But to conclude, since even in the most Fanciful Poetry, there is some remnant of thought, we can for the present write, and it has a familiar look : Poetry is the expressing of thought by means of figure, by the substitution of the concrete for the abstract, the conceiving, mental picturing, or imagining of the unfamiliar in terms of the familiar.

It may be asked, How is this mental picturing of one in terms of the other effected? In reply, we can only say that in all such instances though the conceptions brought together are essentially different in kind, or are at remove from each other, yet is there some similarity between them; and as an outcome of our faith in causality, we instinctively merge into each other, or mentally picture as one, conceptions that are similar; not that either is entirely lost in the other, but instead there results a new conception, in which both have part and lot. So when we read in "Winter's Tale" of

"That come before the swallows dare, and take The winds of March with beauty."

we mentally picture the winds of March as a burly Ingomar, and daffodils as a fair Parthenia, by whom the burly fellow is enamored and subdued; or conceptions different in kind, or at remove from each other, are brought together because of a subtile similarity between them. Remembering, then, that the Poet is distinguished from other artists by the material in which he works, namely, language, we might write, and this is the final form of our definition: Poetry is the expressing of thought by means of figure, by the substitution of the concrete for the abstract, or by the bringing together or combining of conceptions at remove because of a similarity between them, thus creating a new conception. This the creation of the Poet? This the transfiguration of Mr. Austin?

It will be remembered, that Messrs. Arnold and Austin developed a sort of corollary to their fundamental proposition, and for greater convenience in determining the comparative merits of a poet's genius or work, let us do likewise, expediting the discussion, as before, by comparing examples of unequal

merit, in which the same scene or conception is treated. Take the lines already quoted:

"But look the morn in russet mantle clad Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill."

Hamlet.

"Full many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain-top with sovereign eye." 33d Sonnet.

In both of these morn is transfigured, or represented imaginatively, and yet with what differing skill. In the first, the idea of progression, which is associated with our conceptions of morn, is readily transposed into walking, an action associated with our conceptions of man; adding to this the brilliant coloring of the dawn, the Poet ushers in the morn as a courtier gay, walking o'er the but now night-kissed hills. But though in this the remove between morn and courtier is considerable, yet how much greater is it in the second example. What a charge is brought against the morn! Its rosy tipping of the hills is "flattering the mountain-top." Even if the poet had stopped at this, the remove and

poetic merit would have been infinitely greater than in the previous example; but notice, that as each under eye is flattered if the king but deigns to look at them, so morn

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Flatters the mountain-top with sovereign eye."

May we not then conclude, that poetic merit or genius must, in part, be measured by the remove between the conceptions brought together in his creations?

But what of the other variable in our problem, namely, similarity? For answer let us turn to Shakespeare's 2d Sonnet:

"When forty winters shall besiege thy brow
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now
Will be a tattered weed of small worth held."

In this, as the succeeding points of similarity between the conceptions,—a face assailed by time, and the siege of a city,—are suggested; time and the assailants-wrinkles; and the trenches of the besieging party; the brilliant color of youth; and the gay livery of the defending soldiers; the fusion and trans

figuration increases, till it seems almost complete, or the Poetry varies, not alone with the remove, but with the similarity as well. Hence we may write The greatest Poetry is the result of maximum remove with maximum similarity, or it is the parabola of thought in whose equation we may substitute for x and y, remove and similarity.

But whither does this heresy of greater exactness lead us? It is long since it was written, that unity in variety is the essential condition of all beauty; and modern philosophy, putting this in other terms, has written: "The primitive source of æsthetic pleasure is that character in the combination which makes it such as to exercise the faculties affected in the most complete ways, with the fewest drawbacks from excessive exercise;" or, in the terms of the older dictum, the greater the variety the greater the exercise; this carried too far would fatigue the faculties, aud as a preventative of this we have unity, which enables the mind to grasp the conception of form or aught else with less effort; or we have as the general condition—maximum