to hope I should 
please. 


Several of my Friends are anxious for the success of these Poems, 
from a belief, that, if the views with which they were composed 
were indeed realized, a class of Poetry would be produced, well 
adapted to interest mankind permanently, and not unimportant in 
the quality, and in the multiplicity of its moral relations: and on 
this account they have advised me to prefix a systematic defence of 
the theory upon which the Poems were written. But I was unwilling 
to undertake the task, knowing that on this occasion the Reader 
would look coldly upon my arguments, since I might be suspected of 
having been principally influenced by the selfish and foolish hope of 
reasonin g him into an approbation of these particular Poems: and 
I \vas still more unwilling to undertake the task, because, adequately 
26 9 



270 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
to dispiay the opinions, and fully to enforce the arguments, would 
require a space ,vholly disproportionate to a preface. For, to treat 
the subject with the clearness and coherence of which it is susceptible, 
it would be necessary to give a full account of the present state of 
the public taste in this country, and to determine how far this taste 
is healthy or depraved; which, again, could not be determined, 
without pointing out in what manner language and the human 
mind act and re-act on each other, and without retracing the revolu- 
tions, not of literature alone, but likewise of society itself. I have 
therefore altogether declined to enter regularly upon this defence; 
yet I am sensible, that there would be something like impropriety in 
abruptly obtruding upon the Public, without a few words of intro- 
duction, Poems so materially different from those upon which 
general approbation is at present bestowed. 
It is supposed, that by the act of writing in verse an Author makes 
a formal engagement that he will gratify certain known habits of 
association; that he not only thus apprises the Reader that certain 
classes of ideas and expressions will be found in his book, but that 
others will be carefully excluded. This exponent or symbol held 
forth by metrical language must in different eras of literature have 
excited very different expectations: for example, in the age of 
Catullus, Terence, and Lucretius, and that of Statius or Claudian; 
and in our own country, in the age of Shakespeare and Beaumont 
and Fletcher, and that of Donne and Cowley, or Dryden, or Pope. 
I will not take upon me to determine the exact import of the promise 
which, by the act of writing in verse, an Author in the present day 
makes to his reader: but it will undoubtedly appear to many persons 
that I have not fulfilled the terms of an engagement thus voluntarily 
contracted. They who have been accustomed to the gaudiness and 
inane phraseology of many modern writers, if they persist in reading 
this book to its conclusion, will, no doubt, frequently have to struggle 
with feelings of strangeness and awkwardness: they will look round 
for poetry, and will be induced to inquire by what species of courtesy 
these attempts can be permitted to assume that title. I hope there- 
fore the reader will not censure me for attempting to state what I 
have proposed to myself to perform; and also (as far as the limits 
of a preface will permit) to explain some of the chief reasons which 



TO LYRICAL BALLADS (1800) 271 
have determined me in the choice of my purpose: that at least he 
may be spared any unpleasant feeling of disappointment, and that 
I myself may be protected from one of the most dishonourable 
accusations which can be brought against an Author, namely, that 
of an indolence which prevents him from endeavouring to ascertain 
what is his duty, or, when his duty is ascertained, prevents him from 
performing it. 
The principal object, then, proposed in these Poems was to choose 
incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe 
them, throughout, as far as was possible in a selection of language 
really used by men, and, at the same time, to throw over them a cer- 
tain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be \ 
presented to the mind in an unusual aspect; and, further, and above , 
all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in 
them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our 
nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which we associate 
ideas in a state of excitement. Humble and rustic life was generally 
chosen, because, in that condition, the essential passions of the heart 
find a better soil in which they can attain. their maturity, are less 
under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language; 
because in that condition of life our elementary feelings coexist in a 
state of greater simplicity, and, consequently, may be more accurately 
contemplated, and more forcibly communicated; because the man- 
ners of rural life germinate from those elementary feelings, and, 
from the necessary character of rural occupations, are more easily 
comprehended, and are more durable; and, lastly, because in that 
condition the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful 
and permanent forms of nature. The language, too, of these men has 
been adopted (purified indeed from what appear to be its real defects, 
from all lasting and rational causes of dislike or disgust) because 
such men hourly communicate with the best objects from which the 
best part of language is originally derived; and because, from their 
rank in society and the sameness and narrow circle of their inter- 
course, being less under the influence of social vanity, they convey 
their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated expressions. 
Accordingly, such a language, arising out of repeated experience 
and regular feelings, is a more permanent, and a far more philosophi- 



272 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
cal language, than that which is frequently substituted for it by 
Poets, who think that they are conferring honour upon themselves 
and their art, in proportion as they separate themselves from the 
sympathies of men, and indulge in arbitrary and capricious habits 
of expression, in order to furnish food for fickle tastes, and fickle 
appetites, of their o\vn creation. l 
I cannot, however, be insensible to the present outcry against the 
triviality and meanness, both of thought and language, which some 
of my contemporaries have occasionally introduced into their met- 
rical compositions; and I acknowledge that this defect, where it 
exists, is more dishonourable to the Writer's own character than 
false refinement or arbitrary innovation, though I should contend 
at the same time, that it is far less pernicious in the sum of its conse- 
quences. From such verses the Poems in these volumes will be found 
distinguished at least by one mark of difference, that each of them 
has a worthy purpose. Not that I always began to write with a 
distinct purpose formerly conceived; but habits of meditation have, 
I trust, so prompted and regulated my feelings, that my descriptions 
of such objects as strongly excite those feelings, will be found to 
carry along with them a purpose. If this 
inion be erroneous, I 
can have little right to the name of a Poet. For all good poetry is 
the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: and though this be 
true, Poems to which any value can be attached were never produced 
on any variety of subjects but by a man who, being possessed of more 
than usual organic sensibility, had also thought long and deeply. For 
our continued influxes of feeling a!].JPodified and directed by our 
thoughts, which are indeed the representatives of all our past feel- 
ings; and, as by contemplating the relation of these general repre- 
sentatives to each other, we discover what is really important to men, 
so, by the repetition and continuance of this act, our feelings will be 
connected with important subjects, till at length, if we be originally 
possessed of much sensibility, such habits of mind will be produced, 
that, by obeying blindly and mechanically the impulses of those 
habits, we shall describe objects, and utter sentiments, of such a 
nature, and in such connexion with each other, that the understand- 


lit is worth while here to observe, that the affecting- parts of Chaucer are almost 
always expressed in language pure and universally intelligible even to this day. 



TO LYRICAL BALLADS (1800) 273 
ing of the Reader must necessarily be in some degree enlightened, 
and his affections strengthened and purified. 
It has been said that each of these poems has a purpose. Another 
circumstance must be mentioned which distinguishes these Poems 
from the popular Poetry of the day; it is this, that the feeling therein 
developed gives importance to the action and situation, and not the 
action and situation to the feeling. 
A sense of false modesty shall not prevent me from asserting, 
that the Reader's attention is pointed to this mark of distinction, 
far less for the sake of these particular Poems than from the general 
importance of the subject. The subject is indeed important! For 
the human mind is capable of being excited without the application 
of gross and violent stimulants; and he must ha ve a very faint 
perception of its beauty and dignity who does not know this, and 
who does not further know, that one being is elevated above another, 
in proportion as he possesses this capability. It has therefore appeared 
to me, that to endeavour to produce or enlarge this capability is one 
of the best services in which, at any period, a Writer can be engaged; 
but this service, excellent at all times, is especially so at the present 
day . For a multitude of causes, unkno\vn to former times, are no\v 
acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of 
the mind, and, unfitting it for all voluntary exertion, to reduce it to a 
state of almost savage torpor. The most effective of these causes are 
the great national events which are daily taking place, and the 
increasing accumulation of men in cities, where the uniformity of 
their occupations produces a craving for extraordinary incident, 
which the rapid communication of intelligence hourly gratifies. To 
this tendency of life and manners the literature and theatrical exhi- 
bitions of the country have conformed themselves. The invaluable 
works of our elder writers, I had almost said the works of Shakespeare 
and Milton, are driven into neglect by frantic novels, sickly and 
stupid German Tragedies, and deluges of idle and extravagant 
stories in verse.- When I think upon this degrading thirst after out- 
rageous stimulation, I am almost ashamed to have spoken of the 
feeble endeavour made in these volumes to counteract it; and, reflect- 
ing upon the magnitude of the general evil, I should be oppressed 
with no dishonourable melancholy, had I not a deep impression of 



274 


WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 


certain inherent and indestructible qualities of the human mind, 
and likewise of certain powers in the great and permanent objects 
that act upon it, \vhich are equally inherent and indestructible; and 
were there not added to this impression a belief, that the time is 
approaching when the evil will be systematically opposed, by men 
of greater powers, and with far more distinguished success. 
Having dwelt thus long on the subjects and aim of these Poems, 
I shall request the Reader's permission to apprise him of a few cir- 
cumstances relating to their style, in order, among other reasons, that 
he may not censure me for not having performed what I never 
attempted. The Reader will find that personifications of abstract 
ideas rarely occur in these volumes; and are utterly rejected, as an 
ordinary device to elevate the style, and raise it above prose
 My 
purpose was to imitate, and, as far as possible, to adopt the very 
language of men; and assuredly such personifications do not make 
any natural or regular part of that language. They are, indeed, a 
figure of speech occasionally prompted by passion, and I have made 
use of them as such; but have endeavoured utterly to reject them as 
a mechanical device of style, or as a family language which Writers 
in metre seem to lay claim to by prescription. I have wished to keep 
the Reader in the company of flesh and blood, persuaded that by so 
doing I shall interest him. Others who pursue a different track will 
interest him likewise; I do not interfere with their claim, but wish 
to prefer a claim of my own. There will also be found in these 
volumes little of what is usually called poetic diction; as much pains 
has been taken to avoid it as is ordinarily taken to produce it; this has 
been done for the reason already alleged, to bring my language near 
to the language of men; and further, because the pleasure which I 
have proposed to myself to impart, is of a kind very different from 
that which is supposed by many persons to be the proper object of 
poetry. Without being culpably particular, I do not know how to 
give my Reader a more exact notion of the style in which it was my 
wish and intention to write, than by informing him that I have at 
all times endeavoured to look steadily at my subject; consequently, 
there is I hope in these Poems little falsehood of description, and my 
ideas are expressed in language fitted to their respective importance. 
Something must have been gained by this practice, as it is friendly 



TO LYRICAL BALLADS (1800) 275 
to one property of all good poetry, namely, good sense: but it has 
necessarily cut me off from a large portion of phrases and figures of 
speech which from father to son have long been regarded as the 
common inheritance of Poets. I have also thought it expedient to 
restrict myself still further, having abstained from the use of many 
expressions, in themselves proper and beautiful, but which have been 
foolishly repeated by bad Poets, till such feelings of disgust are con- 
nected with them as it is scarcely possible by any art of association 
to overpower. 
If in a poem there should be found a series of lines, or even a 
single line, in which the language, though naturally arranged, and 
according to the strict laws of metre, does not differ from that of 
prose, there is a numerous class of critics, who, when they stumble 
upon these prosaisms, as they call them, imagine that they have made 
a notable discovery, and exult over the Poet as over a man ignorant 
of his own profession. Now these men would establish a canon of 
criticism which the Reader \vill conclude he must utterly reject, if 
he wishes to be pleased with these volumes. And it would be a most 
easy task to prove to him, that not only the language of a large por- 
tion of every good poem, even of the most elevated character, must 
necessarily, except with reference to the metre, in no respect differ 
from that of good prose, but likewise that some of the most interest- 
ing parts of the best poems will be found to be strictly the language 
of prose when prose is well written. The truth of this assertion might 
be demonstrated by innunlerable passages from almost all the poetical 
writings, even of Milton himself. To illustrate the subject in a gen- 
eral manner, I will here adduce a short composition of Gray, who 
was at the head of those who, by their reasonings, have attempted to 
widen the space of separation betwixt Prose and Metrical composi- 
tion, and was more than any other man curiously elaborate in the 
structure of his own poetic diction. 


In vain to me the smiling mornings shine, 
And reddening PhÃ¦bus lifts his golden fire: 
The birds in vain their amorous descant join, 
Or cheerful fields resume their green attire. 
These ears, alas! for other notes repine; 
A different object do these eyes require; 



27 6 


WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine; 
And in my breast the imperfect joys expire; 
Yet morning smiles the busy race to cheer, 
And new-born pleasure brings to happier men; 
The fields to all their wonted tribute bear; 
To warm their little loves the birds complain. 
I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear, 
And weep the more because I weep in vain. 
It will easily be perceived, that the only part of this Sonnet which 
is of any value is the lines printed in Italics; it is equally obvious, 
that, except in the rhyme, and in the use of the single word 'fruit- 
less' for fruitlessly, which is so far a defect, the language of these 
lines does in no respect differ from that of prose. 
By the foregoing quotation it has been shown that the language 
of Prose may yet be well adapted to Poetry; and it was previously 
asserted, that a large portion of the language of every good poem can 
in no respect differ from that of good Prose. We will go further. 
It may be safely affirmed, that there neither is, nor can be, any essen- 
tial difference between the language of prose and metrical composi- 
tion. Weare fond of tracing the resemblance between Poetry and 
Painting, and, accordingly, we call them Sisters: but where shall we 
find bonds of connexion sufficiently strict to typify the affinity be- 
twixt metrical and prose composition? They both speak by and to 
the same organs; the bodies in which both of them are clothed may 
be said to be of the same substance, their affections are kindred, and 
almost identical, not necessarily differing even in degree; Poetry2 
sheds no tears 'such as Angels weep,' but natural and human tears; 
she can boast of no celestial choir that distinguishes her vital juices 
from those of prose; the same human blood circulates through the 
veins of them both.. 
If it be affirmed that rhyme and metrical arrangement of them- 
selves constitute a distinction which overturns what has just been said 
on the strict affinity of metrical language with that of prose, and 
2 I here use the word 'Poetry' (though against my own judgement) as opposed to 
the word Prose, and synonymous with metrical composition. But much confusion 
has been introduced into criticism by this contradistinction of Poetry and Prose, instead 
of the more philosophical one of Poetry and Matter of Fact, or Science. The only 
strict antithesis to Prose is Metre; nor is this, in truth, a strict antithesis, because 
lines and passages of metre so naturally occur in writing prose, that it would be 
scarcely possible to avoid them, even were it desirable. 



TO LYRICAL BALLADS (1800) 277 
paves the way for other artificial distinctions which the mind volun- 
tarily admits, I answer that the language of such Poetry as is here 
recommended is, as far as is possible, a selection of the language really 
spoken by men; that this selection, wherever it is made with true 
taste and feeling, will of itself form a distinction far greater than 
would at first be imagined, and will entirely separate the composition 
from the vulgarity and meanness of ordinary life; and, if metre be 
superadded thereto, I believe that a dissimilitude will be produced 
altogether sufficient for the gratification of a rational mind. What 
other distinction would we have? Whence is it to come? And where 
is it to exist? Not, surely, where the Poet speaks through the mouths 
of his characters: it cannot be necessary here, either for elevation 
of style, or any of its supposed ornaments: for, if the Poet's subject 
be judiciously chosen, it will naturally, and upon fit occasion, lead 
him to passions the language of which, if selected truly and judi- 
ciously, must necessarily be dignified and variegated, and alive with 
metaphors and figures. I forbear to speak of an incongruity which 
would shock the intelligent Reader, should the Poet interweave any 
foreign splendour of his own with that which the passion naturally 
suggests: it is sufficient to say that such addition is unnecessary. And, 
surely, it is more probable that those passages, which with propriety 
abound with metaphors and figures, will have their due effect, if, 
upon other occasions where the passions are of a milder character, 
the style also be subdued and temperate. 
But, as the pleasure which I hope to give by the Poems now pre- 
sented to the Reader must depend entirely on just notions upon this 
subject, and, as it is in itself of high importance to our taste and 
moral feelings, I cannot content myself with these detached remarks. 
And if, in what I am about to say, it shall appear to some that my 
labour is unnecessary, and that I am like a man fighting a battle 
without enemies, such persons may be reminded, that, whatever be 
the language outwardly holden by men, a practical faith in the opil"J- 
ions which I am wishing to establish is almost unknown. If m: 
conclusions are admitted, and carried as far as they must be carrieÃ¨ 
if admitted at all, our judgements concerning the works of the 
greatest Poets both ancient and modern will be far different from 
what they are at present, both when we praise, and when we censure: 



27 8 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
and our moral feelings influencing and influenced by these judge- 
ments will, I believe, be corrected and purified. 
Taking up the subject, then, upon general grounds, let me ask, 
what is meant by the word Poet? What is a Poet ? To whom does 
he address himself? And what language is to be expected from him? 
-He is a man speaking to men: a man, it is true, endowed with 
more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has 
a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive 
soul, than are supposed to be common among mankind; a man 
pleased with his own passions and volitions, and who rejoices more 
than other men in the spirit of life that is in him; delighting to con- 
template similar volitions and passions as manifested in the goings-on 
of the Universe, and habitually impelled to create them where he 
does not find them. To these qualities he has added a disposition 
to be affected more than other men by absent things as if they were 
present; an ability of conjuring up in himself passions, which are 
indeed far from being the same as those produced by real events, 
yet (especially in those parts of the general sympathy which are pleas- 
ing and delightful) do more nearly resemble the passions produced 
by real events, than anything which, from the motions of their own 
minds merely, other men are accustomed to feel in themselves:- 
whence, and from practice, he has acquired a greater readiness and 
power in expressing what he thinks and feels, and especially those 
thoughts and feelings which, by his own choice, or from the structure 
of his own mind, arise in him without immediate external excite- 
ment. 
But whatever portion of this faculty we may suppose even the 
greatest Poet to possess, there cannot be a doubt that the language 
which it will suggest to him, must often, in liveliness and truth, fall 
short of that which is uttered by men in real life, under the actual 
pressure of those passions, certain shadows of which the Poet thus 
produces, or feels to be produced, in himself. 
However exalted a notion we would wish to cherish of the char- 
acter of a Poet, it is obvious, that while he describes and imitates 
passions, his employment is in some degree mechanical, compared 
with the freedom and power of real 
nd substantial action and 
suffering. So that it will be the wish of the Poet to bring his feelings 



TO LYRICAL BALLADS (1800) 279 
near to those of the persons whose feelings he describes, nay, for 
short spaces of time, perhaps, to let himself slip into an entire delu- 
sion, and even confound and identify his own feelings with theirs; 
modifying only the language which is thus suggested to him by a 
consideration that he describes for a particular purpose, that of 
giving pleasure. Here, then, he will apply the principle of selection 
which has been already insisted upon. He will depend upon this 
for removing what would otherwise be painful or disgusting in the 
passion; he will feel that there is no necessity to trick out or to ele- 
vate nature: and, the more industriously he applies this principle, the 
deeper will be his faith that no words, which his fancy or imagina- 
tion can suggest, will be to be compared with those which are the 
emanations of reality and truth. 
But it may be said by those who do not object to the general spirit 
of these remarks, that, as it is impossible for the Poet to produce upon 
all occasions language as exquisitely fitted for the passion as that 
which the real passion itself suggests, it is proper that he should 
consider himself as in the situation of a translator, who does not 
scruple to substitute excellencies of another kind for those which 
are unattainable by him; and endeavours occasionally to surpass his 
original, in order to make some amends for the general inferiority 
to which he feels that he must submit. But this would be to encour- 
age idleness and unmanly despair. Further, it is the language of 
men who speak of what they do not understand; who talk of Poetry 
as of a matter of amusement and Ãdle pleasure; who will converse 
with us as gravely about a taste for Poetry, as they express it, as if 
it were a thing as indifferent as a taste for rope-dancing, or Frontiniac 
or Sherry. Aristotle, I have been told, has said, that Poetry is the 
 
most philosophic of all writing: it is so: its object is truth, not indi- 
vidual and local, but general, and operative; not standing upon 
external testimony, but carried alive into the heart by passion; truth 
which is its own testimony, which gives competence and confidence 
to the tribunal to which it appeals, and receives them from the same 
tribunal. Poetry is the image of man and nature. The obstacles 
which stand in the way of the fidelity of the Biographer and His- 
torian, and of their consequent utility, are incalculably greater than 
those which are to be encountered by the Poet who comprehends 



280 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
the dignity of his art. The Poet writes under one restriction only, 
namely, the necessity of giving immediate pleasure to a human 
Being possessed of that information which may be expected from 
him, not as a lawyer, a physician, a mariner, an astronomer, or a 
natural philosopher, but as a Man. Except this one restriction, there 
is no obj ect standing between the Poet and the image of things; 
between this, and the Biographer and Historian, there are a thou- 
sand. 
Nor let this necessity of producing immediate pleasure be con- 
sidered as a degradation of the Poet's art. It is far otherwise. It is 
an acknowledgement of the beauty of the universe, an acknowledge- 
ment the more sincere, because not formal, but indirect; it is a task 
light and easy to him who looks at the world in the spirit of love: 
further, it is a homage paid to the native and naked dignity of man, 
to the grand elementary principle of pleasure, by which he knows, 
and feels, and lives, and moves. We have no sympathy but what is 
propagated by pleasure: I would not be misunderstood; but wherever 
we sympathize with pain, it will be found that the sympathy is pro- 
duced and carried on by subtle combinations with pleasure. We have 
no knowledge, that is, no general principles drawn from the contem- 
plation of particular facts, but what has been built up by pleasure, 
and exists in us by pleasure alone. The Man of science, the Chemist 
and Mathematician, whatever difficulties and disgusts they may 
have had to struggle with, know and feel this. However painful may 
be the objects with which the Anatomist's knowledge is connected, 
he feels that his knowledge is pleasure; and where he has no pleasure 
he has no knowledge. What then does the Poet? He considers man 
and the objects that surround him as acting and re-acting upon each 
other, so as to produce an infinite complexity of pain and pleasure; 
he considers man in his own nature and in his ordinary life as 
contemplating this with a certain quantity of immediate knowledge, 
with certain convictions, intuitions, and deductions, which from 
habit acquire the quality of intuitions; he considers him as looking 
upon this complex scene of ideas and sensations, and finding every- 
where objects that immediately excite in him sympathies which, from 
the necessities of his nature, are accompanied by an overbalance of 
enjoyment. 



TO LYRICAL BALLADS (1800) 281 
To this knowledge which all men carry about with them, and to 
these sympathies in which, without any other discipline than that 
of our daily life, we are fitted to take delight, the Poet principally 
directs his attention. He considers man and nature as essentially 
adapted to each other, and the mind of man as naturally the mirror 
of the fairest and most interesting properties of nature. And thus 
the Poet, prompted by this feeling of pleasure, which accompanies 
him through the whole course of his studies, converses with general 
nature, with affections akin to those, which, through labour and 
length of time, the Man of science has raised up in himself, by 
conversing with those particular parts of nature which are the objects 
of his studies. The knowledge both of the Poet and the Man of 
science is pleasure; but the knowledge of the one cleaves to us as a 
necessary part of our existence, our natural and unalienable inher- 
itance; the other is a personal and individual acquisition, slow to 
come to us, and by no habitual and direct sympathy connecting us 
with our fellow-beings. The Man of science seeks truth as a remote 
and unknown benefactor; he cherishes and loves it in his solitude: 
the Poet, singing a song in which all human beings join with him, 
rejoices in the presence of truth as our visible friend and hourly 
companion. Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; 
it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all 
Science. Emphatically may it be said of the Poet, as Shakespeare 
hath said of man, 'that he looks before and after.' He is the rock of 
defence for human nature; an upholder and preserver, carrying 
everywhere ,vith him relationship and love. In spite of difference of 
soil and climate, of language and manners, of laws and customs: in 
spite of things silently gone out of mind, and things violently de- 
stroyed; the Poet binds together by passion and knowledge the vast 
empire of human society, as it is spread over the whole earth, and 
over all time. The objects of the Poet's thoughts are everywhere; 
though the eyes and senses of man are, it is true, his favourite guides, 
yet he will follow wheresoever he can find an atmosphere of sensa- 
tion in which to move his wings. Poetry is the first and last of all 
knowledge-it is as immortal as the heart of man. If the labours of 
Men of science should ever create any material revolution, direct or 
indirect, in our condition, and in the impressions which \ve habitually 



282 


WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 


receive, the Poet will sleep then no more than at present; he will be 
ready to follow the steps of the Man of science, not only in those 
general indirect effects, but he will be at his side, carrying sensation 
into the midst of the objects of the science itself. The remotest dis- 
coveries of the Chemist, the Botanist, or Mineralogist, will be as 
proper objects of the Poet's art as any upon which it can be employed, 
if the time should ever come when these things shall be familiar to 
us, and the relations under which they are contemplated by the 
followers of these respective sciences shall be manifestly and palpably 
material to us as enjoying and suffering beings. If the time should 
ever come when what is now called science, thus familiarized to men, 
shall be ready to put on, as it were, a form of flesh and blood, the 
Poet will lend his divine spirit to aid the transfiguration, and will 
welcome the Being thus produced, as a dear and genuine inmate of 
the household of man.-It is not, then, to be supposed that anyone, 
who holds that sublime notion of Poetry which I have attempted to 
convey, will break in upon the sanctity and truth of his pictures by 
transitory and accidental ornaments, and endeavour to excite admira- 
tion of himself by arts, the necessity of which must manifestly depend 
upon the assumed meanness of his subject. 
What has been thus far said applies to Poetry in general; but espe- 
cially to those parts of composition where the Poet speaks through 
the mouths of his characters; and upon this point it appears to 
authorize the conclusion that there are few persons of good sense, 
who would not allow that the dramatic parts of composition are 
defective, in proportion as they deviate from the real language of 
nature, and are coloured by a diction of the Poet's own, either 
peculiar to him as an individual Poet or belonging simply to Poets 
in general; to a body of men who, from the circumstance of their 
compositions being in metre, it is expected will employ a particular 
language. 
It is not, then, in the dramatic parts of composition that we look 
for this distinction of language; but still it may be proper and neces- 
sary where the Poet speaks to us in his own person and character. 
To this I answer by referring the Reader to the description before 
given of a Poet. Among the qualities there enumerated as prin- 
cipally conducing to form a Poet, is implied nothing differing in 



TO LYRICAL BALLADS (1800) 283 
kind from other men, but only in degree. The sum of what was 
said is, that the Poet is chiefly distinguished from other men by a 
greater promptness to think and feel without immediate external 
excitement, and a greater power in expressing such thoughts and 
feelings as are produced in him in that manner. But these passions 
and thoughts and feelings are the general passions and thoughts and 
feelings of men. And with what. are they connected? Undoubtedly 
with our moral sentiments and animal sensations, arid with the 
causes which excite these; with the operations of the elements, and 
the appearances of the visible universe; with storm and sunshine, 
with the revolutions of the seasons, with cold and heat, with loss 
of friends and kindred, with injuries and resentments, gratitude 
and hope, with fear and sorrow. These, and the like, are the sensa- 
tions and objects which the Poet describes, as they are the sensations 
of other men, and the objects which interest them. The Poet thinks 
and feels in the spirit of human passions. How, then, can his 
language differ in any material degree from that of all other men 
who feel vividly and see clearly? It might be proved that it is impos- 
sible. But supposing that this were not the case, the Poet might then 
be allowed to use a peculiar language when expressing his feelings 
for his own gratification, or that of men like himself. But Poets do 
not write for Poets alone, but for men. Unless therefore we are advo- 
cates for that admiration which subsists upon ignorance, and that 
pleasure which arises from hearing what we do not understand, the 
Poet must descend from this supposed height; and, in order to 
excite rational sympathy, he must express himself as other men 
express themselves. To this it may be added, that while he is only 
selecting from the real language of men, or, which amounts to the 
same thing, composing accurately in the spirit of such selection, he 
is treading upon safe ground, and we know what we are to expect 
from him. Our feelings are the same with respect to metre ; for, 
as it may be proper to remind the Reader, the distinction of metre 
is regular and uniform, and not, like that which is produced by what 
is usually called POETIC DICTION, arbitrary, and subject to infinite 
caprices upon which no calculation whatever can be made. In the 
one case, the Reader is utterly at the mercy of the Poet, respecting 
what imagery or diction he may choose to connect with the passion; 



28 4 


WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 


whereas, in the other, the metre obeys certain laws, to which the 
Poet and Reader both willingly submit because they are certain, and 
because no interference is made by them with the passion, but such 
as the concurring testimony of ages has shown to heighten and 
improve the pleasure which co-exists with it. 
It will now be proper to answer an obvious question, namely, Why, 
professing these opinions, have I written in verse? To this, in addi- 
tion to such answer as is included in what has been already said, I 
reply, in the first place, because however I may have restricted myself, 
there is still left open to me what confessedly constitutes the most 
valuable object of all writing, whether in prose or verse; the great 
and universal passions of men, the most general and interesting 
of their occupations, and the entire world of nature before me- 
to supply endless combinations of forms and imagery. Now, 
supposing for a moment that whatever is interesting in these 
objects may be as vividly described in prose, why should I be con- 
demned for attempting to superadd to such description the charm 
\vhich, by the consent of all nations, is acknowledged to exist in 
metrical language ? To this, by such as are yet unconvinced, it may 
be answered that a very small part of the pleasure given by Poetry 
depends upon the metre, and that it is injudicious to write in metre, 
unless it be accompanied with the other artificial distinctions of style 
with which metre is usually accompanied, and that, by such devia- 
tion, more will be lost from the shock which will thereby be given 
to the Reader's associations than will be counterbalanced by any 
pleasure which he can derive from the general po\ver of numbers. 
In answer to those who still contend for the necessity of accompany- 
ing metre with certain appropriate colours of style in order to the 
accomplishment of its appropriate end, and who also, in my opinion, 
greatly underrate the power of metre in itself, it might, perhaps, as 
far as relates to these Volumes, have been almost sufficient to observe, 
that poems are extant, written upon more humble subjects, and in 
a still more naked and simple style, which have continued to give 
pleasure from generation to generation. Now, if nakedness and 
simplicity be a defect, the fact here mentioned affords a strong 
presumption that poems somewhat less naked and simple are ca- 
pable of affording pleasure at the present day; and, what I wish 



TO LYRICAL BALLADS (1800) 285 
chiefly to attempt, at present, was to justify myself for having writ- 
ten under the impression of this belief. 
But various causes might be pointed out why, when the style is 
manly, and the subject of some importance, words metrically ar- 
ranged will long continue to impart such a pleasure to mankind as 
he who proves the extent of that pleasure will be desirous to impart. 
The end of Poetry is to produce excitement in co-existence with an 
overbalance of pleasure; but, by the supposition, excitement is an 
unusual and irregular state of the mind; ideas and feelings do not, 
in that state, succeed each other in accustomed order. If the words, 
however, by which this excitement is produced be in themselves 
powerful, or the images and feelings have an undue proportion of 
pain connected with them, there is some danger that the excitement 
may be carried beyond its proper bounds. Now the co-presence of 
something regular, something to which the mind has been accus- 
tomed in various moods and in a less excited state, cannot but have 
great efficacy in tempering and restraining the passion by an inter- 
texture of ordinary feeling, and of feeling not strictly and necessarily 
connected with the passion. This is unquestionably true; and hence, 
though the opinion will at first appear paradoxical, from the tendency 
of metre to divest language, in a certain degree, of its reality, and 
thus to throw a sort of half -consciousness of unsubstantial existence 
over the whole composition, there can be little doubt but that more 
pathetic situations and sentiments, that is, those which have a greater 
proportion of pain connected with them, may be endured in metrical 
composition, especially in rhyme, than in prose. The metre of the 
old ballads is very artless; yet they contain many passages which 
would illustrate this opinion; and, I hope, if the following Poems 
be attentively perused, similar instances will be found in them. 
This opinion may be further illustrated by appealing to the Reader's 
own experience of the reluctance with which he comes to the re- 
perusal of the distressful parts of Clarissa Har/owe, or The Gamester; 
while Shakespeare's writings, in the most pathetic scenes, never act 
upon us, as pathetic, beyond the bounds of pleasure-an effect which, 
in a much greater degree than might at first be imagined, is to be 
ascribed to small, but continual and regular impulses of pleasurable 
surprise from the metrical arrangement.-On the other hand (what 



286 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
it must be allowed will much more frequently happen) if the Poet's 
words should be incommensurate with the passion, and inadequate 
to raise the Reader to a height of desirable excitement, then (un- 
less the Poet's choice of his metre has been grossly injudicious), 
in the feelings of pleasure which the Reader has been accustomed 
to connect with metre in general, and in the feeling, whether 
cheerful or melancholy, which he has been accustomed to con- 
nect with that particular movement of metre, there will be found 
something which will greatly contribute to impart passion to the 
words, and to effect the complex end which the Poet proposes to 
himself. 
If I had undertaken a SYSTEMATIC defence of the theory here main- 
tained, it would have been my duty to develop the various causes 
upon which the pleasure received from metrical language depends. 
Among the chief of these causes is to be reckoned a principle which 
must be well known to those who have made any of the Arts the 
object of accurate reflection; namely, the pleasure which the mind 
derives from the perception of similitude in dissimilitude. This 
principle is the great spring of the activity of our minds, and their 
chief feeder. From this principle the direction of the sexual appetite, 
and all the passions connected with it, take their origin: it is the life 
of our ordinary conversation; and upon the accuracy with which 
similitude in dissimilitude, and dissimilitude in similitude are per- 
ceived, depend our taste and our moral feelings. It would not be a 
useless employment to apply this principle to the consideration of 
metre, and to show that metre is hence enabled to afford much 
pleasure, and to point out in what manner that pleasure is produced. 
But my limits will not permit me to enter upon this subject, and I 
must content myself with a general summary. 
I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful 
feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity: 
the emotion is 
ontemplated till, by a species of reaction, the tran- 
quillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which 
was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and 
does itself actually exist in the mind. In this mood successful com- 
position generally begins, and in a mood similar to this it is carried 
on; but the emotion, of whatever kind, and in whatever degree, from 



TO LYRICAL BALLADS (1800) 287 
various causes, is qualified by various pleasures, so that in describing 
any passions whatsoever, which are voluntarily described, the mind 
will, upon the whole, be in a state of enjoyment. If Nature be thus 
cautious to preserve in a state of enjoyment a being so employed, the 
Poet ought to profit by the lesson held forth to him, and ought 
especially to take care, that, whatever passions he communicates to 
his Reader, those passions, if his Reader's mind be sound and vigor- 
ous, should always be accompanied with an overbalance of pleasure. 
Now the music of harmonious metrical language, the sense of diffi- 
culty overcome, and the blind association of pleasure which has been 
previously received from works of rhyme or metre of the same or 
similar construction, an indistinct perception perpetually renewed 
of language closely resembling that of real life, and yet, in the cir- 
cÃ™mstance of metre, differing from it so widely-all these imper- 
ceptibly make up a complex feeling of delight, which is of the most 
important use in tempering the painful feeling always found inter- 
mingled with powerful descriptions of the deeper passions. This 
effect is always produced in pathetic and impassioned poetry; while, 
in lighter compositions, the ease and gracefulness with which the 
Poet manages his numbers are themselves confessedly a principal 
source of the gratification of the Reader. All that it is necessary to 
say, however, upon this subject, may be effected by affirming, what 
few persons will deny, that, of two descriptions, either of passions, 
manners, or characters, each of them equally well executed, the one 
in prose and the other in verse, the verse will be read a hundred times 
where the prose is read once. 
Having thus explained a few of my reasons for writing in verse, 
and why I have chosen subjects from common life, and endeavoured 
to bring my language near to the real language of men, if I have 
been too minute in pleading my own cause, I have at the same time 
been treating a subject of general interest; and for this reason a few 
words shall be added with reference solely to these particular poems, 
and to some defects which will probably be found in them. I am 
sensible that my associations must have sometimes been particular 
instead of general, and that, consequently, giving to things a false 
importance, I may have sometimes written upon unworthy subjects; 
but I am less apprehensive on this account, than that my language 



288 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
may frequently have suffered from those arbitrary connexions of 
feelings and ideas with particular words and phrases, from which no 
man can altogether protect himself. Hence I have no doubt, that, in 
some instances, feelings, even of the ludicrous, may be given to my 
Readers by expressions which appeared to me tender and pathetic. 
Such faulty expressions, were I convinced they \vere faulty at present, 
and that they must necessarily continue to be so, I would willingly 
take all reasonable pains to correct. But it is dangerous to make these 
alterations on the simple authority of a few individuals, or even of 
certain classes of men; for where the understanding of an Author is 
not convinced, or his feelings altered, this cannot be done without 
great injury to himself: for his own feelings are his stay and support; 
and, if he set them aside in one instance, he may be induced to repeat 
this act till his mind shall lose all confidence in itself, and become 
utterly debilitated. To this it may be added, that the critic ought 
never to forget that he is himself exposed to the same errors as the 
Poet, and, perhaps, in a much greater degree: for there can be no 
presumption in saying of most readers, that it is not probable they 
will be so well acquainted with the various stages of meaning 
through which words have passed, or with the fickleness or stability 
of the relations of particular ideas to each other; and, above all, since 
they are so much less interested in the subject, they may decide lightly 
and carelessly. 
Long as the Reader has been detained, I hope he will permit me 
to caution him against a mode of false criticism ,vhich has been 
applied to Poetry, in which the language closely resembles that of 
life and nature. Such verses have been triumphed over in parodies, 
of which Dr. Johnson's stanza is a fair specimen:- 
I put my hat upon my head 
And walked into the Strand, 
And there I met another man 
Whose hat was in his hand. 
Immediately under these lines let us place one of the most justly 
admired stanzas of the 'Babes in the Wood.' 
These pretty Babes with hand in hand 
Went wandering up and down; 
But never more they saw the Man 
A pproaching from the Town. 



TO LYRICAL BALLADS (1800) 289 
In both these stanzas the words, and the order of the words, in no 
respect differ from the most unimpassioned conversation. There 
are words in both, for example, 'the Strand,' and 'the Town,' con- 
nected with none but the most familiar ideas; yet the one stanza we 
admit as admirable, and the other as a fair example of the superla- 
tively contemptible. Whence arises this difference? Not from the 
metre, not from the language, not from the order of the words; but 
the matter expressed in Dr. Johnson's stanza is contemptible. The 
proper method of treating trivial and simple verses, to which Dr. 
Johnson's stanza would be a fair parallelism, is not to say, this is a 
bad kind of poetry, or, this is not poetry; but, this wants sense; it is 
neither interesting in itself nor can lead to anything interesting; the 
images neither originate in that sane state of feeling which arises 
out of thought, nor can excite thought or feeling in the Reader. 
This is the only sensible manner of dealing with such verses. Why 
trouble yourself about the species till you have previously decided 
upon the genus? Why take pains to prove that an ape is not a Ne\v- 
ton, when it is self-evident that he is not a man? 
One request I must make of my reader, which is, that in judging 
these Poems he would decide by his own feelings genuinely, and 
not by reflection upon what will probably be the judgement of others. 
How common is it to hear a person say, I myself do not object to 
this style of composition, or this or that expression, but, to such and 
such classes of people it will appear mean or ludicrous! This mode 
of criticism, so destructive of all sound unadulterated judgement, 
is almost universal: let the Reader then abide, independently, by 
his own feelings, and, if he finds himself affected, let him not suffer 
such conjectures to interfere with his pleasure. 
If an Author, by any single composition, has impressed us with 
respect for his talents, it is useful to consider this as affording a pre- 
sumption, that on other occasions where we have been displeased, he, 
nevertheless, may not have written ill or absurdly; and further, to 
give him so much credit for this one composition as may induce us 
to review what has displeased us, with more care than we should 
otherwise have bestowed upon it. This is not only an act of justice, 
but, in our decisions upon poetry especially, may conduce, in a high 
degree, to the improvement of our own taste; for an accurate taste in 
poetry, and in all the other arts, as Sir Joshua Reynolds has observed, 


. 



29 0 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
is an acquired talent, which can only be produced by thought and 
a long continued intercourse with the best models of composition. 
This is mentioned, not with so ridiculous a purpose as to prevent the 
most inexperienced Reader from judging for himself (1 have already 
said that I wish him to judge for himself), but merely to temper the 
rashness of decision, and to suggest, that, if Poetry be a subject on 
which much time has not been bestowed, the judgement may be 
erroneous; and that, in many cases, it necessarily will be so. 
Nothing would, I know, have so effectually contributed to further 
the end which I have in view, as to have shown of what kind the 
pleasure is, and how that pleasure is produced, which is confessedly 
produced by metrical composition essentially different from that 
which I have here endeavoured to recommend: for the Reader will 
say that he has been pleased by such composition; and what more 
can be done for him? The power of any art is limited; and he will 
suspect, that, if it be proposed to furnish him with new friends, that 
can be only upon condition of his abandoning his old friends. Be- 
sides, as I have said, the Reader is himself conscious of the pleasure 
which he has received from such composition, composition to which 
he has peculiarly attached the endearing name of Poetry; and all men 
feel an habitual gratitude, and something of an honourable bigotry, 
for the objects which have long continued to please them: we not 
only wish to be pleased, but to be pleased in that particular way in 
which we have been accustomed to be pleased. There is in these 
feelings enough to resist a host of arguments; and I should be the 
less able to combat them successfully, as I am willing to allow, that, 
in order entirely to enjoy the Poetry which I am recommending, it 
would be necessary to give up much of what is ordinarily enjoyed. 
But, would my limits have permitted me to point out how this 
pleasure is produced, many obstacles might have been removed, and 
the Reader assisted in perceiving that the powers of language are not 
so limited as he may suppose; and that it is possible for poetry to 
give other enjoyments, of a purer, more lasting, and more exquisite 
nature. This part of the subj ect has not been altogether neglected, 
but it has not been so much my present aim to prove, that the interest 
excited by some other kinds of poetry is less vivid, and less worthy 
of the nobler powers of the mind, as to offer reasons for presuming, 



TO LYRICAL BALLADS (1800) 291 
that if my purpose were fulfilled, a species of poetry would be pro- 
duced, which is genuine poetry; in its nature well adapted to interest 
mankind permanently, and likewise important in the multiplicity 
and quality of its moral relations. 
From what has been said, and from a perusal of the Poems, the 
Reader will be able clearly to perceive the object which I had in 
view: he will determine how far it has been attained; and, what is a 
much more important question, whether it be worth attaining: and 
upon the decision of these two questions will rest my claim to the 
approbation of the Public. 



APPENDIX TO LYRICAL BALLADS 
(1802) 


P ERHAPS, as I have no right to expect that attentive perusal, 
without which, confined, as I have been, to the narrow limits 
of a preface, my meaning cannot be thoroughly understood, 
I am anxious to give an exact notion of the sense in which the phrase 
poetic diction has been used; and for this purpose, a few words shall 
here be added, concerning the origin and characteristics of the phrase- 
ology, which I have condemned under that name. 
The earliest poets of all nations generally wrote from passion ex- 
cited by real events; they wrote naturally, and as men: feeling power- 
fÃ¹lly as they did, their language was daring, and figurative. In suc- 
ceeding times, Poets, and Men ambitious of the fame of Poets, per- 
ceiving the influence of such language, and desirous of producing the 
same effect without being animated by the same passion, set 
themsel ves to a mechanical adoption of these figures of speech, and 
made use of them, sometimes with propriety, but much more fre- 
quently applied them to feelings and thoughts with which they had 
no natural connexion whatsoever. A language was thus insensibly 
produced, differing materially from the real language of men in 
any situation. The Reader or Hearer of this distorted language 
found himself in a perturbed and unusual state of mind: when 
affected by the genuine language of passion he had been in a per- 
turbed and unusual state of mind also: in both cases he was willing 
that his common judgement and understanding should be laid 
asleep, and he had no instinctive and infallible perception of the true 
to make him reject the false; the one served as a passport for the 
other. The emotion was in both cases delightful, and no wonder if 
he confounded the one with the other, and believed them both to be 
produced by the same, or similar causes. Besides, the Poet spake to 
him in the character of a man to be looked up to, a man of genius 
29 2 



APPENDIX TO LYRICAL BALLADS (1802) 293 
and authority. Thus, and from a variety of other causes, this dis- 
torted language was received with admiration; and Poets, it is 
probable, who had before contented themselves for the most part 
with misapplying only expressions which at first had been dictated 
by real passion, carried the abuse still further, and introduced phrases 
composed apparently in the spirit of the original figurative language 
of passion, yet altogether of their own invention, and characterized 
by various degrees of wanton deviation from good sense and nature. 
It is indeed true, that the language of the earliest Poets was felt 
to differ materially from ordinary language, because it was the 
language of extraordinary occasions; but it was really spoken by men, 
language which the Poet himself had uttered when he had been 
affected by the events which he described, or which he had heard 
uttered by thosp. around him. To this language it is probable that 
metre of some sort or other was early superadded. This separated 
the genuine language of Poetry still further from common life, so 
that whoever read or heard the poems of these earliest Poets felt 
himself moved in a way in which he had not been accustomed to 
be moved in real life, and by causes manifestly different from those 
which acted upon him in real life. This was the great temptation 
to all the corruptions which have followed: under the protection of 
this feeling succeeding Poets constructed a phraseology which had 
one thing, it is true, in common with the genuine language of poetry, 
namely, that it was not heard in ordinary conversation; that it was 
unusual. But the first Poets, as I have said, spake a language which, 
though unusual, was still the language of men. This circumstance, 
however, was disregarded by their successors; they found that they 
could please by easier means: they became proud of modes of expres- 
sion which they themselves had invented, and which were uttered 
onl y by themselves. In process of time metre became a symbol or 
promise of this unusual language, and whoever took upon him to 
write in metre, according as he possessed more or less of true poetic 
genius, introduced less or more of this adulterated phraseology into 
his compositions, and the true and the false were inseparately inter- 
woven until, the taste of men becoming gradually perverted, this 
language was received as a natural language: and at length, by the 
influence of books upon men, did to a certain degree really become 



294 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
so. Abuses of this kind were imported from one nation to another, 
and with the progress of refinement this diction became daily more 
and more corrupt, thrusting out of sight the plain humanities of 
nature by a motley masquerade of tricks, quaintnesses, hieroglyphics, 
and enigmas. 
It would not be uninteresting to point out the causes of the pleasure 
given by this extravagant and absurd diction. It depends upon a great 
variety of causes, but upon none, perhaps, more than its influence in 
impressing a notion of the peculiarity and exaltation of the Poet's 
character, and in flattering the Reader's self-love by bringing him 
nearer to a sympathy with that character; an effect which is accom- 
plished by unsettling ordinary habits of thinking, and thus assisting 
the Reader to approach to that perturbed and dizzy state of mind in 
which if he does not find himself, he imagines that he is balked of a 
peculiar enjoyment which poetry can and ought to bestow. 
The sonnet quoted from Gray, in the Preface, except the lines 
printed in italics, consists of little else but this diction, though not of 
the worst kind; and indeed, if one may be permitted to say so, it is 
far too common in the best writers both ancient and modern. Per- 
haps in no way, by positive example could more easily be given a 
notion of what I mean by the phrase poetic diction than by referring 
to a comparison between the metrical paraphrase which we have of 
passages in the Old and New Testament, and those passages as they 
exist in our common Translation. See Pope's Messiah throughout; 
Prior's 'Did sweeter sounds adorn my flowing tongue,' &c. &c. 
'Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels,' &c. &c., 1st 
Corinthians, ch. xiii. By way of immediate example take the follow- 
ing of Dr. Johnson: 


Turn on the prudent Ant thy heedless eyes, 
Observe her labours, Sluggard, and be wise; 
No stern command, no monitory voice, 
Prescribes her duties, or directs her choice; 
Yet, timely provident, she hastes away 
To snatch the blessings of a plenteous day; 
\Vhen fruitful Summer loads the teeming plain, 
She crops the harvest, and she stores the grain. 
How long shall sloth usurp thy useless hours, 
Unnerve thy vigour, and enchain thy powers? 



APPENDIX TO LYRICAL BALLADS (1802) 295 
While artful shades thy downy couch enclose, 
And soft solicitation courts repose, 
Amidst the drowsy charms of dull delight, 
Year chases year with unremitted flight, 
Till Want now following, fraudulent and slow, 
Shall spring to seize thee, like an ambush'd foe. 
From this hubbub of words pass to the original. 'Go to the Ant, 
thou Sluggard, consider her ways, and be wise: which having no 
guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and 
gathereth her food in the harvest. How long wilt thou sleep, 0 
Sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, 
a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep. So shall thy 
poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.' 
Proverbs, ch. vi. . 
One more quotation, and I have done. It is from Cowper's Verses 
supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk: 
Religion! what treasure untold 
Resides in that heavenly wordf 
More precious than silver and gold, 
Or all that this earth can afford. 
But the sound of the church-going bell 
These valleys and rocks never heard, 
Ne'er sighed at the sound of a knell, 
Or smiled when a sabbath appeared. 
Ye winds, that have made me your sport 
Convey to this desolate shore 
Some cordial endearing report 
Of a land I must visit no more. 
My Friends, do they now and then send 
A wish or a thought after me? 
o tell me I yet have a friend, 
Though a friend I am never to see. 
This passage is quoted as an instance of three different styles of 
composition. The first four lines are poorly expressed; some Critics 
would call the language prosaic; the fact is, it would be bad prose, 
so bad, that it is scarcely worse in metre. The epithet 'church-going' 
applied to a bell, and that by so chaste a writer as Cowper, is an 
instance of the strange abuses which Poets have introduced into their 
language, till they and their Readers take them as matters of course, 



296 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
if they do not single them out expressly as objects of admiration. 
The two lines 'Ne'er sighed at the sound,' &c., are, in my opinion, 
an instance of the language of passion wrested from its proper use, 
and, from the mere circumstance of the composition being in metre, 
applied upon an occasion that does not justify such violent expres- 
sions; and I should condemn the passage, though perhaps few Read- 
ers will agree with me, as vicious poetic diction. The last stanza is 
throughout admirably expressed: it would be equally good whether 
in prose or verse, except that the Reader has an exquisite pleasure in 
seeing such natural language so naturally connected with metre. 
The beauty of this stanza tempts me to conclude with a principle 
which ought never to be lost sight of, and which has been my chief 
guide in all I have said,-namely, that in works of imagination and 
sentÃ1nent, for of these only have I been treating, in proportion as 
ideas and feelings are valuable, whether the composition be in prose 
or in verse, they require and exact one and the same language. Metre 
is but adventitious to composition, and the phraseology for which 
that passport is necessary, even where it may be graceful at all, will 
be little valued by the judicious. 



PREFACE TO POEMS 


( I8I S) 


T HE powers requisite for the production of poetry are: first, 
those of Observation and Description,-i. e. the ability to 
observe with accuracy things as they are in themselves, and 
with fidelity to describe them, unmodified by any passion or feeling 
existing in the mind of the describer; whether the things depicted 
be actually present to the senses, or have a place only in the memory. 
This power, though indispensable to a Poet, is one which he employs 
only in submission to necessity, and never for a continuance of time: 
as its exercise supposes all the higher qualities of the mind to be pas- 
sive, and in a state of subjection to external objects, much in the same 
way as a translator or engraver ought to be to his original. 2ndly, 
Sensibility,-which, the more exquisite it is, the wider will be the 
range of a poet's perceptions; and the more will he be incited to 
observe objects, both as they exist in themselves and as re-acted upon 
by his own mind. (The distinction between poetic and human sen- 
sibility has been marked in the character of the Poet delineated in 
the original preface.) 3rdly, ReRection,-which makes the Poet ac- 
quainted with the value of actions, images, thoughts, and feelings; 
and assists the sensibility in perceiving their connexion with each 
other. 4thly, Imagination and Fancy,-to modify, to create, and to 
associate. sthly, Invention,-by which characters are composed out 
of materials supplied by observation; whether of the Poet's own 
heart and mind, or of external life and nature; and such incidents 
and situations produced as are most impressive to the imagination, 
and most fitted to do justice to the characters, sentiments, and pas- 
sions, which the Poet undertakes to illustrate. And, lastly, Judge- 
ment, to decide how and where, and in what degree, each of these 
faculties ought to be exerted; so that the less shall not be sacrificed 
to the greater; nor the greater, slighting the less, arrogate, to its own 
297 



29 8 


WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 


injury, more than its due. By judgement, also, is determined what 
are the laws and appropriate graces of every species of composition. l 
The materials of Poetry, by these powers collected and produced, 
are cast, by means of various moulds, into divers forms. The moulds 
may be enumerated, and the forms specified, in the following order. 
1st, The Narrative,-including the EpopÃ¦ia, the Historic Poem, the 
Tale, the Romance, the Mock-heroic, and, if the spirit of Homer 
will tolerate such neighbourhood, that dear production of our days, 
the metrical Novel. Of this Class, the distinguishing mark is, that 
the Narrator, however liberally his speaking agents be introduced, is 
himself the source from which everything primarily flows. Epic 
Poets, in order that their mode of composition may accord with the 
elevation of their subject, represent themselves as singing from the 
inspiration of the Muse, 'Arma virumque cano;' but this is a fiction, 
in modern times, of slight value: the Iliad or the Paradise Lost would 
gain little in our estimation by being chanted. The other poets who 
belong to this class are commonly content to tell their tale;-so that 
of the whole it may be affirmed that they neither require nor reject 
the accompaniment of music. 
2ndly, The Dramatic,--consisting of Tragedy, Historic Drama, 
Comedy, and Masque, in which the Poet does not appear at all in 
his own person, and where the whole action is carried on by speech 
and dialogue of the agents; music being admitted only incidentally 
and rarely. The Opera may be placed here, inasmuch as it proceeds 
by dialogue; though depending, to the degree that it does, upon 
music, it has a strong claim to be ranked with the lyrical. The 
characteristic and impassioned Epistle, of which Ovid and Pope 
have given examples, considered as a species of monodrama, may, 
without impropriety, be placed in this class. 
3rdly, The Lyrical,--containing the Hymn, the Ode, the Elegy, 
the Song, and the Ballad; in all which, for the production of their 
full effect, an accompaniment of music is indispensable. 
4thly, The Idyllium,-descriptive chiefly either of the processes 
and appearances of external nature, as the Seasons of Thomson; or 
of characters, manners, and sentiments, as are Shenstone's Schoo/- 
I As sensibility to harmony of numbers, and the power of producing it, are in- 
variably attendants upon the faculties above specified, nothing has been said upon 
those requisites. 



TO POE
S ( I8I S) 299 
mistress, The Cotter's Saturday Night of Burns, The Twa Dogs of 
the same Author; or of these in conjunction with the appearances of 
Nature, as most of the pieces of Theocritus, the Allegro and P en- 
seroso of Milton, Beattie's Minstrel, Goldsmith's Deserted Village. 
The Epitaph, the Inscription, the Sonnet, most of the epistles of 
poets writing in their own persons, and all loco-descriptive poetry, 
belonging to this class. 
5thly, Didactic,-the principal object of which is direct instruc- 
tion; as the Poem of Lucretius, the Georgics of Virgil, The Fleece 
of Dyer, Mason's English Garden, &c. 
And, lastly, philosophical Satire, like that of Horace and Juvenal; 
personal and occasional Satire rarely comprehending sufficient of the 
general in the individual to be dignified with the name of poetry. 
Out of the three last has been constructed a composite order, of 
which Young's Night Thoughts, and Cowper's Task, are excellent 
examples. 
It is deducible from the above, that poems apparently miscel- 
laneous, may with propriety be arranged either with reference to 
the powers of mind predominant in the production of them; or to 
the mould in which they are cast; or, lastly, to the subjects to which 
they relate. From each of these considerations, the following Poems 
have been divided into classes; which, that the work may more 
obviously correspond with the course of human life, and for the 
sake of exhibiting in it the three requisites of a legitimate whole, a 
beginning, a middle, and an end, have been also arranged, as far 
as it was possible, according to an order of time, commencing with 
Childhood, and terminating with Old Age, Death, and Immortality. 
My guiding wish was, that the small pieces of which these volumes 
consist, thus discriminated, might be regarded under a two-fold 
view; as composing an entire work within themselves, and as ad- 
juncts to the philosophical Poem, The Recluse. This arrangement 
has long presented itself habitually to my own mind. Nevertheless, 
I should have preferred to scatter the contents of these volumes at 
random, if I had been persuaded that, by the plan adopted, anything 
material would be taken from the natural effect of the pieces, indi- 
vidually, on the mind of the unreflecting Reader. I trust there is a 
sufficient variety in each class to prevent this; while, for him who 



300 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
reads with reflection, the arrangement will serve as a commentary 
unostentatiously directing his attention to my purposes, both par- 
ticular and general. But, as I wish to guard against the possibility of 
misleading by this classification, it is proper first to remind the 
Reader, that certain poems are placed according to the powers of 
mind, in the Author's conception, predominant in the production of 
them; predonlinant, which implies the exertion of other faculties in 
less degree. Where there is more imagination than fancy in a poem, 
it is placed under the head of imagination, and vice versÃ¢. Both the 
above classes might without impropriety have been enlarged from 
that consisting of 'Poems founded on the Affection;' as might this 
latter from those, and from the class 'proceeding from Sentiment 
and Reflection.' The most striking characteristics of each piece, 
mutual illustration, variety, and proportion, have governed me 
throughout. 
None of the other Classes, except those of Fancy and Imagination, 
require any particular notice. But a remark of general application 
may be made. All Poets, except the dramatic, have been in the prac- 
tice of feigning that their works were composed to the music of 
the harp or lyre: with what degree of affectation this has been done 
in modern times, I leave to the judicious to determine. For my own 
part, I have not been disposed to violate probability so far, or to make 
such a large demand upon the Reader's charity. Some of these pieces 
are essentially lyrical; and, therefore, cannot have their due force 
without a supposed musical accompaniment; but, in much the 
greatest part, as a substitute for the classic lyre or romantic harp, I 
require nothing more than an animated or impassioned recitation, 
adapted to the subject. Poems, however humble in their kind, if 
they be good in that kind, cannot read themselves; the law of long 
syllable and short must not be so inRexible,-the letter of metre must 
not be so impassive to the spirit of versification,-as to deprive the 
Reader of all voluntary power to modulate, in subordination to the 
sense, the music of the poem ;-in the same manner as his mind is 
left at liberty, and even summoned, to act upon its thoughts and 
images. But, though the accompaniment of a musical instrument 
be frequently dispensed with, the true Poet does not therefore 
abandon his privilege distinct from that of the mere Proseman; 



TO POEMS (I8IS) 
He murmurs near the running brooks 
A music sweeter than their own. 
Let us come now to the consideration of the words Fancy and 
Imagination, as employed in the classification of the following 
Poems. 'A man,' says an intelligent author, 'has imagination in 
proportion as he can distinctly copy in idea the impressions of sense: 
it is the faculty which in-lages within the mind the phenomena of 
sensation. A man has fancy in proportion as he can call up, connect, 
or associate, at pleasure, those internal images (cÃ¾avrÃ¡rELV is to cause 
to appear) so as to complete ideal representations of absent objects. 
Imagination is the power of depicting, and fancy of evoking and 
combining. The imagination is formed by patient observation; the 
fancy by a voluntary activity in shifting the scenery of the mind. 
The more accurate the imagination, the more safely may a painter, 
or a poet, undertake a delineation, or a description, without the 
presence of the objects to be characterized. The more versatile the 
fancy, the more original and striking will be the decorations pro- 
duced.'-British Synonynls discriminated, by W. Taylor. 
Is not. this as if a man should undertake to supply an account 
of a building, and be so intent upon what he had discovered of the 
foundation, as to conclude his task without once looking up at the 
superstructure? Here, as in other instances throughout the volume, 
the judicious Author's mind is enthralled by Etymology; he takes 
up the original word as his guide and escort, and too often does not 
perceive how soon he becomes its prisoner, without liberty to tread 
in any path but that to which it confines him. It is not easy to find 
out how imagination, thus explained, differs from distinct remem- 
brance of images; or fancy from quick and vivid recollection of 
them: each is nothing more than a mode of memory. If the two 
words bear the above meaning, and no other, what term is left to 
designate that faculty of which the Poet is 'all compact;' he whose 
eyes glances from earth to heaven, whose spiritual attributes body 
forth what his pen is prompt in turning to shape; or what is left 
to characterize Fancy, as insinuating herself into the heart of ob- 
jects with creative activity?-Imagination, in the sense of the word 
as giving title to a class of the following Poems, has no reference 
to images that are merely a faithful copy, existing in the mind, of 


3 01 



302 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
absent external objects; but is a word of higher import, denoting 
operations of the mind upon those objects, and processes of creation 
or of composition, governed by certain fixed laws. I proceed to 
illustrate my meaning by instances. A parrot hangs from the wires 
of his cage by his beak or by his claws; or a monkey from the bough 
of a tree by his paws or his tail. Each creature does so literally and 
actually. In the first Eclogue of Virgil, the shepherd, thinking of 
the time when he is to take leave of his farm, thus addresses his 
goats :- 


Non ego vos post hac viridi projectus in antro 
Dumosa pendere procul de rupe videbo. 
half way down 
Hangs one who gathers samphire, 


is the well-known expression of Shakespeare, delineating an ordinary 
image upon the cliffs of Dover. In these two instances is a slight 
exertion of the faculty which I denominate imagination, in the use 
of one word: neither the goats nor the samphire-gatherer do literally 
hang, as does the parrot or the monkey; but, presenting to the senses 
something of such an appearance, the mind in its activity, for its 
own gratification, contemplates them as hanging. 


As when far off at sea a fleet descried 
Hangs in the clouds, by equinoctial winds 
Close sailing from Bengala, or the isles 
Of Ternate or Tidore, whence merchants bring 
Their spicy drugs; they on the trading flood 
Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape 
Ply, stemming nightly toward the Pole; so seemed 
Far off the flying Fiend. 
Here is the full strength of the imagination involved in the word 
hangs, and exerted upon the whole image: First, the fleet, an aggre- 
gate of many ships, is represented as one mighty person, whose track, 
\ve know and feel, is upon the waters; but, taking advantage of its 
appearance to the senses, the Poet dares to represent it as han gin g in 
the clouds, both for the gratification of the mind in contemplating 
the image itself, and in reference to the motion and appearance of 
the sublime objects to which it is compared. 



TO POEMS ( 181 5) 303 
From impressions of sight we will pass to those of sound; which, 
as they must necessarily be of a less definite character, shall be 
selected from these volumes: 


Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods; 


of the same bird, 


His voice was buried among trees, 
Yet to be come at by the breeze; 
0, Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird, 
Or but a wandering Voice? 
The stock-dove is said to coo, a sound well imitating the note of 
the bird; but, by the intervention of the metaphor broods, the affec- 
tions are called in by the imagination to assist in marking the manner 
in which the bird reiterates and prolongs her soft note, as if herself 
delighting to listen to it, and participating of a still and quiet satis- 
faction, like that \vhich may be supposed inseparable from the 
continuous process of incubation. 'His voice was buried among trees,' 
a metaphor expressing the love of seclusion by which this Bird is 
marked; and characterizing its note as not partaking of the shrill 
and the piercing, and therefore more easily deadened by the inter- 
vening shade; yet a note so peculiar and withal so pleasing, that the 
breeze, gifted with that love of the sound which the Poet feels, 
penetrates the shades in which it is entombed, and conveys it to the 
ear of the listener. 


Shall I call thee Bird, 
Or but a wandering Voice? 


This concise interrogation characterizes the seeming ubiquity of 
the voice of the cuckoo, and dispossesses the creature almost of a 
corporeal existence; the Imagination being tempted to this exertion 
of her power by a consciousness in the memory that the cuckoo is 
almost perpetually heard throughout the season of spring, but seldom 
becomes an object of sight. 
Thus far of images independent of each other, and immediately 
endowed by the mind with properties that do not inhere in them, 
upon an incitement from properties and qualities the existence of 



3 0 4 


WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 


\vhich is inherent and obvious. These processes of imagination are 
carried on either by conferring additional properties upon an object, 
or abstracting from it some of those which it actually possesses, and 
thus enabling it to react upon the mind which hath performed the 
process, like a new existence. 
I pass from the Imagination acting upon an individual image to 
a consideration of the same faculty employed upon images in a con- 
junction by which they modify each other. The Reader has already 
had a fine instance before him in the passage quoted from Virgil, 
\vhere the apparently perilous situation of the goat, hanging upon the 
shaggy precipice, is contrasted with that of the shepherd contemplat- 
ing it from the seclusion of the cavern in which he lies stretched at 
ease and in security. Take these images separately, and how un affect- 
ing the picture compared with that produced by their being thus 
connected with, and opposed to, each other! 


As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie 
Couched on the bald top of an eminence, 
Wonder to all who do the same espy 
By what means it could thither come, and whence, 
So that it seems a thing endued with sense, 
Like a sea-beast crawled forth, which on a shelf 
Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun himself. 


Such seemed this Man; not all alive or dead 
Nor all asleep, in his extreme old age. 


. . . . . . . 
Motionless as a cloud the old Man stood, 
That heareth not the loud winds when they call, 
And moveth altogether if it move at all. 
In these images, the conferring, the abstracting, and the modifying 
powers of the Imagination, immediately and mediately acting, are 
all brought into conjunction. The stone is endowed with something 
of the power of life to approximate it to the sea-beast; and the sea- 
beast stripped of some of its vital qualities to assimilate it to the 
stone; which intermediate image is thus treated for the purpose of 
bringing the original image, that of the stone, to a nearer resemblance 
to the figure and condition of the aged Man; who is divested of so 
much of the indications of life and motion as to bring him to the 



TO POE
S (I8IS) 


3 0 5 


point \\There the t\VO objects unite and coalesce in just comparison. 
After what has been said, the image of the cloud need not be com- 
mented upon. 
Thus far of an endo,ving or modifying power: but the Imagina- 
tion also shapes and creates; and how? By innumerable processes; 
and in none does it more delight than in that of consolidating num- 
bers into unity, and dissolving and separating unity into number,- 
alternations proceeding from, and governed by, a sublime conscious- 
ness of the soul in her own mighty and almost divine powers. Recur 
to the passage already cited from Milton. When the com pact Fleet, 
as one Person, has been introduced 'sailing from Bengala,' 'They,' 
i. e. the 'merchants,' representing the fleet resolved into a multitude 
of ships, 'ply' their voyage towards the extremities of the earth: 
'So' (referring to the word 'As' in the commencement) 'seemed the 
flying Fiend'; the image of his Person acting to recombine the multi- 
tude of ships into one body,-the point from which the comparison 
set out. 'So seemed,' and to whom seemed? To the heavenly Muse 
who dictates the poem, to the eye of the Poet's mind, and to that of 
the Reader, present at one moment in the wide Ethiopian, and the 
next in the solitudes, then first broken in upon, of the infernal 
regions! 


Modo me Thebis, modo ponit Athenis. 
Hear again this mighty Poet,-speaking of the Messiah going forth 
to expel from heaven the rebellious angels, 
Attended by ten thousand thousand Saints 
He onward came: far off his coming shone,- 
the retinue of Saints, and the Person of the Messiah himself, lost 
almost and merged in the splendour of that indefinite abstraction 
'His coming!' 
As I do not mean here to treat this subject further than to throw 
some light upon the present Volumes, and especially upon one 
division of them, I shall spare myself and the Reader the trouble of 
considering the Imagination as it deals with thoughts and sentiments, 
as it regulates the composition of characters, and determines the 
course of actions: I will not consider it (more than I have already 



306 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
done by implication) as that power which, in the language of one 
of my most esteemed Friends, 'draws all things to one; which makes 
things animate or inanimate, beings with their attributes, subjects 
with their accessories, take one colour and serve to one effect. 2 ' The 
grand storehouses of enthusiastic and meditative Imagination, of 
poetical, as contra-distinguished from human and dramatic Imagina- 
tion, are the prophetic and lyrical parts of the Holy Scriptures, and 
the works of Milton; to which I cannot forbear to add to those of 
Spenser. I select these writers in preference to those of ancient Greece 
and Rome, because the anthropomorphitism of the Pagan religion 
subjected the minds of the greatest poets in those countries too much 
to the bondage of definite form; from which the Hebrews were 
preserved by their abhorrence of idolatry. This abhorrence was 
almost as strong in our great epic Poet, both from circumstances of 
his life, and from the constitution of his mind. However imbued the 
surface might be. with classical literature, he was a Hebrew in soul; 
and all things tended in him towards the sublime. Spenser, of a 
gentler nature, maintained his freedom by aid of his allegorical 
spirit, at one time inciting him to create persons out of abstractions; 
and, at another, by a superior effort of genius, to give the universality 
and permanence of abstractions to his human beings, by means of 
attributes and emblems that belong to the highest moral truths and 
the purest sensations,-of which his character of Una is a glorious 
example. Of the human and dramatic Imagination the works of 
Shakespeare are an inexhaustible source. 


I tax not you, ye Elements, \vith unkindness, 
I never gave you kingdoms, call'd you Daughtersl 
And if, bearing in mind the many Poets distinguished by this 
prime quality, whose names I omit to mention; yet justified by 
recollection of the insults which the ignorant, the incapable, and the 
presumptuous, have heaped upon these and my other writings, I 
may be permitted to anticipate the judgment of posterity upon my- 
self, I shall declare (censurable, I grant, if the notoriety of the fact 
above stated does not justify me) that I have given in these unfa- 
vourable times evidence of exertions of this faculty upon its worthiest 
2 Charles Lamb upon the genius of Hogarth. 



TO POEMS (I8IS) 307 
objects, the external universe, the moral and religious sentiments of -f- 
Man, his natural affections, and his acquired passions; which have 
the same ennobling tendency as the productions of men, in this kind, 
\vorthy to be holden in undying remembrance. 
To the mode in which Fancy has already been characterized as the 
power of evoking and combining, or, as my friend Mr. Coleridge 
has styled it, 'the aggregative and associative power,' my objection 
is only that the definition is too general. To aggregate and to asso- 
ciate, to evoke and to combine, belong as well to the Imagination 
as to the Fancy; but either the materials evoked and combined are 
different; or they are brought together under a different law, and 
for a different purpose. Fancy does not require that the materials 
which she makes use of should be susceptible of change in their 
constitution, from her touch; and, where they admit of modification, 
it is enough for her purpose if it be slight, limited, and evanescent. 
Directly the reverse of these, are the desires and demands of the 
Imagination. She recoils from everything but the plastic, the pliant, 
and the indefinite. She leaves it to Fancy to describe Queen Mab 
as comIng, 


In shape no bigger than an agate-stone 
On the fore-finger of an alderman. 
Having to speak of stature, she does not tell you that her gigantic 
Angel was as tall as Pompey's Pillar; much less that he was twelve 
cubits, or twelve hundred cubits high; or that his dimensions 
equalled those of Teneriffe or Atlas;-because these, and if they 
were a million times as high it would be the same, are bounded: 
I'he expression is, 'His stature reached the sky!' the illimitable 
firmament!- When the Imagination frames a comparison, if it does 
not strike on the first presentation, a sense of the truth of the like- 
ness, from the moment that it is perceived, grows-and continues to 
grow-upon the mind; the resemblance depending less upon outline 
of form and feature, than upon expression and effect; less upon casual 
and outstanding, than upon inherent and internal, properties: more- 
over, the images invariably modify each other.- The law under 
which the processes of Fancy are carried on is as capricious as the 
accidents of things, and the effects are surprising, playful, ludicrous, 
amusing, tender, or pathetic, as the objects happen to be appositely 



308 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
produced or fortunately combined. Fancy depends upon the rapidity 
and profusion with which she scatters her thoughts and images; 
trusting that their number, and the felicity with which they are 
linked together, \vill make amends for the want of individual value: 
or she prides herself upon the curious subtilty and the successful 
elaboration with which she can detect their lurking affinities. If 
she can win you over to her purpose, and impart to you her feelings, 
she cares not how unstable or transitory may be her influence, know- 
ing that it will not be out of her power to resume it upon an apt 
occasion. But the Imagination is conscious of an indestructible 
dominion;-the Soul may fall away from it, not being able to sus- 
tain its grandeur; but, if once felt and acknowledged, by no act of 
any other faculty of the mind can it be relaxed, impaired, or dimin- 
ished.-Fancy is given to quicken and to beguile the temporal part 
of our nature, Imagination to incite and to support the eternal.- 
Yet is it not the less true that Fancy, as she is an active, is also, under 
her own laws and in her own spirit, a creative faculty? In what 
manner Fancy ambitiously aims at a rivalship with Imagination, and 
Imagination stoops to work with the materials of Fancy, might be 
illustrated from the compositions of all eloquent writers, whether 
in prose or verse; and chiefly from those of our own Country. 
Scarcely a page of the impassioned parts of Bishop Taylor's Works 
can be opened that shall not afford examples.-Referring the Reader 
to those inestimable volumes, I will content myself with placing a 
conceit (ascribed to Lord Chesterfield) in contrast with a passage 
from the Paradise Lost: 


The dews of the evening most carefully shun, 
They are the tears of the sky for the loss of the sun. 
After the transgression of Adam, Milton, with other appearances of 
sympathizing Nature, thus marks the immediate consequence, 
Sky lowered, and, muttering thunder, some sad drops 
Wept at completion of the mortal sin. 
The associating link is the same in each instance: Dew and rain, not 
distinguishable from the liquid substance of tears, are employed as 
indications of sorrow. A flash of surprise is the effect in the former 



TO POE
S (I8IS) 


3 0 9 


case; a flash of surprise, and nothing more; for the nature of things 
does not sustain the combination. In the latter, the effects from the 
act, of which there is this immediate consequence and visible sign, 
are so momentous, that the mind acknowledges the justice and 
reasonableness of the sympathy in nature so manifested; and the sky 
weeps drops of water as if with human eyes, as 'Earth had before 
trembled from her entrails, and Nature given a second groan.' 
Finally, I will refer to Cotton's Ode upon Winter, an admirable 
composition, though stained with some peculiarities of the age in 
which he lived, for a general illustration of the characteristics of 
Fancy. The middle part of this ode contains a most lively description 
of the entrance of Winter, with his retinue, as 'A palsied king,' and 
yet a military monarch,-advancing for conquest with his army; the 
several bodies of which, and their arms and equipments, are de- 
scribed with a rapidity of detail, and a profusion of fanciful compari- 
sons, which indicate on the part of the poet extreme activity of 
intellect, and a correspondent hurry of delightful feeling. Winter 
retires from the foe into his fortress, where 
a magazIne 
Of sovereign juice is cellared in; 
Liquor that will the siege maintain 
Should PhÃ¦bus ne'er return again. 
Though myself a water drinker, I cannot resist the pleasure of 
transcribing what follows, as an instance still more happy of Fancy 
employed in the treatment of feeling than, in its preceding passages, 
the Poem supplies of her management of forms. 
'Tis that, that gives the poet rage, 
And thaws the gelid blood of age; 
Matures the young, restores the old, 
And makes the fainting coward bold. 
It lays the careful head to rest, 
Calms palpitations in the breast, 
Renders our lives' misfortune sweet; 


Then let the chill Sirocco blow, 
And gird us round with hills of snow, 
Or else go whistle to the shore, 
And make the hollow mountains roar, 



3 10 


WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
Whilst we together jovial sit 
Careless, and crowned with mirth and wit, 
Where, though bleak winds confine us home 
Our fancies round the world shall roam. 


We'll think of all the Friends we know, 
And drink to all worth drinking to; 
When having drunk all thine and mine, 
We rather shall want healths than wine. 


But where Friends fail us, we'll supply 
Our friendships with our charity; 
Men that remote in sorrows live, 
Shall by our lusty brimmers thrive. 


We'll drink the wanting into wealth, 
And those that languish into health, 
The afflicted into joy; th' opprest 
Into security and rest. 


The worthy in disgrace shall find 
Favour return again more kind, 
And in restraint who stifled lie, 
Shall taste the air of liberty. 


The brave shall triumph in success, 
The lover shall have mistresses, 
Poor unregarded Virtue, praise, 
And the neglected Poet, bays. 


Thus shall our healths do others good, 
Whilst we ourselves do all we would; 
For, freed from envy and from care, 
What would we be but what we are? 


When I sate down to write this Preface, it was my intention to 
have made it more comprehensive; but, thinking that I ought rather 
to apologize for detaining the reader so long, I will here conclude. 



ESSAY SUPPLEMENTARY 
TO PREFACE 


( 181 5) 



 TH the young of both sexes, Poetry is, like love, a pas- 
sion; but, for much the greater part of those who have 
been proud of its po\ver over their minds, a necessity soon 
arises of breaking the pleasing bondage; or it relaxes of itseIf;-the 
thoughts being occupied in domestic cares, or the time engrossed by 
business. Poetry then becomes only an occasional recreation; while 
to those whose existence passes away in a course of fashionable 
pleasure, it is a species of luxurious amusement. In middle and 
declining age, a scattered number of serious persons resort to poetry, 
as to religion, for a protection against the pressure of trivial employ- 
ments, and as a consolation for the afflictions of life. And, lastly, 
there are many, who, having been enamoured of this art in their 
youth, have found leisure, after youth was spent, to cultivate general 
literature; in which poetry has continued to be comprehended as 
a study. 
Into the above classes the Readers of poetry may be divided; 
Critics abound in them all; but from the last only can opinions be 
collected of absolute value, and ,vorthy to be depended upon, as 
prophetic of the destiny of a ne,\! work. The young, who in nothing 
can escape delusion, are especially subject to it in their intercourse 
with Poetry. The cause, not so obvious as the fact is unquestionable, 
is the same as that from which erroneous judgements in this art, in 
the minds of men of all ages, chiefly proceed; but upon Youth it 
operates with peculiar force. The appropriate business of poetry 
(\vhich, nevertheless, if genuine, is as permanent as pure science), 
her appropriate employment, her privilege and her duty, is to treat 
of things not as they are, but as they appear; not as they exist in 
themselves, but as they seem to exist to the senses, and to the passions. 
What a world of delusion does this acknowledged obligation pre- 
3" 



3 12 \VILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
pare for the inexperienced! what temptations to go astray are here 
held forth for them \vhose thoughts have been little disciplined by 
the understanding, and whose feelings revolt from the sway of rea- 
son!-When a juvenile Reader is in the height of his rapture with 
some vicious passage, should experience throw in doubts, or common 
sense suggest suspicions, a lurking consciousness that the realities of 
the Muse are but shows, and that her liveliest excitements are raised 
by transient shocks of conflicting feeling and successive assemblages 
of contradictory thoughts-is ever at hand to justify extravagance, 
and to sanction absurdity. But, it may be asked, as these illusions 
are unavoidable, and, no doubt, eminently useful to the mind as a 
process, what good can be gained by making observations, the 
tendency of which is to diminish the confidence of youth in its feel- 
ings, and thus to abridge its innocent and even profitable pleasures? 
The reproach implied in the question could not be warded off, if 
Youth were incapable of being delighted with what is truly excellent; 
or, if these errors always terminated of themselves in due season. 
But, with the majority, though their force be abated, they continue 
through life. Moreover, the fire of youth is too vivacious an element 
to be extinguished or damped by a philosophical remark; and, while 
there is no danger that what has been said will be inj urious or painful 
to the ardent and the confident, it may prove beneficial to those 
\vho, being enthusiastic, are, at the same time, modest and ingenuous. 
The intimation may unite with their own misgivings to regulate 
their sensibility, and to bring in, sooner than it would otherwise have 
arri ved, a more discreet and sound judgement. 
If it should excite wonder that men of ability, in later life, whose 
understandings have been rendered acute by practice in affairs, 
should be so easily and so far imposed upon when they happen to 
take up a new work in verse, this appears to be the cause;-that, 
having discontinued their attention to poetry, whatever progress 
may have been made in other departments of kno\vledge, they have 
not, as to this art, advanced in true discernment beyond the age of 
youth. If, then, a new poem fall in their way, whose attractions are 
of that kind which would have enraptured them during the heat 
of youth, the judgement not being improved to a degree that they 
shall be disgusted, they are dazzled; and prize and cherish the faults 



SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY ( 181 5) 313 
for having had power to make the present time vanish before them, 
and to throw the mind back, as by enchantment, into the happiest 
season of life. As they read, powers seem to be revived, passions are 
regenerated, and pleasures restored. The Book was probably taken 
up after an escape from the burden of business, and with a wish to 
forget the world, and all its vexations and anxieties. Having obtained 
this wish, and so much more, it is natural that they should make 
report as they have felt. 
If Men of mature age, through want of practice, be thus easily 
beguiled into admiration of absurdities, extravagances, and mis
 
placed ornaments, thinking it proper that their understandings 
should enjoy a holiday, while they are unbending their minds with 
verse, it may be expected that such Readers will resemble their 
former selves also in strength of prej udice, and an inaptitude to be 
moved by the unostentatious beauties of a pure style. In the higher 
poetry, an enlightened Critic chiefly looks for a reflection of the 
wisdom of the heart and the grandeur of the imagination. Wherever 
these appear, simplicity accompanies them; Magnificence herself, 
when legitimate, depending upon a simplicity of her own, to regu- 
late her ornaments. But it is a well-known property of human nature, 
that our estimates are ever governed by comparisons, of which we 
are conscious with various degrees of distinctness. Is it not, then, 
inevitable (confining these observations to the effects of style merely) 
that an eye, accustomed to the glaring hues of diction by which such 
Readers are caught and excited, will for the most part be rather 
repelled than attracted by an original Work, the colouring of which 
is disposed according to a pure and refined scheme of harmony? It 
is in the fine arts as in the affairs of life, no man can serve (i. e. obey 
\vith zeal and fidelity) two Masters. 
As Poetry is most just to its own divine origin when it administers 
the comforts and breathes the spirit of religion, they who have 
learned to perceive this truth, and who betake themselves to reading 
verse for sacred purposes, must be preserved from numerous illusions 
to which the two Classes of Readers, whom we have been consider- 
ing' are liable. But, as the mind grows serious from the weight of 
life, the range of its passions is contracted accordingly; and its sym- 
pathies become so exclusive, that many species of high excellence 



314 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
wholly escape, or but languidly excite, its notice. Besides, men who 
read from religious or moral inclinations, even when the subject is 
of that kind which they approve, are beset with misconceptions and 
mistakes peculiar to themselves. Attaching so much importance to 
the truths which interest them, they are prone to overrate the Authors 
by whom those truths are expressed and enforced. They come pre- 
pared to impart so much passion to the Poet's language, that they 
remain unconscious how little, in fact, they receive from it. And, on 
the other hand, religious faith is to him who holds it so momentous 
a thing, and error appears to be attended with such tremendous 
consequences, that, if opinions touching upon religion occur which 
the Reader condemns, he not only cannot sympathize with them, 
however animated the expression, but there is, for the most part, 
an end put to all satisfaction and enjoyment. Love, if it before 
existed, is converted into dislike; and the heart of the Reader is set 
against the Author and his book.-To these excesses, they, who from 
their professions ought to be the most guarded against them, are 
perhaps the most liable; I mean those sects whose religion, being 
from the calculating understanding, is cold and formal. For when 
Christianity, the religion of humility, is founded upon the proudest 
faculty of our nature, what can be expected but contradictions? 
Accordingly, believers of this cast are at one time contemptuous; at 
another, being troubled, as they are and must be, with inward mis- 
givings, they are jealous and suspicious;-and at all seasons, they 
are under temptation to supply by the heat with which they defend 
their tenets, the animation which is wanting to the constitution of 
the religion itself. 
Faith was given to man that his affections, detached from the 
treasures of time, might be inclined to settle upon those of eternity; 
-the elevation of his nature, which this habit produces on earth, 
being to him a presumptive evidence of a future state of existence; 
and giving him a title to partake of its holiness. The religious man 
values what he sees chiefly as an 'imperfect shadowing forth' of what 
he is incapable of seeing. The concerns of religion refer to indefinite 
objects, and are too weighty for the mind to support them without 
relieving itself by resting a great part of the burthen upon words 
and symbols. The commerce between Man and his Maker cannot 



SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY ( 181 5) 3 1 5 
be carried on but by a process where much is represented in little, 
and the Infinite Being accommodates himself to a finite capacity. In 
all this may be perceived the affinity between religion and poetry; 
between religion-making up the deficiencies of reason by faith; 
and poetry-passionate for the instruction of reason; between reli- 
gion-whose element is infinitude, and whose ultimate trust is the 
supreme of things, submitting herself to circumscription, and recon- 
ciled to substitutions; and poetry-ethereal and transcendent, yet 
incapable to sustain her existence without sensuous incarnation. In 
this community of nature may be perceived also the lurking incite- 
ments of kindred error ;-so that we shall find that no poetry has 
been more subject to distortion, than that species, the argument and 
scope of which is religious; and no lovers of the art have gone farther 
astray than the pious and the devout. 
Whither then shall we turn for that union of qualifications which 
must necessarily exist before the decisions of a critic can be of abso- 
lute value? For a mind at once poetical and philosophical; for a 
critic whose affections are as free and kindly as the spirit of society, 
and whose understanding is severe as that of dispassionate govern- 
ment? Where are we to look for that initiatory composure of mind 
which no selfishness can disturb ? For a natural sensibility that has 
been tutored into correctness without losing anything of its quick- 
ness; and for active faculties, capable of answering the demands 
which an Author of original imagination shall make upon them, 
associated with a judgement that cannot be duped into admiration 
by aught that is unworthy of it ?-among those and those only, who, 
never having suffered their youthful love of poetry to remit much 
of its force, have applied to the consideration of the laws of this art 
the best power of their understandings. At the same time it must 
be observed-that, as this Class comprehends the only judgements 
which are trustworthy, so does it include the most erroneous and 
perverse. For to be mistaught is worse than to be untaught; and no 
perverseness equals that which is supported by system, no errors are 
so difficult to root out as those which the understanding has pledged 
its credit to uphold. In this Class are contained censors, who, if they 
be pleased with what is good, are pleased with it only by imperfect 
glimpses, and upon false principles; who, should they generalize 



3 16 


WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 


rightly, to a certain point, are sure to suffer for it in the end; who, if 
they stumble upon a sound rule, are fettered by misapplying it, or 
by straining it too far; being incapable of perceiving when it ought 
to yield to one of higher order. In it are found critics too petulant to 
be passive to a genuine poet, and too feeble to grapple with him; 
men, who take upon them to report of the course which he holds 
whom they are utterly unable to accompany,-confounded if he turn 
quick upon the wing, dismayed if he soar steadily 'into the region'; 
-men of palsied imaginations and indurated hearts; in whose minds 
all healthy action is languid, who therefore feed as the many direct 
them, or, with the many, are greedy after vicious provocatives;- 
judges, whose censure is auspicious, and whose praise ominous! In 
this class meet together the two extremes of best and worst. 
The observations presented in the foregoing series are of too ungra- 
cious a nature to have been made without reluctance; and, were it 
only on this account, I would invite the reader to try them by the 
test of comprehensive experience. '-f the number of judges who can 
be confidently relied upon be in reality so small, it ought to follow 
that partial notice only, or neglect, perhaps long continued, or atten- 
tion wholly inadequate to their merits-must have been the fate of 
most works in the higher departments of poetry; and that, on the 
other hand, numerous productions have blazed into popularity, and 
have passed away, leaving scarcely a trace behind them: it will be 
further found, that when Authors shall have at length raised them- 
selves into general admiration and maintained their ground, errors 
and prejudices have prevailed concerning their genius and their 
works, which the few who are conscious of those errors and preju- 
dices would deplore; if they were not recompensed by perceiving 
that there are select Spirits for whom it is ordained that their fame 
shall be in the world an existence like that of Virtue, which owes 
its being to the struggles it makes, and its vigour to the enemies 
\vhom it provokes;-a vivacious quality, ever doomed to meet with 
opposition, and still triumphing over it; and, from the nature of its 
dominion, incapable of being brought to the sad conclusion of 
Alexander, when he wept that there were no more worlds for him 
to conquer. 
Let us take a hasty retrospect of the poetical literature of this Coun- 



SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY (I8IS) 317 
try for the greater part of the last two centuries, and see if the facts 
support these inferences. 
Who is there that no\v reads the Creation of Dubartas ? Yet all 
Europe once resounded with his praise; he was caressed by kings; 
and, when his Poem was translated into our language, the Faery 
Queen faded before it. The name of Spenser, whose genius is of a 
higher order than even that of Ariosto, is at this day scarcely known 
beyond the limits of the British Isles. And if the value of his works 
is to be estimated from the attention now paid to them by his country- 
men, compared with that which they bestow on those of some other 
writers, it must be pronounced small indeed. 
The laurel, meed of mighty conquerors 
And poets sage- 
are his own words; but his wisdom has, in this particular, been his 
worst enemy: while its opposite, whether in the shape of folly or 
madness, has been their best friend. But he was a great power, and 
bears a high name: the laurel has been awarded to him. 
A dramatic Author, if he write for the stage, must adapt himself 
to the taste of the audience, or they will not endure him; accordingly 
the mighty genius of Shakespeare was listened to. The people were 
delighted: but I am not sufficiently versed in stage antiquities to 
determine whether they did not flock as eagerly to the representation 
of many pieces of contemporary Authors, wholly undeserving to 
appear upon the same boards. Had there been a formal contest for 
superiority among dramatic writers, that Shakespeare, like his pre- 
decessors Sophocles and Euripides, would have often been subject 
to the mortification of seeing the prize adj udged to sorry competitors, 
becomes too probable, when we reflect that the admirers of Settle 
and Shadwell were, in a later age, as numerous, and reckoned as 
respectable, in point of talent, as those of Dryden. At .all events, that 
Shakespeare stooped to accommodate himself to the People, is suffi- 
ciently apparent; and one of the most striking proofs of his almost 
omnipotent genius is, that he could turn to such glorious purpose 
those materials which the prepossessions of the age compelled him to 
make use of. Yet even this marvellous skill appears not to have been 
enough to prevent his rivals from having some advantage over him 



3 18 


WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 


in public estimation; else how can we account for passages and scenes 
that exist in his works, unless upon a supposition that some of the 
grossest of them, a fact which in my own mind I have no doubt 
of, were foisted in by the Players, for the gratification of the many? 
But that his Works, whatever might be their reception upon the 
stage, made but little impression upon the ruling Intellects of the 
time, may be inferred from the fact that Lord Bacon, in his multi- 
farious writings, no\vhere either quotes or alludes to him. 1 His 
dramatic excellence enabled him to resume possession of the stage 
after the Restoration; but Dryden tells us that in his time two of 
the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher were acted for one of Shake- 
speare's. And so faint and limited was the perception of the poetic 
bea uties of his dramas in the time of Pope, that, in his Edition of 
the Plays, with a view of rendering to the general reader a necessary 
service, he printed between inverted commas those passages which 
he thought most worthy of notice. 
At this day, the French Critics have abated nothing of their aver- 
sion to this darling of our Nation: 'the English, with their bouffon de 
Shakespeare,' is as familiar an expression among them as in the time 
of Voltaire. Baron Grimm is the only French writer who seems to 
have perceived his infinite superiority to the first names of the French 
Theatre; an advantage which the Parisian Critic owed to his German 
blood and German education. The most enlightened Italians, though 
well acquainted with our language, are wholly incompetent to 
measure the proportions of Shakespeare. The Germans only, of 
foreign nations, are approaching towards a knowledge and feeling 
of what he is. In some respects they have acquired a superiority over 
the fello\v countrymen of the Poet: for among us it is a current, I 
might say, an established opinion, that Shakespeare is justly praised 
when he is pronounced to be 'a wild irregular genius, in whom great 
faults are compensated by great beauties.' How long may it be 
before this misconception passes away, and it becomes universally 
acknowledged that the judgement of Shakespeare in the selection of 
his materials, and in the manner in which he has made them, hetero- 
1 The learned Hakewi1l (a third edition of whose book bears date 1635), writing 
to refute the error ctouching Nature's perpetual and universal decay,' cites triumph- 
antly the names of Ariosto, Tasso, Bartas, and Spenser, as instances that poetic genius 
had not de
enerated; but he makes no mention of Shakespeare. 



SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY ( 181 5) 319 
geneous as they often are, constitute a unity of their own, and con- 
tribute all to one great end, is not less admirable than his imagination, 
his invention, and his intuitive knowledge of human Nature? 
There is extant a small Volume of miscellaneous poems, in which 
Shakespeare expresses his own feelings in his own person. It is not 
difficult to conceive that the Editor, George Steevens, should have 
been insensible to the beauties of one portion of that Volume, the 
Sonnets; though in no part of the writings of this Poet is found, 
in an equal compass, a greater number of exquisite feelings felici- 
tously expressed. But, from regard to the Critic's own credit, he 
would not have ventured to talk of an 2 act of parliament not being 
strong enough to compel the perusal of those little pieces, if he had 
not known that the people of England were ignorant of the treasures 
contained in them: and if he had not, moreover, shared the too com- 
mon propensity of human nature to exult over a supposed fall into 
the mire of a genius whom he had been compelled to regard with 
admiration, as an inmate of the celestial regions-'there sitting where 
he durst not soar.' 
Nine years before the death of Shakespeare, Milton ,vas born; 
and early in life he published several small poems, which, though on 
their first appearance they were praised by a few of the judicious, 
were afterwards neglected to that degree, that Pope in his youth 
could borrow from them without risk of its being kno\vn. Whether 
these poems are at this day justly appreciated, I will not undertake 
to decide: nor would it imply a severe reflection upon the mass 
of readers to suppose the contrary; seeing that a man of the acknowl- 
edged genius of Voss, the German poet, could suffer their spirit to 
evaporate; and could change their character, as is done in the trans- 
lation made by him of the most popular of these pieces. At all events, 
it is certain that these Poems of Milton are now much read, and 
loudly praised; yet were they little heard of till more than 150 
years after their publication; and of the Sonnets, Dr. Johnson, as 
appears from Boswell's Life of him, was in the habit of thinking 


2 This flippant insensibility was publicly reprehended by Mr. Coleridge in a course 
of Lectures upon Poetry given by him at the Royal Institution. For the various 
merits of thought and language in Shakespeare's Sonnets, see Nos. 27, 29, 3 0 , 3 2 , 33, 
54, 64, 66, 68, 73, 7 6 , 86, 9 1 , 9 2 , 93, 97,9 8 , 105, 10 7, 108, 109, III, 113, 114, 116, 
II 7, 129, and many others. 



320 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
and speaking as contemptuously as Steevens wrote upon those of 
Shakespeare. 
About the time when the Pindaric odes of Cowley and his imita- 
tors, and the productions of that class of curious thinkers whom Dr. 
Johnson has strangely styled metaphysical Poets, were beginning 
to lose something of that extravagant admiration which they had 
excited, the Paradise Lost made its appearance. 'Fit audience find 
though few,' was the petition addressed by the Poet to his inspiring 
Muse. I have said elsewhere that he gained more than he asked; 
this I believe to be true; but Dr. Johnson has fallen into a gross 
mistake when he attempts to prove, by the sale of the work, that 
Milton's Countrymen were Ijust to it' upon its first appearance. 
Thirteen hundred Copies were sold in two years; an uncommon 
example, he asserts, of the prevalence of genius in opposition to so 
much recent enmity as Milton's public conduct had excited. But, be 
it remembered that, if Milton's political and religious opinions, and 
the manner in which he announced them, had raised him many 
enemies, they had procured him numerous friends; who, as all per- 
sonal danger was passed away at the time of publication, would 
be eager to procure the master-work of a man whom they revered, 
and whom they would be proud of praising. Take, from the number 
of purchasers, persons of this class, and also those who wished to 
possess the Poem as a religious work, and but few I fear would be 
left .who sought for it on account of its poetical merits. The demand 
did not immediately increase; 'for,' says Dr. Johnson, 'many more 
readers' (he means persons in the habit of reading poetry) 'than 
were supplied at first the Nation did not afford.' How careless must 
a writer be who can make this assertion in the face of so many 
existing title-pages to belie it! Turning to my own shelves, I find 
the folio of Cowley, seventh edition, 1681. A book near it is Flat- 
man's Poems, fourth edition, 1686; Waller, fifth edition, same date. 
The Poems of Norris of Bemerton not long after went, I believe, 
through nine editions. What further demand there might be for 
these works I do not know; but I well remember that, twenty-five 
years ago, the booksellers' stalls in London swarmed with the folios 
of Cowley. This is not mentioned in disparagement of that able 
writer and amiable man; but merely to show that, if Milton's Works 



SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY (I8IS) 321 
were not more read, it was not because readers did not exist at the 
time. The early editions of the Paradise Lost were printed in a shape 
which allowed them to be sold at a low price, yet only three 
thousand copies of the Work were sold in eleven years; and the 
Nation, says Dr. Johnson, had been satisfied from 1623 to 1664, that 
is, forty-one years, with only two editions of the Works of Shake- 
speare; which probably did not together make one thousand Copies; 
facts adduced by the critic to prove the 'paucity of Readers.'- There 
were readers in multitudes; but their money went for other purposes, 
as their admiration was fixed elsewhere. Weare authorized, then, to 
affirm that the reception of the Paradise Lost, and the slow progress 
of its fame, are proofs as striking as can be desired that the positions 
which I am attempting to establish are not erroneous. 3 -Ho\v 
amusing to shape to one's self such a critique as a Wit of Charles's 
days, or a Lord of the Miscellanies or trading Journalist of King 
William's time, would have brought forth, if he had set his faculties 
industriously to work upon this Poem, everywhere impregnated with 
original excellence. 
So strange indeed are the obliquities of admiration, that they 
whose opinions are much influenced by authority will often be 
tempted to think that there are no fixed principles 4 in human nature 
for this art to rest upon. I have been honoured by being permitted to 
peruse in MS. a tract composed between the period of the Revolution 
and the close of that century. It is the Work of an English Peer of 
high accomplishments, its object to form the character and direct the 
studies of his son. Perhaps nowhere does a more beautiful treatise 
of the kind exist. The good sense and wisdom of the thoughts, the 
delicacy of the feelings, and the charm of the style, are, throughout, 
equally conspicuous. Yet the Author, selecting among the Poets of 
his own country those whom he deems most worthy of his son's 
perusal, particularizes only Lord Rochester, Sir John Denham, and 
Cowley. Writing about the same time, Shaftesbury, an author 
3 Hughes is express upon this subject: in his dedication of Spenser's Works to Lord 
Somers, he writes thus: 'It was your Lordship's encouraging a beautiful edition of 
Paradise Lost that first brought that incomparable Poem to be generally known and 
esteemed.' 
4 This opinion seems actually to have been entertained by Adam Smith, the worst 
critic, David Hume not excepted, that Scotland, a soil to which this sort of weed 
seems natural, has produced. 



3 22 


WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 


at present unjustly depreciated, describes the English Muses as 
only yet lisping in their cradles. 
The arts by which Pope, soon afterwards, contrived to procure 
to himself a more general and a higher reputation than perhaps any 
English Poet ever attained during his lifetime, are known to the 
judicious. And as well known is it to them, that the undue exertion 
of those arts is the cause why Pope has for some time held a rank in 
literature, to which, if he had not been seduced by an over-love of 
immediate popularity, and had confided more in his native genius, 
he never could have descended. He bewitched the nation by his 
n1elody, and dazzled it by his polished style and was himself blinded 
by his own success. Having wandered from humanity in his 
Eclogues with boyish inexperience, the praise, which these composi- 
tions obtained, tempted him into a belief that Nature was not to be 
trusted, at least in pastoral Poetry . To prove this by example, he 
put his friend Gay upon writing those Eclogues which their author 
intended to be burlesque. The instigator of the work, and his 
admirers, could perceive in them nothing but \vhat was ridiculous. 
Nevertheless, though these Poems contain some detestable passages, 
the effect, as Dr. Johnson well observes, 'of reality and truth became 
conspicuous even when the intention was to show them grovelling 
and degraded.' The Pastorals, ludicrous to such as prided them- 
selves upon their refinement, in spite of those disgusting passages, 
'became popular, and were read with delight, as just representations 
of rural manners and occupations.' 
Something less than sixty years after the publication of the 
Paradise Lost appeared Thomson's Winter; which was speedily 
followed by his other Seasons. It is a work of inspiration; much of 
it is written from himself, and nobly from himself. How was it 
received? 'It was no sooner read,' says one of his contemporary 
biographers, 'than universally admired: those only excepted who 
had not been used to feel, or to look for anything in poetry, beyond 
a point of satirical or epigrammatic wit, a smart antithesis richly 
trimmed with rime, or the softness of an elegiac complaint. To such 
his manly classical spirit could not readily commend itself; till, after 
a more attentive perusal, they had got the better of their prej udices, 
and either acquired or affected a truer taste. A few others stood aloof, 



SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY (I8IS) 3 2 3 
merely because they had long before fixed the articles of their poetical 
creed, and resigned themselves to an absolute despair of ever seeing 
anything new and original. These were somewhat mortified to 
find their notions disturbed by the appearance of a poet, who seemed 
to owe nothing but to nature and his own genius. But, in a short 
time, the applause became unanimous; everyone wondering how so 
many pictures, and pictures so familiar, should have moved them but 
faintly to what they felt in his descriptions. His digressions too, the 
overflowings of a tender benevolent heart, charmed the reader no 
less; leaving him in doubt, whether he should more admire the 
Poet or love the Man.' 
This case appears to bear strongly against us:-but ,ve must dis
 
tinguish between wonder and legitimate admiration. The subject 
of the work is the changes produced in the appearances of nature by 
the revolution of the year: and, by undertaking to write in verse, 
Thomson pledged himself to treat his subject as became a Poet. Now, 
it is remarkable that, excepting the nocturnal Reverie of Lady 
Winchelsea, and a passage or two in the Windsor Forest of Pope, the 
poetry of the period intervening between the publication of the 
Paradise Lost and the Seasons does not contain a single new image 
of external nature; and scarcely presents a familiar one from which 
it can be inferred that the eye of the Poet has been steadily fixed upon 
his object, much less that his feelings had urged him to work upon 
it in the spirit of genuine imagination. To what a low state knowl
 
edge of the most obvious and important phenomena had sunk, is 
evident from the style in which Dryden has executed a description 
of Night in one of his Tragedies, and Pope his translation of the 
celebrated moonlight scene in the Iliad. A blind man, in the habit 
of attending accurately to descriptions casually dropped from the 
lips of those around him, might easily depict these appearances with 
more truth. Dryden's lines are vague, bombastic, and senseless;5 
those of Pope, though he had Homer to guide him, are throughout 
5 CORTES, alone in a nigllt-gOtlm. 
All things are hush'd as Nature's self lay dead; 
The mountains seem to nod their drowsy head. 
The little Birds in dreams their songs repeat, 
And s1eeping Flowers beneath the Night-dew sweat: 
Even Lust and Envy s1eep; yet Love denies 
Rest to my soul, and slumber to my eyes. 
DRYDEN'S Indian Emperor. 



324 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
false and contradictory. The verses of Dryden, once highly cele- 
brated, are forgotten; those of Pope still retain their hold upon 
public estimation,-nay, there is not a passage of descriptive poetry, 
which at this day finds so many and such ardent admirers. Strange 
to think of an enthusiast, as may have been the case with thousands, 
reciting those verses under the cope of a moonlight sky, without 
having his raptures in the least disturbed by a suspicion of their 
absurdity!-If these two distinguished writers could habitually think 
that the visible universe was of so little consequence to a poet, that 
it was scarcely necessary for him to cast his eyes upon it, we may be 
assured that those passages of the elder poets which faithfully and 
poetically describe the phenomena of nature, were not at that time 
holden in much estimation, and that there was little accurate atten- 
tion paid to those appearances. 
Wonder is the natural product of Ignorance; and as the soil was 
in such good condition at the time of the publication of the Seasons 
the crop was doubtless abundant. Neither individuals nor nations 
become corrupt all at once, nor are they enlightened in a moment. 
Thomson was an inspired poet, but he could not work miracles; in 
cases where the art of seeing had in some degree been learned, the 
teacher would further the proficiency of his pupils, but he could do 
little more; though so far does vanity assist men in acts of self- 
deception, that many would often fancy they recognized a likeness 
when they knew nothing of the original. Having shown that much 
of what his biographer deemed genuine admiration must in fact have 
been blind wonderment-how is the rest to be accounted for?- 
Thomson was fortunate in the very title of his poem, which seemed 
to bring it home to the prepared sympathies of everyone: in the 
next place, notwithstanding his high powers, he writes a vicious style; 
and his false ornaments are exactly of that kind which would be 
most likely to strike the undiscerning. He likewise abounds with 
sentimental commonplaces, that, from the manner in which they 
were brought forward, bore an imposing air of novelty. In any well- 
used copy of the Seasons the book generally opens of itself with the 
rhapsody on love, or with one of the stories (perhaps 'Damon and 
Musidora'); these also are prominent in our collections of Extracts, 
and are the parts of his Work ,vhich, after all, were probably most 



SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY (I8IS) 325 
efficient in first recommending the author to general notice. Pope, 
repaying praises which he had received, and wishing to extol him to 
the highest, only styles him 'an elegant and philosophical Poet'; nor 
are \ve able to collect any unquestionable proofs that the true char- 
acteristics of Thomson's genius as an imaginative poet 6 were per- 
cei ved, till the elder Warton, almost forty years after the publication 
of the Seasons, pointed them out by a note in his Essay on the Life 
and Writings of Pope. In the Castle of Indolence (of which 
Gray speaks so coldly) these characteristics were almost as con- 
spicuously displayed, and in verse more harmonious and diction 
more pure. Yet that fine poem was neglected on its appearance, and 
is at this day the delight only of a few! 
When Thomson died, Collins breathed forth his regrets in an 
Elegiac Poem, in which he pronounces a poetical curse upon him 
who should regard with insensibility the place where the Poet's 
remains were deposited. The Poems of the mourner himself have 
now passed through innumerable editions, and are universally 
known; but if, when Collins died, the same kind of imprecation 
had been pronounced by a surviving admirer, small is the number 
whom it would not have comprehended. The notice which his 
poems attained during his lifetime was so small, and of course the 
sale so insignificant, that not long before his death he deemed it 
right to repay to the bookseller the sum which he had advanced for 
them and threw the edition into the fire. 
Next in importance to the Seasons of Thomson, though a consid- 
erable distance from that work in order of time, come the Reliques 
of Ancient English Poetry; collected, new-modelled, and in many 
instances (if such a contradiction in terms may be used) composed 
by the Editor, Dr. Percy. This work did not steal silently into the 
world, as is evident from the number of legendary tales, that appeared 
not long after its publication; and had been modelled, as the 
authors persuaded themselves, after the old Ballad. The Compilation 
was, however, ill suited to the then existing taste of city society; 
and Dr. Johnson, 'mid the little senate to which he gave laws, was 
6 Since these observations upon Thomson were written, I have perused the second 
edition of his Seasons, and find that even that does not contain the most striking 
passages which Warton points out for admiration; these, with other improvements 
throughout the whole work, must have been added at a later period. 



3 26 


WILLIAM \VORDSWORTH 


not sparing in his exertions to make it an object of contempt. The 
critic triumphed, the legendary imitators were deservedly disre- 
garded, and, as undeservedly, their ill-imitated models sank, in this 
country, into temporary neglect; while BÃ¼rger, and other able writers 
of Germany, were translating or imitating these Reliques, and 
composing, with the aid of inspiration thence derived, poems which 
are the delight of the German nation. Dr. Percy was so abashed by 
the ridicule flung upon his labours from the ignorance and insensi- 
bility of the persons with whom he lived, that, though while he was 
writing under a mask he had not wanted resolution to follow 
his genius into the regions of true simplicity and genuine pathos (as 
is evinced by the exquisite ballad of Sir Cauline and by many other 
pieces), yet when he appeared in his o\vn person and character as 
a poetical writer, he adopted, as in the tale of the Hermit of Wark- 
worth l a diction scarcely in anyone of its features distinguishable 
from the vague, the glossy, and unfeeling language of his day. I 
mention this remarkable face ,vith regret, esteeming the genius of 
Dr. Percy in this kind of writing superior to that of any other man by 
whom in modern times it has been cultivated. That even BÃ¼rger (to 
whom Klopstock gave, in my hearing, a commendation which he 
denied to Goethe and Schiller, pronouncing him to be a genuine poet, 
and one of the few among the Germans whose works would last) 
had not the fine sensibility of Percy, might be shown from many 
passages, in which he has deserted his original only to go astray. For 
example, 


Now daye was gone, and night was come, 
And all were fast asleepe, 
All save the Lady Emeline, 
Who sate in her bowre to weepe: 


And soone she heard her true Love's voice 
Low whispering at the walle, 
7 Shenstone, in his Schoolmistress, gives a still more remarkable instance of this 
timidity. On its first appearance (see D'Israeli's 2d Series of the Curiosities of 
Literattll'e) the Poem was accompanied with an absurd prose commentary, showing, 
as indeed some incongruous expressions in the text imply, that the whole was in- 
tended for burlesque. In subsequent editions, the commentary was dropped, and the 
People have since continued to read in seriousness. doing for the Author what he 
had not courage openly to venture upon for himself. 



SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY (1815) 
Awake, awake, my dear Ladye, 
'Tis I thy true-love call. 
Which is thus tricked out and dilated; 
Als nun die N acht Gebirg' und Thai 
Vennummt in Rabenschatten, 
V nd Hochburgs Lampen uberall 
Schon ausgeBimmert hatten, 
V nd alles tief entschlafen war; 
Doch nur das FrÃ¤ulein immerdar, 
V 011 Fieberangst, noch wachte, 
Vnd seinen Ritter dachte: 
Da horch! Ein susser Liebeston 
Kam leis' empor geBogen. 
'Ho, Trudchen, hot Da bin ich schon! 
Frisch auf! Dich angezogen!' 


3 2 7 


But from humble ballads we must ascend to heroics. 
All hail, Macpherson! hail to thee, Sire of Ossian f The Phantom 
was begotten by the snug embrace of an impudent Highlander upon 
a cloud of tradition-it travelled southward, where it was greeted 
with acclamation, and the thin Consistence took its course through 
Europe, upon the breath of popular applause. The Editor of the 
Reliques had indirectly preferred a claim to the praise of invention, 
by not concealing that his supplementary labours were considerable! 
how selfish his conduct, contrasted with that of the disinterested Gael, 
who, like Lear, gives his kingdom away, and is content to become a 
pensioner upon his own issue for a beggarly pittance!-Open this 
far-famed Bookf-I have done so at random, and the beginning of 
the Epic Poem T emora, in eight Books, presents itself. 'The blue 
waves of Ullin roll in light. The green hills are covered with day. 
Trees shake their dusky heads in the breeze. Grey torrents pour 
their noisy streams. Two green hills with aged oaks surround a 
narrow plain. The blue course of a stream is there. On its banks 
stood Cairbar of Atha. His spear supports the king; the red eyes 
of his fear are sad. Cormac rises on his soul with all his ghastly 
wounds.' Precious memorandums from the pocket-book of the blind 
Ossian! 



3 28 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
If it be unbecon1Ãng, as I acknowledge that for the most part it 
is, to speak disrespectfully of Works that have enjoyed for a length 
of time a widely-spread reputation, without at the same time produc- 
ing irrefragable proofs of their unworthiness, let me be forgiven 
upon this occasion.-Having had the good fortune to be born and 
reared in a mountainous country, from my very childhood I have 
felt the falsehood that pervades the volumes imposed upon the world 
under the name of Ossian. From what I saw with my own eyes, I 
knew that the imagery was spurious. In nature everything is distinct, 
yet nothing defined into absolute independent singleness. In Mac- 
pherson's work it is exactly the reverse; everything (that is not 
stolen) is in this manner defined, insulated, dislocated, deadened,- 
yet nothing distinct. It will always be so when words are substituted 
for things. To say that the characters never could exist, that the 
manners are impossible, and that a dream has more substance than 
the whole state of society, as there depicted, is doing nothing more 
than pronouncing a censure which Macpherson defied; when, with 
the steeps of Morven before his eyes, he could talk so familiarly of his 
Car-borne heroes;- of Morven, which, if one may judge from its 
appearance at the distance of a few miles, contains scarcely an acre of 
ground sufficiently accommodating for a sledge to be trailed along 
its surface.-Mr. Malcolm Laing has ably shown that the diction of 
this pretended translation is a motley assemblage from all quarters; 
but he is so fond of making out parallel passages as to call poor 
Macpherson to account for his lands' and his 
butsr and he has 
weakened his argument by conducting it as if he thought that every 
striking resemblance was a conscious plagiarism. It is enough that 
the coincidences are too remarkable for its being probable or possible 
that they could arise in different minds without communication 
between them. Now as the Translators of the Bible, and Shake- 
speare, Milton, and Pope, could not be indebted to Macpherson, it 
foIlo\vs that he must have owed his fine feathers to them; unless we 
are prepared gravely to assert, with Madame de StaÃ«l, that many of 
the characteristic beauties of our most celebrated English Poets are 
derived from the ancient Fingallian; in which case the modern 
translator would have been but giving back to Ossian his own.- 
It is consistent that Lucien Buonaparte, who could censure Milton 
for having surrounded Satan in the infernal regions with courtly 



SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY (I8IS) 3 2 9 
and regal splendour, should pronounce the modern Ossian to be 
the glory of Scotland;-a country that has produced a Dunbar, a 
Buchanan, a Thomson, and a Burns! These opinions are of ill 
omen for the Epic ambition of him who has given them to the 
world. 
Yet, much as those pretended treasures of antiquity have been 
admired, they have been wholly uninHuential upon the literature of 
the Country. No succeeding writer appears to have caught from 
them a ray of inspiration; no author, in the least distinguished, has 
ventured formally to imitate them-except the boy, Chatterton, on 
their first appearance. He had perceived, from the successful trials 
which he himself had made in literary forgery, how few critics were 
able to distinguish between a real ancient medal and a counterfeit of 
modern manufacture; and he set himself to the work of filling a 
magazine with Saxon Poems,-counterparts of those of Ossian, as 
like his as one of his misty stars is to another. This incapability to 
amalgamate with the literature of the Island is, in my estimation, 
a decisive proof that the book is essentially unnatural; nor should I 
require any other to demonstrate it to be a forgery, audacious as 
worthless.-Contrast, in this respect, the effect of Macpherson's publi- 
cation \vith the Relz'ques of Percy, so unassuming, so modest in their 
pretensions!-I have already stated how much Germany is indebted 
to this latter work; and for our own country, its poetry has been 
absolutely redeemed by it. I do not think that there is an able 
writer in verse of the present day who would not be proud to 
acknowledge his obligations to the Reliques; I know that it is so 
with my friends; and, for myself, I am happy in this occasion to make 
a public avowal of my own. 
Dr. Johnson, more fortunate in his contempt of the labours of 
Macpherson than those of his modest friend, was solicited not long 
after to furnish Prefaces biographical and critical for the works of 
some of the most eminent English Poets. The booksellers took upon 
themselves to make the collection; they referred probably to the 
most popular miscellanies, and, unquestionably, to their books of 
accounts; and decided upon the claim of authors to be admitted into 
a body of the most eminent, from the familiarity of their names with 
the readers of that day, and by the profits, which, from the sale of 
his works, each had brought and was bringing to the Trade. The 



33 0 


WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 


Editor was allowed a limited exercise of discretion, and the Authors 
whom he recommended are scarcely to be mentioned without a smile. 
We open the volume of Prefatory Lives, and to our astonishment 
the first name we find is that of Cowley!- What is become of the 
morning-star of English Poetry? Where is the bright Elizabethan 
constellation? Or, if names be more acceptable than images, where is 
the ever-to-be-honoured Chaucer? where is Spenser? where Sidney? 
and, lastly, \vhere he, whose rights as a poet, contra-distinguished 
from those which he is universally allowed to possess as a dramatist, 
we have vindicated,-where Shakespeare?- These, and a multitude 
of others not unworthy to be placed near them, their contemporaries 
and successors, we have not. But in their stead, we have (could better 
be expected when precedence was to be settled by an abstract of 
reputation at any given period made, as in this case before us?) 
Roscommon, and Stepney, and Phillips, and Walsh, and Smith, and 
Duke, and King, and Spratt-Halifax, Granville, Sheffield, Con- 
greve, Broome, and other reputed Magnates-metrical writers utterly 
worthless and useless, except for occasions like the present, when 
their productions are referred to as evidence what a small quantity 
of brain is necessary to procure a considerable stock of admiration, 
provided the aspirant will accommodate himself to the likings and 
fashions of his day. 
As I do not mean to bring down this retrospect to our own times, 
it may with propriety be closed at the era of this distinguished event. 
From the literature of other ages and countries, proofs equally cogent 
might have been adduced, that the opinions announced in the 
former part of this Essay are founded upon truth. It was not an 
agreeable office, nor a prudent undertaking, to declare them; but their 
importance seemed to render it a duty. It may still be asked, where 
lies the particular relation of what has been said to these Volumes? 
-The question will be easily answered by the discerning Reader 
\vho is old enough to remember the taste that prevailed when some 
of these poems \vere first published, seventeen years ago; who has 
also observed to what degree the poetry of this Island has since that 
period been coloured by them; and who is further aware of the 
unremitting hostility with which, upon some principle or other, 
they have each and all been opposed. A sketch of my own notion 



SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY ( 181 5) 331 
of the constitution of Fame has been given; and, as far as concerns 
myself, I have cause to be satisfied. The love, the admiration, the 
indifference, the slight, the aversion, and even the contempt, with 
which these Poems have been received, knowing, as I do, the source 
within my own mind, from which they have proceeded, and the 
labour and pains, which, when labour and pains appeared needful, 
have been bestowed upon them, must all, if I think consistently, be 
received as pledges and tokens, bearing the same general impression, 
though widely different in value;-they are all proofs that for the 
present time I have not laboured in vain; and afford assurances, more 
or less authentic, that the products of my industry will endure. 
If there be one conclusion more forcibly pressed upon us than 
another by the review which has been given of the fortunes and fate 
of poetical Works, it is this-that every author, as far as he is great 
and at the same time original, has had the task of creating the taste 
by which he is to be enjoyed: so has it been, so will it continue to be. 
This remark was long since made to me by the philosophical Friend 
for the separation of whose poems from my own I have previously 
expressed my regret. The predecessors of an original Genius of a 
high order will have smoothed the way for all that he has in com- 
mon with them ;-and much he will have in common; but, for what 
is peculiarly his own, he will be called upon to clear and often to 
shape his own road :-he will be in the condition of Hannibal among 
the Alps. 
And where lies the real difficulty of creating that taste by which 
a truly original poet is to be relished? Is it in breaking the bonds 
of custom, in overcoming the prej udices of false refinement, and 
displacing the aversions of inexperience? Or, if he labour for an 
object which here and elsewhere I have proposed to myself, does it 
consist in divesting the reader of the pride that induces him to dwell 
upon those points wherein men differ from each other, to the 
exclusion of those in which all men are alike, or the same; and in 
making him ashamed of the vanity that renders him insensible of 
the appropriate excellence which civil arrangements, less unjust than 
might appear, and Nature illimitable in her bounty, had conferred 
on men who may stand below him in the scale of society? Finally, 
does it lie in establishing that dominion over the spirits of readers 



33 2 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
by which they are to be humbled and humanized, in order that they 
may be purified and exalted? 
If these ends are to be attained by the mere communication of 
knowledge, it does not lie here.- TASTE, I would remind the reader, 
like I!\1:AGINATION, is a word which has been forced to extend its 
services far beyond the point to which philosophy would have con- 
fined them. It is a metaphor, taken from a passive sense of the 
human body, and transferred to things which are in their essence 
not passive,-to intellectual acts and operations. The word, Imagina- 
tion, has been overstrained, from impulses honourable to mankind, 
to meet the demands of the faculty which is perhaps the noblest of 
our nature. In the instance of Taste, the process has been reversed; 
and from the prevalence of dispositions at once inj urious and dis- 
creditable, being no other than that selfishness which is the child of 
apathy,-which, as Nations decline in productive and creative power, 
makes them value themselves upon a presumed refinement of judg- 
ing. Poverty of language is the primary cause of the use which we 
make of the word, Imagination; but the word, Taste, has been 
stretched to the sense which it bears in modern Europe by habits of 
self-conceit, inducing that inversion in the order of things whereby 
a passive faculty is made paramount among the faculties con versant 
with the fine arts. Proportion and congruity, the requisite knowledge 
being supposed, are subjects upon which taste may be trusted; it is 
competent to this office-for in its intercourse with these the mind 
is passive, and is affected painfully or pleasurably as by an instinct. 
But the profound and the exquisite in feeling, the lofty and universal 
in thought and imagination; or, in ordinary language, the pathetic 
and the sublime;-are neither of them, accurately speaking, objects 
of a faculty which, could ever without a sinking in the spirit of 
Nations have been designated by the metaphor Taste. And why? 
Because without the exertion of a co-operating power in the mind of 
the reader, there can be no adequate sympathy with either of these 
emotions: without this auxiliary impulse, elevated or profound 
passion cannot exist. 
Passion, it must be observed, is derived from a word which signifies 
suffering; but the connexion which suffering has with effort, with 
exertion, and action, is immediate and inseparable. How strikingly 



SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY (I8IS) 333 
is this property of human nature exhibited by the fact that, in popular 
language, to be in a passion is to be angry! But, 
Anger in hasty words or blows 
Itself discharges on its foes. 
To be moved, then, by a passion is to be excited, often to external, and 
always to internal, effort; whether for the continuance and strength- 
ening of the passion, or for its suppression, accordingly as the course 
which it takes may be painful or pleasurable. If the latter, the soul 
must contribute to its support, or it never becomes vivid,-and soon 
languishes and dies. And this brings us to the point. If every great 
poet with whose writings men are familiar, in the highest exercise 
of his genius, before he can be thoroughly enjoyed, has to call forth 
and to communicate power, this service, in a still greater degree, falls 
upon an original writer, at his first appearance in the world.-Of 
genius the only proof is, the act of doing well what is worthy to be 
done, and what was never done before: Of genius, in the fine arts, 
the only infallible sign is the widening the sphere of human sen- 
sibility, for the delight, honour, and benefit of human nature. Genius 
is the introduction of a new element into the intellectual universe: 
or, if that be not allowed, it is the application of powers to objects on 
which they had not before been exercised, or the employment of them 
in such a manner as to produce effects hitherto unknown. What is 
all this but an advance, or a conquest, made by the soul of the poet? 
Is it to be supposed that the reader can make progress of this kind, 
like an Indian prince or general-stretched on his palanquin, and 
borne by his slaves? No; he is invigorated and inspirited by his 
leader, in order that he may exert himself; for he cannot proceed in 
quiescence, he cannot be carried like a dead weight. Therefore to 
create taste is to call forth and bestow power, of which knowledge 
is the effect; and there lies the true difficulty. 
As the pathetic participates of an animal sensation, it might seem- 
that, if the springs of this emotion were genuine, all men, possessed 
of competent knowledge of the facts and circumstances, would be 
instantaneously affected. And, doubtless, in the works of every true 
poet will be found passages of that species of excellence which is 
proved by effects immediate and universal. But there are emotions 



334 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
of the pathetic that are simple and direct, and others-that are 
complex and revolutionary; some-to which the heart yields with 
gentleness; others-against which it struggles with pride; these 
varieties are infinite as the combinations of circumstance and the 
constitutions of character. Remember, also, that the medium through 
\vhich, in poetry, the heart is to be affected, is language; a thing sub- 
ject to endless fluctuations and arbitrary associations. The genius of 
the poet melts these down for his purpose; but they retain their 
shape and quality to him who is not capable of exerting, within his 
own mind, a corresponding energy. There is also a meditative, as 
well as a human, pathos; an enthusiastic, as well as an ordinary, sor- 
row; a sadness that has its seat in the depths of reason, to which the 
mind cannot sink gently of itself-but to which it must descend by 
treading the steps of thought. And for the sublime,-if we consider 
what are the cares that occupy the passing day, and how remote is the 
practice and the course of life from the sources of sublimity, in the 
soul of Man, can it be wondered that there is little existing prepara- 
tion for a poet charged with a new mission to extend its kingdom, 
and to augment and spread its enjoyments? 
Away, then, with the senseless iteration of the word popular, ap- 
plied to new works in poetry, as if there were no test of excellence 
in this first of the fine arts but that all men should run after its pro- 
ductions, as if urged by an appetite, or constrained by a spell I-The 
qualities of writing best fitted for eager reception are either such as 
startle the world into attention by their audacity and extravagance; 
or they are chiefly of a superficial kind, lying upon the surfaces of 
manners; or arising out of a selection and arrangement of incidents, 
by which the mind is kept upon the stretch of curiosity, and the 
fancy amused without the trouble of thought. But in everything 
which is to send the soul into herself, to be admonished of her weak- 
ness, or to be made conscious of her power ;-wherever life and 
nature are described as operated upon by the creative or abstracting 
virtue of the imagination; wherever the instinctive wisdom of an- 
tiquity and her heroic passions uniting, in the heart of the poet, with 
the meditative wisdom of later ages, have produced that accord of 
sublimated humanity which is at once a history of the remote past 
and a prophetic enunciation of the remotest future, there, the poet 



SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY ( 181 5) 335 
must reconcile himself for a season to few and scattered hearers.- 
Grand thoughts (and Shakespeare must often have sighed over this 
truth), as they are most naturally and most fitly conceived in soli- 
tude, so can they not be brought forth in the midst of plaudits with- 
out some violation of their sanctity. Go to a silent exhibition of the 
productions of the sister Art, and be convinced that the qualities 
which dazzle at first sight, and kindle the admiration of the multi- 
tude, are essentially different from those by which permanent 
influence is secured. Let us not shrink from following up these prin- 
ciples as far as they will carry us, and conclude with observing-that 
there never has been a period, and perhaps never will be, in which 
vicious poetry, of some kind or other, has not excited more zealous 
admiration, and been far more generally read, than good; but this 
advantage attends the good, that the individual, as well as the species, 
survives from age to age; whereas, of the depraved, though the 
species be immortal, the individual quickly perishes; the object of 
present admiration vanishes, being supplanted by some other as 
easily produced; which, though no better, brings with it at least the 
irritation of novelty,-with adaptation, more or less skilful, to the 
changing humours of the majority of those who are most at leisure 
to regard poetical works when they first solicit their attention. 
Is it the result of the whole, that, in the opinion of the Writer, the 
judgement of the People is not to be respected? The thought is most 
injurious; and, could the charge be brought against him, he would 
repel it with indignation. The People have already been justified, 
and their eulogium pronounced by implication, when it was said, 
above-that, of good poetry, the individual, as well as the species, 
survives. And how does it survive but through the People? What 
preserves it but their intellect and their wisdom? 


-Past and future, are the wings 
On whose support, harmoniously conjoined, 
Moves the great Spirit of human knowledge- 
MS. 
The voice that issues from this Spirit is that Vox Populi which the 
Deity inspires. Foolish must he be who can mistake for this a local 
acclamation, or a transitory outcry-transitory though it be for years, 
local though from a Nation. Still more lamentable is his error who 



33 6 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
can believe that there is anything of divine infallibility in the clamour 
of that small though loud portion of the community, ever governed 
by factitious influence, which, under the name of the PUBLIC, passes 
it-self, upon the unthinking, for the PEOPLE. Towards the Public, the 
Writer hopes that he feels as much deference as it is entitled to: but 
to the People, philosophically characterized, and to the embodied 
spirit of their knowledge, so far as it exists and moves, at the present, 
faithfully supported by its two wings, the past and the future, his 
devout respect, his reverence, is due. He offers it willingly and 
readily; and, this done, takes leave of his Readers, by assuring them 
-that, if he were not persuaded that the contents of these Volumes, 
and the Work to which they are subsidiary, evince something of the 
'Vision and the Faculty divine'; and that, both in words and things, 
they will operate in their degree, to extend the domain of sensibility 
for the delight, the honour, and the benefit of human nature, not- 
withstanding the many happy hours which he has employed in their 
composition, and the manifold comforts and enjoyments they have 
procured to him, he would not, if a wish could do it, save them from 
immediate destruction ;-from becoming at this moment, to the 
world, as a thing that had never been. 



PREFACE TO CROMWELL 


BY VICTOR HUGO. (1827) 


T HE drama contained in the following pages has nothing to 
commend it to the attention or the good will of the public. 
It has not, to attract the interest of political disputants, the 
advantage of the veto of the official censorship, nor even, to win for 
it at the outset the literary sympathy of men of taste, the honour of 
having been formally rejected by an infallible reading committee. 
It presents itself, therefore, to the public gaze, naked and friendless, 
like the infirm man of the Gospel-solus, pauper, nudus. 
Not without some hesitation, moreover, did the author determine 
to burden his drama with a preface. Such things are usually of very 
little interest to the reader. He inquires concerning the talent of a 
writer rather than concerning his point of view; and in determining 
whether a work is good or bad, it matters little to him upon what 
ideas it is based, or in what sort of mind it germinated. One seldom 
inspects the cellars of a house after visiting its salons, and when one 
eats the fruit of a tree, one cares but little about its root. 
On the other hand, notes and prefaces are sometimes a convenient 
method of adding to the weight of a book, and of magnifying, in 
appearance at least, the importance of a work; as a matter of tactics 
this is not dissimilar to that of the general who, to make his battle- 
front more imposing, puts everything, even his baggage-trains, in 
the line. And then, while critics fall foul of the preface and scholars 
of the notes, it may happen that the work itself will escape them, 
passing uninjured between their cross-fires, as an army extricates 
itself from a dangerous position between two skirmishes of out- 
posts and rear-guards. 
Victor Hugo (1802-1885) the chief of the romantic school in France, issued in the 
Preface to "Cromwell" the manifesto of the movement. Poet, dramatist, and novelist, 
Hugo remained through a long life the most conspicuous man of letters in France; 
and in the document here printed he laid down the principles which revolutionized 
the literary world of his time. 


337 



338 VICTOR HUGO 
These reasons, weighty as they may seem, are not those which 
influenced the aurhor. This volume did not need to be inflated, it 
was already too stout by far. Furthermore, and the author does not 
kno\v why it is so, his prefaces, frank and ingenuous as they are, 
have always served rather to compromise him with the critics than 
to shield him. Far from being staunch and trusty bucklers, they have 
played him a trick like that played in a battle by an unusual and 
conspicuous uniform, which, calling attention to the soldier who 
wears it, attracts all the blows and is proof against none. 
Considerations of an altogether different sort acted upon the 
author. It seemed to him that, although in fact, one seldom inspects 
the cellars of a building for pleasure, one is not sorry sometimes to 
examine its foundations. He will, therefore, give himself over once 
more, with a preface, to the wrath of the feuilletonists. Che sara, 
sara. He has never given much thought to the fortune of his works, 
and he is but little appalled by dread of the literary what will people 
say. In the discussion now raging, in which the theatre and the 
schools, the public and the academies, are at daggers drawn, one will 
hear, perhaps, not without some interest, the voice of a solitary 
apprentice of nature and truth, who has withdrawn betimes from 
the literary world, for pure love of letters, and who offers good faith 
in default of good taste, sincere conviction in default of talent, study 
in default of learning. 
He will confine himself, however, to general considerations con- 
cerning the art, without the slightest attempt to smooth the path 
of his own work, without pretending to write an indictment or a 
plea, against or for any person whomsoever. An attack upon or de- 
fence of his book is of less importance to him than to anybody else. 
Nor is personal controversy agreeable to him. It is always a pitiful 
spectacle to see two hostile self-esteems crossing swords. He protests, 
therefore, beforehand against every interpretation of his ideas, every 
personal application of his words, saying with the Spanish fablist:- 


Quien haga aplicaciones 
Con su pan se 10 coma. 


In truth, several of the leading champions of "sound literary doc- 
trines" have done him the honour to throw the gauntlet to him, 



TO CROMWELL 339 
even in his profound obscurity-to him, a simple, imperceptible 
spectator of this curious contest. He will not have the presumption 
to pick it up. In the following pages will be found the observations 
with which he might oppose them-there will be found his sling and 
his stone; but others, if they choose, may hurl them at the head of 
the classical Goliaths. 
This said, let us pass on. 
Let us set out from a fact. The same type of civilization, or to use 
a more exact, although more extended expression, the same society, 
has not always inhabited the earth. The human race as a whole has 
grown, has developed, has matured, like one of ourselves. It was 
once a child, it was once a man; we are now looking on at its impres- 
sive old age. Before the epoch which modern society has dubbed 
"ancient," there was another epoch which the ancients called "fabu- 
lous," but which it would be more accurate to call "primitive." 
Behold then three great successive orders of things in civilization, 
from its origin down to our days. Now, as poetry is always super- 
posed upon society, we propose to try to demonstrate, from the form 
of its society, what the character of the poetry must have been in 
those three great ages of the world-primitive times, ancient times, 
modern times. 
In primitive times, when man awakes in a world that is newly 
created, poetry awakes with him. In the face of the marvellous 
things that dazzle and intoxicate him, his first speech is a hymn 
simply. He is still so close to God that all his meditations are ecstatic, 
all his dreams are visions. His bosom swells, he sings as he breathes. 
His lyre has but three strings-God, the soul, creation; but this 
threefold mystery envelopes everything, this threefold idea embraces 
everything. The earth is still almost deserted. There are families, 
but no nations; patriarchs, but no kings. Each race exists at its own 
pleasure; no property, no laws, no contentions, no wars. Everything 
belongs to each and to all. Society is a community. Man is restrained 
in nought. He leads that nomadic pastoral life with which all civi- 
lizations begin, and which is so well adapted to solitary contempla- 
tion, to fanciful reverie. He follows every suggestion, he goes hither 
and thither, at random. His thought, like his life, resembles a cloud 
that changes its shape and its direction according to the wind that 



34 0 VICTOR HUGO 
drives it. Such is the first man, such is the first poet. He is young, 
he is cynical. Prayer is his sole religion, the ode is his only form of 
poetry. 
This ode, this poem of primitive times, is Genesis. 
By slow degrees, however, this youth of the world passes away. 
All the spheres progress; the family becomes a tribe, the tribe be- 
comes a nation. Each of these groups of men camps about a common 
centre, and kingdoms appear. The social instinct succeeds the no- 
madic instinct. The camp gives place to the city, the tent to the 
palace, the ark to the temple. The chiefs of these nascent states are 
still shepherds, it is true, but shepherds of nations; the pastoral staff 
has already assumed the shape of a sceptre. Everything tends to 
become stationary and fixed. Religion takes on a definite shape; 
prayer is governed by rites; dogma sets bounds to worship. Thus the 
priest and king share the paternity of the people; thus theocratic 
society succeeds the patriarchal community. 
Meanwhile the nations are beginning to be packed too closely on 
the earth's surface. They annoy and jostle one another; hence the 
clash of empires-war. They overflow upon another; hence, the 
migrations of nations-voyages. Poetry reflects these momentous 
events; from ideas it proceeds to things. It sings of ages, of nations, 
of empires. It becomes epic, it gives birth to Homer. 
Homer, in truth, dominates the society of ancient times. In that 
society, all is simple, all is epic. Poetry is religion, religion is law. 
The virginity of the earlier age is succeeded by the chastity of the 
later. A sort of solemn gravity is everywhere noticeable, in private 
manners no less than in public. The nations have retained nothing 
of the wandering life of the earlier time, save respect for the stranger 
and the traveller. The family has a fatherland; everything is con- 
nected therewith; it has the cult of the house and the cult of the 
tomb. 
We say again, such a civilization can find its one expression only 
in the epic. The epic will assume diverse forms, but will never lose 
its specific character. Pindar is more priestlike than patriarchal, 
more epic than lyrical. If the chroniclers, the necessary accompani- 
ments of this second age of the world, set about collecting traditions 



TO CROMWELL 341 
and begin to reckon by centuries, they labour to no purpose-chro. 
nology cannot expel poesy; history remains an epic. Herodotus is a 
Homer. 
But it is in the ancient tragedy, above all, that the epic breaks out 
at every turn. It mounts the Greek stage without losing aught, so 
to speak, of its immeasurable, gigantic proportions. Its characters 
are still heroes, demi-gods, gods; its themes are visions, oracles, fatal- 
ity; its scenes are battles, funeral rites, catalogues. That which. the 
rhapsodists formerly sang, the actors declaim-that is the whole 
difference. 
There is something more. When the whole plot, the whole spec- 
tacle of the epic poem have passed to the stage, the Chorus takes 
all that remains. The Chorus annotates the tragedy, encourages the 
heroes, gives descriptions, summons and expels the daylight, re- 
joices, laments, sometimes furnishes the scenery, explains the moral 
bearing of the subject, flatters the listening assemblage. Now, what 
is the Chorus, this anomalous character standing between the spec- 
tacle and the spectator, if it be not the poet completing his epic? 
The theatre of the ancients is, like their dramas, huge, pontifical, 
epic. It is capable of holding thirty thousand spectators; the plays 
are given in the open air, in bright sunlight; the performances last 
all day. The actors disguise their voices, wear masks, increase their 
stature; they make themselves gigantic, like their rÃ´les. The stage 
is immense. It may represent at the same moment both the interior 
and the exterior of a temple, a palace, a camp, a city. Upon it, vast 
spectacles are displayed. There is-we cite only from memory- 
Prometheus on his mountain; there is Antigone, at the top of a 
tower, seeking her brother Polynices in the hostile army (The PhÃ¦nz'- 
cians); there is Evadne hurling herself from a cliff into the flames 
where the body of Capaneus is burning (The Suppliants of Eurip- 
ides); there is a ship sailing into port and landing fifty princesses 
with their retinues (The Suppliants of Ã†schylus). Architecture, 
poetry, everything assumes a monumental character. In all antiquity 
there is nothing more solemn, more majestic. Its history and its 
religion are mingled on its stage. Its first actors are priests; its 
scenic performances are religious ceremonies, national festivals. 



342 VICTOR HUGO 
One last observation, which completes our demonstration of the 
epic character of this epoch: in the subjects which it treats, no less 
than in the forms it adopts, tragedy simply re-echoes the epic. All 
the ancient tragic authors derive their plots from Homer. The same 
fabulous exploits, the same catastrophes, the same heroes. One and 
all drink from the Homeric stream. The Iliad and Odyssey are 
always in evidence. Like Achilles dragging Hector at his chariot- 
wheel, the Greek tragedy circles about Troy. 
But the age of the epic draws near its end. Like the society that it 
represents, this form of poetry wears itself out revolving upon itself. 
Rome reproduces Greece, Virgil copies Homer, and, as if to make 
a becoming end, epic poetry expires in the last parturition. 
It was time. Another era is about to begin, for the world and for 
poetry. 
A spiritual religion, supplanting the material and external pagan- 
ism, makes its way to the heart of the ancient society, kills it, and 
deposits, in that corpse of a decrepit civilization, the germ of modern 
civilization. This religion is complete, because it is true; between 
its dogma and its cult, it embraces a deep-rooted moral. And first 
of all, as a fundamental truth, it teaches man that he has two lives 
to live, one ephemeral, the other immortal; one on earth, the other 
in heaven. It shows him that he, like his destiny, is twofold: that 
there is in him an animal and an intellect, a body and a soul; in a 
word, that he is the point of intersection, the common link of the 
two chains of beings which embrace all creation-of the chain of 
material beings and the chain of incorporeal beings; the first start- 
ing from the rock to arrive at man, the second starting from man 
to end at God. 
A portion of these truths had perhaps been suspected by certain 
wise men of ancient times, but their full, broad, luminous revelation 
dates from the Gospels. The pagan schools walked in darkness, 
feeling their way, clinging to falsehoods as well as to truths in their 
haphazard journeying. Some of their philosophers occasionally cast 
upon certain subjects feeble gleams which illuminated but one side 
and made the darkness of the other side more profound. Hence all 
the phantoms created by ancient philosophy. None but divine wis- 
dom was capable of substituting an even and all-embracing light for 



TO CROMWELL 


343 


all those Bickering rays of human wisdom. Pythagoras, Epicurus, 
Socrates, Plato, are torches: Christ is the glorious light of day. 
Nothing could be more material, indeed, than the ancient theog. 
ony. Far from proposing, as Christianity does, to separate the 
spirit from the body, it ascribes form and features to everything, even 
to impalpable essences, even to the intelligence. In it everything is 
visible, tangible, fleshly. Its gods need a cloud to conceal themselves 
from men's eyes. They eat, drink, and sleep. They are wounded 
and their blood flows; they are maimed, and lo! they limp forever 
after. That religion has gods and halves of gods. Its thunderbolts 
are forged on an anvil, and among other things three rays of twisted 
rain (tres z'mbris torti radios) enter into their composition. Its Jupi- 
ter suspends the world by a golden chain; its sun rides in a four- 
horse chariot; its hell is a precipice the brink of which is marked 
on the globe; its heaven is a mountain. 
Thus paganism, which moulded all creations from the same clay, 
minimizes divinity and magnifies man. Homer's heroes are of 
almost the same stature as his gods. Ajax defies Jupiter, Achilles 
is the peer of Mars. Christianity on the contrary, as we have seen, 
draws a broad line of division between spirit and matter. It places 
an abyss between the soul and the body, an abyss between man and 
God. 
At this point-to omit nothing from the sketch upon which we 
have ventured-we will call attention to the fact that, with Chris- 
tianity, and by its means, there entered into the mind of the nations 
a new sentiment, unknown to the ancients and marvellously devel- 
oped among moderns, a sentiment which is more than gravity and 
less than sadness-melancholy. In truth, might not the heart of 
man, hitherto deadened by religions purely hierarchical and sacer- 
dotal, awake and feel springing to life within it some unexpected 
faculty, under the breath of a religion that is human because it is 
divine, a religion which makes of the poor man's prayer, the rich 
man's wealth, a religion of equality, liberty and charity? Might it 
not see all things in a new light, since the Gospel had shown it the 
soul through the senses, eternity behind life? 
Moreover, at that very moment the world was undergoing so 
complete a revolution that it was impossible that there should not 



344 


VICTOR HUGO 


be a revolution in men's minds. Hitherto the catastrophes of empires 
had rarely reached the hearts of the people; it was kings who fell, 
majesties that vanished, nothing more. The lightning struck only 
in the upper regions, and, as \ve have already pointed out, events 
seemed to succeed one another \vith all the solemnity of the epic. 
In the ancient society, the individual occupied so lowly a place that, 
to strike him, adversity must needs descend to his family. So that 
he knew little of misfortune outside of domestic sorrows. It \vas an 
almost unheard-of thing that the general disasters of the state should 
disarrange his life. But the instant that Christian society became 
firmly established, the ancient continent was thrown into confusion. 
Everything was pulled up by the roots. Events, destined to destroy 
ancient Europe and to construct a new Europe, trod upon one 
another's heels in their ceaseless rush, and drove the nations pell- 
mell, some into the light, others into darkness. So much uproar 
ensued that it was impossible that some echoes of it should not reach 
the hearts of the people. It was more than an echo, it was a reflex 
blow. Man, withdrawing within himself in presence of these im- 
posing vicissitudes, began to take pity upon mankind, to reflect upon 
the bitter disillusionments of life. Of this sentiment, which to Cato 
the heathen was despair, Christianity fashioned melancholy. 
At the same time was born the spirit of scrutiny and curiosity. 
These great catastrophes were also great spectacles, impressive 
cataclysms. It was the North hurling itself upon the South; the 
Roman world changing shape; the last convulsive throes of a whole 
universe in the death agony. As soon as that world was dead, lo! 
clouds of rhetoricians, grammarians, sophists, swooped down like 
insects on its immense body. People saw them swarming and heard 
them buzzing in that seat of putrefaction. They vied with one 
another in scrutinizing, commenting, disputing. Each limb, each 
muscle, each fibre of the huge prostrate body was twisted and turned 
in every direction. Surely it must have been a keen satisfaction to 
those anatomists of the mind, to be able, at their dÃ©but, to n1ake 
experiments on a large scale; to have a dead society to dissect, for 
their first "subj ect." 
Thus we see melancholy and meditation, the demons of analysis 
and controversy, appear at the same moment, and, as it \vere, hand- 



TO CROMWELL 


345 


in-hand. At one extremity of this era of transition is Longinus, at 
the other St. Augustine. We must beware of casting a disdainful eye 
upon that epoch wherein all that has since borne fruit was contained 
in germs; upon that epoch whose least eminent writers, if we may 
be pardoned a vulgar but expressive phrase, made fertilizer for the 
harvest that was to tollow. The Middle Ages were grafted on the 
Lower Empire. 
Behold, then, a new religion, a new society; upon this twofold 
foundation there must inevitably spring up a new poetry. Previously 
-we beg pardon for setting forth a result which the reader has 
probably already foreseen from what has been said above-pre- 
viously, following therein the course pursued by the ancient polythe- 
ism and philosophy, the purely epic muse of the ancients had studied 
nature in only a single aspect, casting aside without pity almost 
everything in art which, in the world subjected to its imitation, had 
not relation to a certain type of beauty. A type which was magnifi- 
cent at first, but, as always happens with everything systematic, 
became in later times false, trivial and conventional. Christianity 
leads poetry to the truth. Like it, the modern muse will see things 
in a higher and broader light. It will realize that everything in 
creation is not humanly beautiful, that the ugly exists beside the 
beautiful, the unshapely beside the graceful, the grotesque on the 
reverse of the sublime, evil with good, darkness with light. It will 
ask itself if the narrow and relative sense of the artist should prevail 
over the infinite, absolute sense of the Creator; if it is for man to 
correct God; if a mutilated nature will be the more beautiful for the 
mutilation; if art has the right to duplicate, so to speak, man, life, 
creation; if things will progress better when their muscles and their 
vigour have been taken from them; if, in short, to be incomplete 
is the best way to be harmonious. Then it is that, with its eyes fixed 
upon events that are both laughable and redoubtable, and under the 
influence of that spirit of Christian melancholy and philosophical 
criticism which we described a moment ago, poetry will take a great 
step, a decisive step, a step which, like the upheaval of an earthquake, 
will change the whole face of the intellectual world. It will set about 
doing as nature does, mingling in its creations-but without con- 
founding them-darkness and light, the grotesque and the sublime; 



34 6 


VICTOR HUGO 


in other \vords, the body and the soul, the beast and the intellect; for 
the starting-point of religion is always the starting-point of poetry. 
All things are connected. 
Thus, then, we see a principle unknown to the ancients, a new 
type, introduced in poetry; and as an additional element in anything 
modifies the whole of the thing, a new form of the art is developed. 
This type is the grotesque; its new form is comedy. 
And we beg leave to dwell upon this point; for we have now indi- 
cated the significant feature, the fundamental difference which, in 
our opinion, separates modern from ancient art, the present form 
from the defunct form ; or, to use less definite but more popular 
terms, romantic literature from classz'calliterature. 
"At last!" exclaim the people \vho for some time past have seen 
what tve were coming at, "at last we have you-you are caught in 
the act. So then you put for\vard the ugly as a type for imitation, 
you make the grotesque an element of art. But the graces; but good 
taste! Don't you know that art should correct nature? that we must 
ennoble art? that we must select? Did the ancients ever exhibit the 
ugly or the grotesque? Did they ever mingle comedy and tragedy? 
The example of the ancients, gentlemen! And Aristotle, too; and 
Boileau; and La Harpe. Upon my word!" 
These arguments are sound, doubtless, and, above all, of extraordi- 
nary novelty. But it is not our place to reply to them. We are con- 
structing no system here-God protect us from systems! Weare 
stating a fact. We are a historian, not a critic. Whether the fact is 
agreeable or not matters little; it is a fact. Let us resume, therefore, 
and try to prove that it is of the fruitful union of the grotesque and 
the sublime types that modern genius is born-so complex, so diverse 
in its forms, so inexhaustible in its creations; and therein directly 
opposed to the uniform simplicity of the genius of the ancients; let 
us show that that is the point from which we must set out to estab- 
]ish the real and radical difference between the hvo forms of litera- 
ture. 
Not that it is strictly true that comedy and the grotesque were 
entirely unknown to the ancients. In fact, such a thing \vould be 
impossible. Nothing grows without a root; the germ of the second 
epoch ahvays exists in the first. In the Iliad Thersites and Vulcan 



TO CROMWELL 347 
furnish comedy, one to the mortals, the other to the gods. There 
is too much nature and originality in the Greek tragedy for there 
not to be an occasional touch of comedy in it. F or example, to cite 
only what we happen to recall, the scene between Menelaus and the 
portress of the palace. (Helen, Act I), and the scene of the Phrygian 
(Orestes, Act IV). The Tritons, the Satyrs, the Cyclops are gro- 
tesque; Polyphemus is a terrifying, Silenus a farcical grotesque. 
But one feels that this part of the art is still in its infancy. The 
epic, which at this period imposes its form on everything, the epic 
weighs heavily upon it and stifles it. The ancient grotesque is timid 
and forever trying to keep out of sight. It is plain that it is not on 
familiar ground, because it is not in its natural surroundings. It 
conceals itself as much as it can. The Satyrs, the Tritons, and the 
Sirens are hardly abnormal in form. The Fates and the Harpies are 
hideous in their attributes rather than in feature; the Furies are 
beautiful, and are called Eumenides, that is to say, gentle, beneficent. 
There is a veil of grandeur or of divinity over other grotesques. 
Polyphemus is a giant, Midas a king, Silenus a god. 
Thus comedy is almost imperceptible in the great epic ensemble of 
ancient times. What is the barrow of Thespis beside the Olympian 
chariots? What are Aristophanes and Plautus, beside the Homeric 
colossi, Ã†schylus, Sophocles, Euripides? Homer bears them along 
with him, as Hercules bore the pygmies, hidden in his lion's skin! 
In the idea of men of modern times, however, the grotesque plays 
an enormous part. It is found everywhere; on the one hand it creates 
the abnormal and the horrible, on the other the comic and the bur- 
lesque. It fastens upon religion a thousand original superstitions, 
upon poetry a thousand picturesque fancies. It is the grotesque 
which scatters lavishly, in air, water, earth, fire, those myriads of 
intermediary creatures which we find all alive in the popular tradi- 
tions of the Middle Ages; it is the grotesque which impels the 
ghastly antics of the witches' revels, which gives Satan his horns, his 
cloven foot and his bat's wings. It is the grotesque, still the grotesque, 
which now casts into the Christian hell the frightful faces which the 
severe genius of Dante and Milton will evoke, and again peoples it 
with those laughter-moving figures amid which Callot, the burlesque 
Michelangelo, will disport himself. If it passes from the world of 



34 8 


VICTOR HUGO 


imagination to the real world, it unfolds an inexhaustible supply of 
parodies of mankind. Creations of its fantasy are the Scaramouches, 
Crispins and Harlequins, grinning silhouettes of man, types alto- 
gether unknown to serious-minded antiquity, although they origi- 
nated in classic Italy. It is the grotesque, lastly, which, colouring 
the same drama with the fancies of the North and of the South in 
turn, exhibits Sganarelle capering about Don Juan and Mephis- 
topheles crawling about Faust. 
And how free and open it is in its bearing! how boldly it brings 
into relief all the strange forms which the preceding age had timidly 
wrapped in swaddling-clothes! Ancient poetry, compelled to pro- 
vide the lame Vulcan with companions, tried to disguise their 
deformity by distributing it, so to speak, upon gigantic proportions. 
Modern genius retains this myth of the supernatural smiths, but gives 
it an entirely different character and one which makes it even more 
striking; it changes the giants to dwarfs and makes gnomes of the 
Cyclops. With like originality, it substitutes for the somewhat com- 
monplace LernÃ¦an hydra all the local dragons of our national 
legends-the gargoyle of Rouen, the gra-ouilli of Metz, the chair 
sallÃ©e of Troyes, the drÃ©e of MontlhÃ©ry, the tarasque of Tarascon- 
monsters of forms so diverse, whose outlandish names are an addi- 
tional attribute. All these creations draw from their own nature that 
energetic and significant expression before which antiquity seems 
sometimes to have recoiled. Certain it is that the Greek Eumenides 
are much less horrible, and consequently less true, than the witches 
in Macbeth. Pluto is not the devil. 
In our opinion a most novel book might be written upon the em- 
ployment of the grotesque in the arts. One might point out the 
powerful effects the moderns have obtained from that fruitful type, 
upon which narrow-minded criticism continues to wage war even in 
our own day. It may be that we shall be led by our subject to call 
attention in passing to some features of this vast picture. We will 
simply say here that, as a means of contrast with the sublime, the 
grotesque is, in our view, the richest source that nature can offer art. 
Rubens so understood it, doubtless, when it pleased him to introduce 
the hideous features of a court dwarf amid his exhibitions of royal 
magnificence, coronations and splendid ceremonial. The universal 



TO CROMWELL 


349 


beauty which the ancients solemnly laid upon everything, is not 
without monotony; the same impression repeated again and again 
may prove fatiguing at last. Sublime upon sublime scarcely presents 
a contrast, and we need a little rest from everything, even the beauti- 
ful. On the other hand, the grotesque seems to be a halting-place, a 
mean term, a starting-point whence one rises toward the beautiful 
with a fresher and keener perception. The salamander gives relief 
to the water-sprite; the gnome heightens the charm of the sylph. 
And it would be true also to say that contact with the abnormal 
has imparted to the modern sublime a something purer, grander, 
more sublime, in short, than the beautiful of the ancients; and that is 
as it should be. When art is consistent with itself, it guides every- 
thing more surely to its goal. If the Homeric Elysium is a long, long 
way from the ethereal charm, the angelic pleasureableness of Milton's 
Paradise, it is because under Eden there is a hell far more terrible 
than the heathen Tartarus. Do you think that Francesca da Rimini 
and Beatiice would be so enchanting in a poet who should not con- 
fine us in the To\ver of Hunger and compel us to share Ugolino's 
revolting repast? Dante would have less charm, if he had less power. 
Have the fleshly naiads, the muscular Tritons, the wanton Zephyrs, 
the diaphanous transparency of our water-sprites and sylphs? Is 
it not because the modern imagination does not fear to picture the 
ghastly forms of vampires, ogres, ghouls, snake-charmers and jinns 
prowling about graveyards, that it can give to its fairies that incor- 
poreal shape, that purity of essence, of which the heathen nymphs 
fall so far short? The antique Venus is beautiful, admirable, no 
doubt; but what has imparted to Jean Goujon's faces that weird, 
tender, ethereal delicacy? What has given them that unfamiliar 
suggestion of life and grandeur, if not the proximity of the rough 
and powerful sculptures of the Middle Ages? 
If the thread of our argument has not been broken in the reader's 
mind by these necessary digressions-which in truth, might be devel.. 
oped much further-he has realized, doubtless, how powerfully the 
grotesque-that germ of comedy, fostered by the modern muse- 
grew in extent and importance as soon as it was transplanted to a 
soil more propitious than paganism and the Epic. In truth, in the 
new poetry, while the sublime represents the soul as it is, purified 



350 VICTOR HUGO 
by Christian morality, the grotesque plays the part of the human 
beast. The former type, delivered of all impure alloy, has as its attri- 
butes all the charms, all the graces, all the beauties; it must be able 
some day to create Juliet, Desdemona, Ophelia. The latter assumes 
all the absurdities, all the infirmities, all the blemishes. In this parti- 
tion of mankind and of creation, to it fall the passions, vices, crimes; 
it is sensuous, fawning, greedy, miserly, false, incoherent, hypocrit- 
ical; it is, in turn, Iago, Tartuffe, Basile, Polonius, Harpagon, Bar- 
tholo, Falstaff, Scapin, Figaro. The beautiful has but one type, the 
ugly has a thousand. The fact is that the beautiful, humanly speak- 
ing, is merely form considered in its simplest aspect, in its most per- 
fect symmetry, in its most entire harmony with our make-up. Thus 
the ensemble that it offers us is always complete, but restricted like 
ourselves. What we call the ugly, on the contrary, is a detail of a 
great whole which eludes us, and which is in harmony, not with man 
but with all creation. That is why it constantly presents itself to 
us in new but incomplete aspects. 
It is interesting to study the first appearance and the progress of 
the grotesque in modern times. At first, it is an invasion, an irrup- 
tion, an overflow, as of a torrent that has burst its banks. It rushes 
through the expiring Latin literature, imparts some coloring to 
Persius, Petronius and Juvenal, and leaves behind it the Golden Ass 
of Apuleius. Thence it diffuses itself through the imaginations of 
the new nations that are remodelling Europe. It abounds in the work 
of the fabulists, the chroniclers, the romancists. We see it make its 
way from the South to the North. It disports itself in the dreams 
of the Teutonic nations, and at the same time vivifies with its breath 
the admirable Spanish romanceros, a veritable Iliad of the age of 
chivalry. For example, it is the grotesque which describes thus, in 
the Roman de la Rose, an august ceremonial, the election of a king:- 
"A long-shanked knave they chose, I wis, 
Of all their men the boniest." 


More especially it imposes its characteristic qualities upon that 
wonderful architecture which, in the Middle Ages, takes the place 
of all the arts. It affixes its mark on the faÃ§ades of cathedrals, frames 
its hells and purgatories in the ogive arches of great doorways, por.. 



TO CROMWELL 


35 1 


trays them in brilliant hues 011 window-glass, exhibits its monsters, 
its bull-dogs, its imps about capitals, along friezes, on the edges of 
roofs. It flaunts itself in numberless shapes on the wooden faÃ§ades 
of houses, on the stone faÃ§ades of chÃ¢teaux, on the marble faÃ§ades of 
palaces. From the arts it makes its way into the national manners, 
and while it stirs applause from the people for the graciosos of com- 
edy, it gives to the kings court-jesters. Later, in the age of etiquette, 
it will show us Scarron on the very edge of Louis the Fourteenth's 
bed. Meanwhile, it decorates coats-of-arms, and draws upon knights' 
shields the symbolic hieroglyphs of feudalism. From the manners, it 
makes its way into the laws; numberless strange customs attest its 
passage through the institutions of the Middle Ages. Just as it repre- 
sented Thespis, smeared with wine-Iees,leaping in her tomb, it dances 
with the Basoche on the famous marble table which served at the 
same time as a stage for the popular farces and for the royal banquets. 
Finally, having made its way into the arts, the manners, and the laws, 
it enters even the Church. In every Catholic city we see it organizing 
some one of those curious ceremonies, those strange processions, 
wherein religion is attended by all varieties of superstition-the sub- 
lime attended by all the forms of the grotesque. To paint it in one 
stroke, so great is its vigour, its energy, its creative sap, at the dawn 
of letters, that it casts, at the outset, upon the threshold of modern 
poetry, three burlesque Homers: Ariosto in Italy, Cervantes in Spain, 
Rabelais in France. 
It would be mere surplusage to dwell further upon the influence 
of the grotesque in the third civilization. Everything tends to show 
its close creative alliance with the beautiful in the so-called "ro- 
mantic" period. Even among the simplest popular legends there 
are none which do not somewhere, with an admirable instinct, solve 
this mystery of modern art. Antiquity could not have produced 
Beauty and the Beast. 
It is true that at the period at which we have arrived the predomi- 
nance of the grotesque over the sublime in literature is clearly indi- 
cated. But it is a spasm of reaction, an eager thirst for novelty, which 
is but temporary; it is an initial wave which gradually recedes. The 
type of the beautiful will soon resume its rights and its rÃ´le, which is 
not to exclude the other principle, but to prevail over it. It is time 



352 VICTOR HUGO 
that the grotesque should be content \vith a corner of the picture in 
Murillo's royal frescoes, in the sacred pages of Veronese; content 
to be introduced in two marvellous Last Judgments, in which art 
will take a just pride, in the scene of fascination and horror with 
which Michelangelo will embellish the Vatican: in those awe-inspir- 
ing representations of the fall of man which Rubens will throw 
upon the arches of the Cathedral of Antwerp. The time has come 
\vhen the balance between the two principles is to be established. A 
man, a poet-king, poeta soverano, as Dante calls Homer, is about to 
adjust everything. The two rival genii combine their flames, and 
thence issues Shakespeare. 
We have now reached the poetic culmination of modern times. 
Shakespeare is the drama; and the drama, \vhich with the same 
breath moulds the grotesque and the sublime, the terrible and the 
absurd, tragedy and comedy-the drama is the distinguishing char- 
acteristic of the third epoch of poetry, of the literature of the present 
Â· day. 
Thus, to sum up hurriedly the facts that we have noted thus far, 
poetry has three periods, each of which corresponds to an epoch of 
civilization: the ode, the epic, and the drama. Primitive times are 
lyrical, ancient times epical, modern times dramatic. The ode sings 
of eternity, the epic imparts solemnity to history, the drama depicts 
life. The characteristic of the first poetry is ingenuousness, of the 
second, simplicity, of the third, truth. The rhapsodists mark the 
transition from the lyric to the epic poets, as do the romancists that 
from the lyric to the dramatic poets. Historians appear in the second 
period, chroniclers and critics in the third. The characters of the ode 
are colossi-Adam, Cain, Noah; those of the epic are giants- 
.A.chines, Atreus, Orestes; those of the drama are men-Hamlet, 
Macbeth, Othello. The ode lives upon the ideal, the epic upon the 
grandiose, the drama upon the real. Lastly, this threefold poetry 
flows from three great sources-The Bible, Homer, Shakespeare. 
Such then-and we confine ourselves herein to noting a single 
result-such are the diverse aspects of thought in the different epochs 
of mankind and of civilization. Such are its three faces, in youth, 
in manhood, in old age. Whether one examines one literature by 
itself or all literatures en masse, one \vill ahvays reach the same 



TO CROMWELL 353 
result: the lyric poets before the epic poets, the epic poets before the 
dramatic poets. In France, Malherbe before Chapelain, Chapelain 
before Corneille; in ancient Greece, Orpheus before Homer, Homer 
before Ã†schylus; in the first of all books, Genesis before Kings, 
Kings before Job; or to come back to that monumental scale of all 
ages of poetry, which we ran over a moment since, The Bible before 
the Iliad, the Iliad before Shakespeare. 
In a word, civilization begins by singing of its dreams, then nar- 
rates its doings, and lastly, sets about describing what it thinks. It 
is, let us say in passing, because of this last, that the drama, combin- 
ing the most opposed qualities, may be at the same time full of pro- 
fundity and full of relief, philosophical and picturesque. 
It would be logical to add here that everything in nature and in 
life passes through these three phases, the lyric, the epic, and the 
dramatic, because everything is born, acts, and dies. If it were not 
absurd to confound the fantastic conceits of the imagination with the 
stern deductions of the reasoning faculty, a poet might say that the 
rising of the sun, for example, is a hymn, noon-day a brilliant epic, 
and sunset a gloomy drama wherein day and night, life and death, 
contend for mastery. But that would be poetry-folly, perhaps- 
and what does it prove? 
Let us hold to the facts marshalled above; let us supplement them, 
too, by an important observation, namely that we have in no wise 
pretended to assign exclusive limits to the three epochs of poetry, but 
simply to set forth their predominant characteristics. The Bible, 
that divine lyric monument, contains in germ, as we suggested a 
moment ago, an epic and a drama-Kings and Job. In the Homeric 
poems one is conscious of a clinging reminiscence of lyric poetry and 
of a beginning of dramatic poetry. Ode and drama meet in the epic. 
There is a touch of all in each; but in each there exists a generative 
element to which all the other elements give place, and which im- 
poses its own character upon the whole. 
The drama is complete poetry. The ode and the epic contain it 
only in germ; it contains both of them in a state of high development, 
and epitomizes both. Surely, he who said: "The French have not 
the epic brain," said a true and clever thing; if he had said, "The 
moderns," the clever remark \vould have been profound. It is beyond 



354 


VICTOR HUGO 


question, however, that there is epic genius in that marvellous 
Athalic, so exalted and so simple in its sublimity that the royal cen- 
tury was unable to comprehend it. It is certain, too, that the series 
of Shakespeare's chronicle dramas presents a grand epic aspect. But 
it is lyric poetry above all that befits the drama; it never embarrasses 
it, adapts itself to all its caprices, disports itself in all forms, some- 
times sublime as in Ariel, sometimes grotesque as in Caliban. Our 
era being above all else dramatic, is for that very reason eminently 
lyric. There is more than one connection between the beginning and 
the end; the sunset has some features of the sunrise; the old man 
becomes a child once more. But this second childhood is not like 
the first; it is as melancholy as the other is joyous. It is the same with 
lyric poetry. Dazzling, dreamy, at the dawn of civilization, it re- 
appears, solemn and pensive, at its decline. The Bible opens joyously 
with Genesis and comes to a close with the threatening Apocalypse. 
The modern ode is still inspired, but is no longer ignorant. It 
meditates more than it scrutinizes; its musing is melancholy. We 
see, by its painful labour, that the muse has taken the drama for 
her mate. 
To make clear by a metaphor the ideas that we have ventured to 
put forth, we will compare early lyric poetry to a placid lake which 
reflects the clouds and stars; the epic is the stream which flows from 
the lake, and rushes on, reflecting its banks, forests, fields and cities, 
until it throws itself into the ocean of the drama. Like the lake, the 
drama reflects the sky; like the stream, it reflects its banks; but it 
alone has tempests and measureless depths. 
The drama, then, is the goal to which everything in modern poetry 
leads. Paradise Lost is a drama before it is an epic. As we know, 
it first presented itself to the poet's imagination in the first of these 
forms, and as a drama it always remains in the reader's memory, 
so prominent is the old dramatic framework still beneath Milton's 
epic structure! When Dante had finished his terrible Inferno, when 
he had closed its doors and nought remained save to give his work 
a name, the unerring instinct of his genius showed him that that 
multiform poem was an emanation of the drama, not of the epic; 
and on the front of that gigantic monument, he wrote with his pen 
of bronze: Divina Com media. 



TO CROMWELL 355 
Thus we see that the only two poets of modern times who are of 
Shakespeare's stature follow him in unity of design. They coincide 
with him in imparting a dramatic tinge to all our poetry; like him, 
they blend the grotesque with the sublime; and, far from standing by 
themselves in the great literary ensemble that rests upon Shakespeare, 
Dante and Milton are, in some sort, the two supporting abutments 
of the edifice of which he is the central pillar, the buttresses of the 
arch of which he is the keystone. 
Permit us, at this point, to recur to certain ideas already suggested, 
which, however, it is necessary to emphasize. We have arrived, and 
now we must set out again. 
On the day when Christianity said to man: "Thou art twofold, 
thou art made up of two beings, one perishable, the other immortal, 
one carnal, the other ethereal, one enslaved by appetites, cravings and 
passions, the other borne aloft on the wings of enthusiasm and 
reverie-in a word, the one always stooping toward the earth, its 
mother, the other always darting up toward heaven, its fatherland"- 
on that day the drama was created. Is it, in truth, anything other 
than that contrast of every day, that struggle of every moment, 
between two opposing principles which are ever face to face in 
life, and which dispute possession of man from the cradle to the 
tomb? 
The poetry born of Christianity, the poetry of our time, is, there- 
fore, the drama; the real results from the wholly natural combination 
of two types, the sublime and the grotesque, which meet in the 
drama, as they meet in life and in creation. For true poetry, complete 
poetry, consists in the harmony of contraries. Hence, it is time to 
say aloud-and it is here above all that exceptions prove the rule- 
that everything that exists in nature exists in art. 
On taking one's stand at this point of view, to pass judgment on 
our petty conventional rules, to disentangle all those scholastic laby- 
rinths, to solve all those trivial problems which the critics of the 
last two centuries have laboriously built up about the art, one is 
struck by the promptitude with which the question of the modern 
stage is made clear and distinct. The drama has but to take a step 
to break all the spider's webs with which the militia of Lilliput have 
attempted to fetter its sleep. 



356 VICTOR HUGO 
And so, let addle-pated pedants (one does not exclude the other) 
claim that the deformed, the ugly, the grotesque should never be 
imitated in art; one replies that the grotesque is comedy, and that 
comedy apparently makes a part of art. Tartuffe is not handsome, 
Pourceaugnac is not noble, but Pourceaugnac and T artuffe are 
admirable flashes of art. 
If, driven back from this entrenchment to their second line of 
custom-houses, they renew their prohibition of the grotesque coupled 
with the sublime, of comedy melted into tragedy, we prove to them 
that, in the poetry of Christian nations, the first of these two types 
represents the human beast, the second the soul. These two stalks of 
art, if we prevent their branches from mingling, if we persistently 
separate them, will produce by way of fruit, on the one hand abstract 
vices and absurdities, on the other, abstract crime, heroism and vir- 
tue. The two types, thus isolated and left to themselves, will go each 
its own way, leaving the real between them, at the left hand of one, 
at the right hand of the other. Whence it follows that after all these 
abstractions there will remain something to represent-man; after 
these tragedies and comedies, something to create-the drama. 
In the drama, as it may be conceived at least, if not executed, all 
things are connected and follow one another as in real life. The body 
plays its part no less than the mind; and men and events, set in 
motion by this twofold agent, pass across the stage, burlesque and 
terrible in turn, and sometimes both at once. Thus the judge will 
say: "Off with his head and let us go to dinner!" Thus the Roman 
Senate will deliberate over Domitian's turbot. Thus Socrates, drink- 
ing the hemlock and discoursing on the immortal soul and the only 
God, will interrupt himself to suggest that a cook be sacrificed to 
Ã†sculapius. Thus Elizabeth will swear and talk Latin. Thus Riche- 
lieu will submit to Joseph the Capuchin, and Louis XI to his barber, 
MaÃ®tre Olivier Ie Diable. Thus Cromwell will say: "I have Parlia- 
ment in my bag and the King in my pocket"; or, with the hand that 
signed the death sentence of Charles the First, smear with ink the 
face of a regicide who smilingly returns the compliment. Thus 
CÃ¦sar, in his triumphal car, will be afraid of overturning. For men 
of genius, however great they be, have always within them a touch 
of the beast which mocks at their intelligence. Therein they are akin 



TO CROM\VELL 


357 


to mankind in general, for therein they are dramatic. "It is but a 
step from the sublime to the ridiculous," said Napoleon, when he was 
convinced that he was mere man; and that outburst of a soul on fire 
illumines art and history at once; that cry of anguish is the rÃ©sumÃ© 
of the drama and of life. 
It is a striking fact that all these contrasts are met with in the poets 
themselves, taken as men. By dint of meditating upon existence, of 
laying stress upon its bitter irony, of pouring floods of sarcasm and 
raill
Vol 39: The Classics - Part 2
