And, as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name.

W. SHAKESPEARE, Midsummer Night's Dream, 1600.

...

The forms

of things unknown.

not tied to

Poesy... doth truly refer to the imagination, which, being not tied to the laws of matter, may at pleasure join Imagination that which Nature hath severed, and sever that which the laws of Nature hath joined. . . . It is ... FEIGNED HISTORY, which matter. may be styled as well in prose as in verse. The use of this feigned history hath been to give some shadow of satisfaction to the mind of man in those points wherein the nature of things doth deny it, the world being in proportion inferior to the soul; by reason whereof there is agreeable to the spirit of man a more ample greatness, a more exact goodness, and a more absolute variety than can be found in the nature of things.

F. BACON, Advancement of Learning, 1605.

First, we require in our poet or maker . . . a goodness of Natural Wit. natural wit. For whereas all other arts consist of doctrine and precepts, the poet must be able by nature and instinct to pour out the treasure of his mind, and as Seneca saith, aliquando secundum Anacreontem insanire jucundum esse; by which he understands the poetical rapture. And according to that of Plato, frustra poeticas fores sui compos pulsavit; and of Aristotle, nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fuit. Nec potest grande aliquid, et supra caeteros loqui, nisi mota mens. Then it riseth higher, as by a divine Divine instinct, when it contemns common and known conceptions. It utters somewhat above a mortal mouth. Then it gets aloft and flies away with his rider, whither before it was doubtful to ascend. This the poets understood by their Helicon, Pegasus, or Parnassus; and this made Ovid to boast

Est deus in nobis, agitante calescimus illo:
Sedibus aethereis spiritus ille venit,

and Lipsius to affirm, "scio poetam neminem praestantem

instinct.

Exercise.

Imitation.

Study.

And

fuisse, sine parte quadam uberiore divinae aurae."
hence it is that the coming up of good poets (for I
mind not mediocres or imos) is so thin and rare among
us. . . . To this perfection of nature in our poet we
If his wit
require exercise of those parts, and frequent.
will not arrive suddenly at the dignity of the ancients,
let him not yet fall out with it, quarrel, or be over hastily
angry, offer to turn it away from study in a humour; but
come to it again upon better cogitation, try another time
with labour. If then it succeed not, cast not away the
quills yet, nor scratch the wainscot, beat not the poor desk,
but bring all to the forge and file again; torn it anew.
The common rhymers pour forth verses, such as they are,
ex tempore; but there never come[s] from them one sense
worth the life of a day. A rhymer and a poet are two
things. . . . The third requisite in our poet or maker is
imitation, to be able to convert the substance or riches of
another poet to his own use. To make choice of one
excellent man above the rest, and so to follow him till he
grow very He, or so like him as the copy may be mistaken
for the principal. Not as a creature that swallows what
it takes in, crude, raw, or undigested, but that feeds with
an appetite, and hath a stomach to concoct, divide, and
turn all into nourishment. Not to imitate servilely, as
Horace saith, and catch at vices for virtue, but to draw
forth out of the best and choicest flowers, with the bee,
and turn all into honey, work it into one relish and savour;
make our imitation sweet; observe how the best writers
have imitated, and follow them: how Virgil and Statius
have imitated Homer; how Horace, Archilochus, how Alcaeus
and the other lyrics; and so of the rest. But that which
we especially require in him is an exactness of study and
multiplicity of reading, which maketh a full man, not alone
enabling him to know the history or argument of a poem
and to report it, but so to master the matter and style, as
to show he knows how to handle, place, or dispose of either
with elegancy when need shall be: and not think he can
leap forth suddenly a poet by dreaming he hath been in

E

Parnassus, or having washed his lips, as they say, in Helicon.
There goes more to his making than so; for to nature,
exercise, imitation, and study, art must be added to make Art.
all these perfect. Ars coron[at opus]. And though these
challenge to themselves much in the making up of our
maker, it is art only can lead him to perfection, and
leave him there in possession, as planted by her hand.
It is the assertion of Tully, if to an excellent nature
there happen an accession or confirmation of learning
and discipline, there will then remain somewhat noble
and singular. For, as Simylus saith in Stobæus, Oure
φύσις ἱκανὴ γίνεται τέχνης ἄτερ, οὔτε πᾶν τέχνη μὴ φύσιν
KEKTημévη, without art nature can never be perfect, and
without nature art can claim no being. But our poet must
beware that his study be not only to learn of himself; for
he that shall affect to do that confesseth his ever having
a fool to his master. He must read many, but ever the
best and choicest; those that can teach him anything he
must ever account his masters, and reverence: among whom
Horace and he that taught him, Aristotle, deserved to be
the first in estimation. . . . But all this in vain without a
natural wit and a poetical nature in chief. For no man, so
soon as he knows this or reads it, shall be able to write the
better; but as he is adapted to it by nature, he shall grow
the perfecter writer. He must have civil prudence and
eloquence, and that whole, not taken up by snatches or
pieces, in sentences or remnants, when he will handle
business or carry counsels, as if he came then out of the
declaimer's gallery, or shadow, furnished but out of the
body of the State, which commonly is the school of men.
B. JONSON, Discoveries, 1620-1635.

and long

labours.

Experience. . . hath taught me that the engenderings Painfulness of unripe age become abortive and deformed, . . . and that 'tis a high presumption to entertain a nation (who are a poet's standing guest, and require monarchical respect) with hasty provisions; as if a poet might imitate the familiar dispatch of falconers, mount his Pegasus, unhood

his Muse, and with a few flights boast he hath provided a feast for a prince.

[T]hough painfulness in poets

seems always to discover a want of natural force, and is traduced, as if poesy concerned the world no more than dancing, whose only grace is the quickness and facility of motion, and whose perfection is not of such public consequence that any man can merit much by attaining it with long labour; yet let them consider, and they will find . . . the natural force of a poet more apparent by but confessing that great forces ask great labour in managing, than by an arrogant braving the world when he enters the field with his undisciplined first thoughts: for a wise poet, like a wise general, will not show his strengths till they are in exact government and order, which are not the postures of chance, but proceed from vigilance and labour.

Yet to such painful poets some upbraid the want of extemporary fury, or rather inspiration, a dangerous word which many have of late successfully used; and inspiration is a spiritual fit, derived from the ancient ethnic poets, who then, as they were priests, were statesmen too, and probably loved dominion; and as their well dissembling of inspiration begot them reverence then equal to that which was paid to laws, so these who now profess the same fury may perhaps by such authentic example pretend authority over the people, it being not unreasonable to imagine they rather imitate the Greek poets than the Hebrew prophets, since the latter were inspired for the use of others, and these, like the former, prophesy for themselves.

SIR W. DAVENANT, Preface to Gondibert, 1650.

Having described the outward frame, the large rooms within, the lesser conveyances, and now the furniture, it were orderly to let you examine the matter of which that furniture is made. But though every owner who hath the vanity to show his ornaments or hangings must endure the curiosity and censure of him that beholds them, yet I shall not give you the trouble of inquiring what is, but tell you

of what I designed, their substance, which is, wit: and wit is the laborious and the lucky resultances of thought, Laborious having towards its excellence, as we say of the strokes of painting, as well a happiness as care.

and lucky resultances of thought.

Wit is not only the luck and labour, but also the dex- Dexterity of terity of thought, rounding the world, like the sun, with thought. unimaginable motion, and bringing swiftly home to the memory universal surveys. It is the soul's powder, which when suppressed, as forbidden from flying upward, blows up the restraint, and loseth all force in a farther ascension towards Heaven (the region of God), and yet by nature is much less able to make any inquisition downward towards Hell, the cell of the Devil; but breaks through all about it as far as the utmost it can reach, removes, uncovers, makes way for light where darkness was enclosed, till great bodies are more examinable by being scattered into parcels, and till all that find its strength (but most of mankind are strangers to wit, as Indians are to powder) worship it for the effects as derived from the Deity. It is in divines, humility, exemplariness, and moderation; in statesmen, gravity, vigilance, benign complacency, secrecy, patience, and dispatch; in leaders of armies, valour, painfulness, temperance, bounty, dexterity in punishing and rewarding, and a sacred certitude of promise. It is in poets a full comprehension of all recited in all these, and an ability to bring those comprehensions into action, when they shall so far forget the true measure of what is of greatest consequence to humanity (which are things righteous, pleasant, and useful) as to think the delights of greatness equal to that of poesy, or the chiefs of any profession more necessary to the world than excellent poets.

That which is not, yet is accompted, wit, I will but slightly remember, which seems very incident to imperfect youth and sickly age. Young men, as if they were not quite delivered from childhood, whose first exercise is language, imagine it consists in the music of words, and believe they are made wise by refining their speech above the vulgar dialect. . . . From the esteem of speaking they