Part 17

{52} Or Comic?

{53} In pistrinum. In the pounding-mill (usually worked by horses or asses).

{54} Or Tragic?

{55} The old song of Percy and Douglas, Chevy Chase in its first form.

{56} Or the Heroic?

{57} Epistles I. ii. 4. Better than Chrysippus and Crantor. They were both philosophers, Chrysippus a subtle stoic, Crantor the first commentator upon Plato.

{58} Summary of the argument thus far.

{59} Objections stated and met.

{60} Cornelius Agrippa’s book, “De Incertitudine et Vanitate Scientiarum et Artium,” was first published in 1532; Erasmus’s “Moriæ Encomium” was written in a week, in 1510, and went in a few months through seven editions.

{61} The objection to rhyme and metre.

{62} The first of these sentences is from Horace (Epistle I. xviii. 69): “Fly from the inquisitive man, for he is a babbler.” The second, “While each pleases himself we are a credulous crowd,” seems to be varied from Ovid (Fasti, iv. 311):—

“Conscia mens recti famæ mendacia risit: Sed nos in vitium credula turba sumus.”

A mind conscious of right laughs at the falsehoods of fame but towards vice we are a credulous crowd.

{63} The chief objections.

{64} That time might be better spent.

{65} Beg the question.

{66} That poetry is the mother of lies.

{67} That poetry is the nurse of abuse, infecting us with wanton and pestilent desires.

{68} Rampire, rampart, the Old French form of “rempart,” was “rempar,” from “remparer,” to fortify.

{69} “I give him free leave to be foolish.” A variation from the line (Sat. I. i. 63), “Quid facias illi? jubeas miserum esse libenter.”

{70} That Plato banished poets from his ideal Republic.

{71} Which authority certain barbarous and insipid writers would wrest into meaning that poets were to be thrust out of a state.

{72} Ion is a rhapsodist, in dialogue with Socrates, who cannot understand why it is that his thoughts flow abundantly when he talks of Homer. “I can explain,” says Socrates; “your talent in expounding Homer is not an art acquired by system and method, otherwise it would have been applicable to other poets besides. It is a special gift, imparted to you by Divine power and inspiration. The like is true of the poet you expound. His genius does not spring from art, system, or method: it is a special gift emanating from the inspiration of the Muses. A poet is light, airy, holy person, who cannot compose verses at all so long as his reason remains within him. The Muses take away his reason, substituting in place of it their own divine inspiration and special impulse . . . Like prophets and deliverers of oracles, these poets have their reason taken away, and become the servants of the gods. It is not they who, bereft of their reason, speak in such sublime strains, it is the god who speaks to us, and speaks through them.” George Grote, from whose volumes on Plato I quote this translation of the passage, placed “Ion” among the genuine dialogues of Plato.

{73} Guards, trimmings or facings.

{74} The Second Summary.

{75} Causes of Defect in English Poetry.

{76} From the invocation at the opening of Virgil’s Æneid (line 12), “Muse, bring to my mind the causes of these things: what divinity was injured . . . that one famous for piety should suffer thus.”

{77} The Chancellor, Michel de l’Hôpital, born in 1505, who joined to his great political services (which included the keeping of the Inquisition out of France, and long labour to repress civil war) great skill in verse. He died in 1573.