images, thoughts, and feelings; and assists the sensibility in perceiving their connection with each other. 4thly, Imagination and Fancy,—­to modify, to create, and to associate. 5thly, Invention,—­by which characters are composed out of materials supplied by observation; whether of the Poet’s own heart and mind, or of external life and nature; and such incidents and situations produced as are most impressive to the imagination, and most fitted to do justice to the characters, sentiments, and passions, which the Poet undertakes to illustrate.  And, lastly, Judgment,—­to decide how and where, and in what degree, each of these faculties ought to be exerted; so that the less shall not be sacrificed to the greater; nor the greater, slighting the less, arrogate, to its own injury, more than its due.  By judgment, also, is determined what are the laws and appropriate graces of every species of composition.[17]

[17] As sensibility to harmony of numbers, and the power of producing it, are invariably attendants upon the faculties above specified, nothing has been said upon those requisites.

The materials of Poetry, by these powers collected and produced, are cast, by means of various moulds, into divers forms.  The moulds may be enumerated, and the forms specified, in the following order. 1st, The Narrative,—­including the Epopoeia, the Historic Poem, the Tale, the Romance, the Mock-Heroic, and, if the spirit of Homer will tolerate such neighbourhood, that dear production of our days, the metrical Novel.  Of this class, the distinguishing mark is, that the Narrator, however liberally his speaking agents be introduced, is himself the source from which every thing primarily flows.  Epic Poets, in order that their mode of composition may accord with the elevation of their subject, represent themselves as singing from the inspiration of the Muse, ’Arma virumque cano;’ but this is a fiction, in modern times, of slight value; the ‘Iliad’ or the ‘Paradise Lost’ would gain little in our estimation by being chanted.  The other poets who belong to this class are commonly content to tell their tale;—­so that of the whole it may be affirmed that they neither require nor reject the accompaniment of music.

2ndly, The Dramatic,—­consisting of Tragedy, Historic Drama, Comedy, and Masque, in which the poet does not appear at all in his own person, and where the whole action is carried on by speech and dialogue of the agents; music being admitted only incidentally and rarely.  The Opera may be placed here, inasmuch as it proceeds by dialogue; though depending, to the degree that it does, upon music, it has a strong claim to be ranked with the lyrical.  The characteristic and impassioned Epistle, of which Ovid and Pope have given examples, considered as a species of monodrama, may, without impropriety, be placed in this class.

3dly, The Lyrical,—­containing the Hymn, the Ode, the Elegy, the Song, and the Ballad; in all which, for the production of their full effect, an accompaniment of music is indispensable.