them what religious, what glorious and magnificent use might be made of Poetry both in divine and human things. From hence, and not till now, will be the right season of forming them to be able Writers and Composers in every excellent matter, when they shall be thus fraught with an universal insight into things. Or whether they be to speak in Parliament or Council, honour and attention would be waiting on their lips. Then would there also appear in pulpits other visages, other gestures, and stuff otherwise wrought than what we now sit under ofttimes to as great a trial of our patience as any other that they preach unto us. These are the studies wherein our noble and our gentle youths ought to bestow their time in a disciplinary way from twelve to one-and-twenty; unless they rely more upon their ancestors dead than upon themselves living."

Such, and so highly praised, is the edifice of poetical criticism which Aristotle

reared. It is simple in its lines, and has
suffered from the ravages, as well as from
the accretions, of ages; but the hand of the
Master is unmistakeable. If I may be
bold to pursue the metaphor, I would
liken this work, not to the lofty and intri-
cate buildings of lands richly favoured by
Nature, but to such a homely structure as
you may see in latitudes more northerly
than these, among the great Scandinavian
forest tracts, where Aristotle's ancestors
and our own, the learned tell us, once
lived and multiplied as a single race. The
house owes nothing to the quarry, nothing
to the mason, and but little to the plane
or chisel of the carpenter.
But every one
of the timbers has been proved by the
wise old builder, and found fit for his use:
when the parent tree grew in the forest,
it had been fed by an iron soil, and trained
by storms, and strengthened by sunshine.
The open beams of the roof are beautiful,
as well as strong; for they are round and

shapely in all their length, and, being richly coloured by air and by vital juices from within, can return the deep glow of the firelight. The tree was matured through the lifetime of generations of men, and the building may hold together as long, perhaps, as Time himself. Enter, if you have opportunity: the doorway is narrow, but noble guests assemble, and the entertainment satisfies; the welcome prepared for all is unfailing; and here too there are gods.

APPENDIX A

1 Title of the "Poetics."—Aristotle himself refers to the work as τὰ περὶ ποιητικῆς, sc. τέχνης. See Politics, 8, 7 (1341 b. 39); Rhetoric, I, II (13722),

etc.

This title precisely corresponds to that of the Rhetoric (Poet. c. 19). As there was no English word "Poetic," and the familiar Latin title "Poetica" was ambiguous, English writers early coined the word "Poetics," following the analogy of "Ethics," "Politics," etc. A word used by Milton (see above, p. 70) and by Bentley is plainly classical.

2 Order of Aristotle's Works.-The expression in the text is purposely vague, because we have little knowledge as to the order of composition of the various works of Aristotle; nor is it very material, since the oral lectures on the various subjects with which he dealt need not have followed any such order. It is probable that after writing the logical treatises and the first two books of the Rhetoric, he passed to the Ethics and Politics, that the Poetics and the