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    parroting of the architectural tongue of the Greeks , or of our Teutonic ancestors , without any conception of a meaning . To confine ourselves , for the present , to religious edifices : these partake of poetry , in proportion as they express , or harmonize with , the feelings of devotion . But those feelings are different according to the conception entertained of the beings , by whose

    supposed nature they are called forth . To the Greek , these beings were incarnations of the greatest conceivable physical beauty , combined with supernatural power : and the Greek temples express this , their predominant character being graceful strength ; in other words , solidity , which is power , and lightness which is also power , accomplishing with small means what seemed to

    require great ; to combine all in one word , majesty . To the Catholic , again , the Deity was something far less clear arid definite ; a being of still more resistless power than the heaihen divinities ; greatly to be loved ; still more greatly to be feared ; and wrapped up in vagueness , mystery , and incomprehensibility , A certain solemnity , a feeling of doubting and trembling hope , like that of one lost in a boundless forest who thinks he knows

    his way but is not sure , mixes itself in all the genuine expressions of Catholic devotion . This is eminently the expression of the pure Gothic cathedral ; conspicuous equally in the mingled majesty and gloom of its vaulted roofs and stately aisles , and in the * dim religious light' which steals through its painted windows . There is no generic distinction between the imagery which is the expression of feeling and the imagery which is felt to

    harmonize with feeling . They are identical . The imagery in which feeling utters itself forth from within , is also that in which it delights when presented to it from without . All art , therefore , in proportion as it produces its effects by an appeal to the emotions partakes of poetry , unless it partakes of oratory , or of narrative . And the distinction which these three words indicate , runs through the whole field of the fine arts .

    The above hints have no pretension to the character of a theory . They are merely thrown out for the consideration of thinkers , in the hope that if they do not contain the truth , they may do somevyhat to suggest it . Nor would they , crude as they are , have been

    deemed worthy of publication , in any country but one in which the philosophy of art is so completely neglected , that whatever may serve to put any inquiring mind upon this kind of investigation , cannot well , however imperfect in itself , fail altogether to be of use . Antiquus .

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    70 What is Poetry ?

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1833, page 70, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2606/page/70/