A collection of the works of that holy man and profound divine, Thomas Iackson ... containing his comments upon the Apostles Creed, &c. : with the life of the author and an index annexed.

CAP. XIV.

Of the Original and right use of Poetry: with the manner of its Corruption by later Poets.

1 THe positive truth, which (in the removal of impediments and offences) hath been made more then probable in the former discourse, may yet be made more evident from more particular observations concerning the manner how Monstrous Fables have descended from true Wonders: which will best appear by setting down the Original and right Use of Poetry.

2 A Poet being (as his name imports) a Maker, according to the Latin pro∣verb, is not made by Art, but framed to this divine Faculty by Nature. Not that any amongst the Romans became Poets on a sodain: but that many very fruitful wits in all other kindes of learning, could not be forced by any indu∣stry, art, or culture to such a temper, as was befitting this plant of Eden, which groweth not in any modern brest without more tender care and greater che∣rishing, then any other slip or branch of the tree of knowledge; and yet when all is done seldom comes to any proof, unlesse it borrow grounds from the An∣cient: as tender plants can hardly be removed from a better soil to a worse, without some of the earth wherein they naturally grow. Were Arts to begin anew, Poetry, which was the first and most common among the Ancient, in all probability, would spring the last, & grow the slowest amongst us. Their wits of old were not naturally or generally better then ours: why then was the way to Parnassus, which unto us using all help of Art and Imitation, is laborious and hard to ascend, so plain and easie to them, without any guide or help; all other Artificial learning being then either unknown, or very scant? Such know∣ledge or observations as they had or cared for, they knew not otherwise how to convey unto posteritie, then by Poetical numbers and resemblan∣ces. He is a Poet by nature (saith that excellent Poet and divine Philosopher) That is apt to be ravished with the true and native beauty of such Objects as are re∣presented to his senses, and can express his conceit by such pleasant resemblances, as often as he shall have occasion to utter his minde in writing or set speech. This inclination or disposition is as the ground or soil whereon Poetrie doth natu∣rally grow, whether in Ancient or Modern breasts: but the Ancient had this

advantage. The Fashion of the world in their times was more apt to ravish their thoughts with Admiration: wonderful Events were then frequent: nor did their frequency abate, but rather increase wonderment, because their va∣riety was great, and the apprehension of invisible or Supernatural Powers in them usual. So that admiration was then inforced upon men, and the breasts of such as diligently observed these events, or were any way disposed by nature to the Faculty, were inspired with lively and sublimate affections, apt to vent themselves in such Poetical Phrase and resemblances, as we cannot reach un∣to, unless we raise our invention by Art and imitation, and stir up Admiration by meditation and study. And because neither our senses are moved with any extraordinary effects of Gods Power, nor our minds bent to observe the ways of his Wisdom, so as we might be stricken with true Admiration of them, we have fewer good sacred Poems, then of any other kind. But as the Ancients chief learning did consist of Poetry: so the excellency of their Poetry was chief∣ly seen in the proper and native subject of this Faculty, that is, in matters of Sa∣cred Use or observation: whence the title of Vates did descend unto secular or profane Poets, which retained the number and manner of speech used by the former.

3 That such as were Vates indeed, were taught this sublimity of speech by admiration of extraordinary events, may be confirmed by the Historical nar∣rations of the Sacred Story: wherin Poetical Hymns or sons are the usual con∣sequents of strange or wonderful events. As, Judg. 5. after the victory gotten over Sisera, Then sang Deborah, & Barach the son of Abinoam, the same day say∣ing; Praise ye the Lord, &c. So likewise Hannah after the Lord had heard her prayer, and taken away her barrenness, burst out into the like Poetical Hymn, 1 Sam. 2. So did the Blessed Virgin upon her cosen Elizabeths salutation, and John Baptist springing in her womb, take up her song, Luke 1. 46. My soul doth magnifie the Lord, &c. So doth Zachary, John Baptists father, take up his pro∣phecy, Luke 1. 68. and Simeon, Luke 2. 28. So likewise after the manifestation of Gods wonders in the red Sea, all his people (as if they had been baptized in a sacred Helicon) presently turn Poets, Exod. 15. 1. And again, Numb. 21. after they had returned to Beer, the Well which Moses had opened out of the hard rock with his rod, Israel (as if they had washed their mouths in Hippocrene) had their voices tuned to an high strain of Poetry: Then Israel sang this song: Rise up, WELL, sing ye unto it, the Princes digged this Well, the Captains of the people dig∣ged it, even with their staves.

4 That the frequent use of Poetry among the Ancient heathen, did arise from like occasions, may be gathered from Strabo: who from Antiquity, better * 1.1 known to him then us, avoucheth it as unquestionable, that all other set speech, whether Historical or Rhetorical, was but the Progeny of Poetry, fal∣ling in latter times from its wonted state and dignity; whereas the Ancients knew no other branch of Artificial or set speech, but only Poetry. Albeit to speak properly, it was (in respect of the Efficient or impulsive causes) rather Superartificial, then Natural or Artificial; and Rhetorick and Historie on∣ly Artificial. This opinion will not seem strange, if we consider, that the wiser sort in those times did commend such matters onely to writing, as might inflame posterity with devotion and love of vertue. For Poetrie, as the same Author tels us, was accounted by Antiquitie, Prima quaedam Philosophia, a kind of sacred moral Philosophie, appropriated, as it seems, at the first to the relation or representation of supernatural Events or divine matters onely: of which the most Ancient had best experience, and were im∣pelled to communicate them to posteritie, elevated (as is observed before)

by the excellency of the Object, to this celestial kind of speech which is most apt to ravish younger wits, as it self was bred of Admiration. This use of Poe∣trie appears in some Fragments of most Ancient Poets, in their kind propor∣tionable to the book of Psalms, of Job, and the songs of Moses, the only pa∣tern of true Poesie: whose subjects, usually, are the wonderful works of God manifested unto men. Some degenerate footsteps of these Holy men the Heathen, about Homers time, did observe: using their Poets and Musicians for planting modesty and chastity amongst other vertues in their auditors. * 1.2 So Agamemnon left * 1.3 the musical Poet as Guardian to Clytemnestra, who continued chast and loyal until Aegisthus got the Poet conveyed into an uninhabited Is∣land. For this reason was Poetry b 1.4 taught chil∣dren first throughout the Grecian Cities, as Mo∣ses had commanded the Israelites to teach their children his divine Poem, Deut. 31. 19. and 32. 46. And they much wrong that divine c 1.5 Philosopher, that think he was any farther an enemy unto the sacred Faculty, then onely to seek the reformation of it by reducing it to its first natural use; which was not meer delight, as Eratosthenes dreamed, right∣ly taxed by Strabo for this error. That might perhaps be true of the Comi∣cal Latin poets;

Poeta quum primum animum adscribendum appulit, Id sibi negoti credidit solum dari, Populo ut placerent quas fecisset Fabulas.

When first the Poet bent his wits to write, The onely mark he aim'd at, was delight.

Which notwithstanding had neither been the onely, nor chief use; no end at all, but rather an adjunct of Poetry amongst the Ancient: by the wiser and better sort of whom nothing was apprehended, at least approved as truly de∣lightful, which was not also Honest and of profitable use for bettering life and manners. The law of nature being then lesse defaced, They could read it without spelling, and comprehend all the Three Elements of Goodness, joyntly under one entire conceit, as we do the product of divers Letters or Syllables in one word, without examination of their several value apart. But when the Union of this Trinity, wherein the nature of Perfect Goodnesse consists, was once dissolved in mens hearts, and Delight had found a peculiar Issue without mixture of Honesty or Utility: the desire of becoming popular Po∣ets, did breed the bane of true Poesie; and those Sacred Numbers, which had been as Amulets against vice, became incentives unto lust. Or if we would but search the native use of Poetry by that end which men, not led awry by hopes of applause, or gain, or other external respects, but directed rather by the internal impulsion of this Faculty, and secret working of their Souls, do aim at: It principally serves for Venting Extraordinary Affections. No man almost so dul, but will be Poetically affected in the subject of his strongest passions. As we see by experience, that where the occasions either of Joy for the Fortunate Valour, or Sorrow for the mishaps of their Countrey-men, or Al∣liance, are most rife, this disposition is both most pregnant and most common. And as Speech or Articulation of voices in general, was given to man for com∣municating his conceits or meaning unto others; so Poetry, the Excellency of Speech, serves for the more lively expressing of his Choicer Conceits, for

Beautifying His darling-thoughts or Fancies, which almost disdain to go abroad in other then this exactly-proportioned attire, The souls wooing suits (if I may so speak) whereby she wins others to Sympathize with her in abundance of Grief, or to consent with her in excessive Joy, or finally to settle their Admira∣tion or dislike where she doth hers. And the more strange or wonderful the matter conceived, or to be represented, is, the more pleasant and admirable will the true and natural representation of it be: and the more he that con∣ceives it, is ravished with delight of its Beauty or goodnesse, the more will he long to communicate his conceit and liking of it to others. Whence, such as had seen the Wonders of God and had been fed with his Hidden Manna, sought by their lively & hearty representations to invite others, as the Psalmist doth, To taste and see the Goodnesse of the Lord, as Birds and Beasts, when they * 1.6 have found pleasant food, call (on their fashion) unto others of the same kinde, to be partakers with them in their Joy: until Satan, who hunts after the life of Man, as Man doth after the life of Birds, did invent his counterfeit Cals to allure our souls into his Snare. For, when men had once taken a de∣light in the natural representation of events, delightful in themselves: he stir∣red up others to invent the like, albeit there were no real truth or stability in the things represented, and the manner of representation usually so light and affected, as could argue no credence given by the Authors to their own re∣port, but rather a desire to please such as had never set their mindes to any In∣quisition of solid Truth, whose unsetled Fancies cannot choose but fall in Love with as many Fair Pictures of others pleasant Imaginations as are pre∣sented to them. For, as to view the connexion of real Causes with their Ef∣fects (most of all, if both be rare, or the concurrence of Circumstances un∣usual) doth much affect the judicious understanding: so the quaint or curi∣ous contrivance of Imaginary Rarities, set forth in splendent Artificial colours, doth captivate the Fancies of such as are not established in the love of truth. But (as the Orator said of such as applauded the Tragedie of Pylades and Ore∣stes) how would such mens souls be ravished, could they upon sure grounds be perswaded, that these stories were true, albeit devoid of Artificial Colours, or Poetical contrivances, never used by sacred Antiquitie? in whose expres∣sion of Wonders, the Phrase is usually most Poetical, as naturally it will al∣waies be, where the mind is much affected; their invention lesse Artificial or affected, then our Historical narrations of Modern affairs; the Character of their stile, (as was intimated before) doth argue that they sought onely to set down the true Proportion of matters seen and heard, with such resemblan∣ces as were most incident to their kind of life. And from the Efficacy of such extraordinary effects upon their souls, is it, that the Prophets so often express the same things in divers words, as if all they could say, could not equalize the sensible Experiments, which did move their Hearts and Fancies (as the Musi∣tians hands or breath doth his instruments) to sound out such Pathetical Dit∣ties. Nor had their Ditties any greater disproportion with their subject, then our Songs of Famous Victories, have with theirs; or other passionate Ditties, with their composers affections: albeit he that hath experience of Love, or abundant Grief, or Joy, will speak in another Dialect, then ordinarily he useth, without any touch of affectation.

5 Hence we may clearly discern, whilest wonders decayed, and men sought as great delight in Fained, as their forefathers had done in True Re∣presentations: how the disproportion betwixt Representations, and the real Events, or Experiments of the times, wherein the later Poets lived, became so Monstrous and Prodigious. This fell out just so, as if the Armorours of

this Age should not observe the stature of men now living, but fashion their Armour by old Guy of Warwicks Harnesse, or our Painters, not look upon the bodies of modern English-men, but take their proportions from some Ancient Pictures, which had been truly taken about some 1000 years ago, in some other Countrey, that had yielded men of more ample stature in that Age then this land of ours did in any. Such an Errour as this, which we have mentioned in Poetry, would quickly have been reformed in any other Facul∣tie, that had concerned mens temporal profit or commodities, or whereof o∣thers had been as competent Judges as the Professors: for so, when they had begun to wander, or digress a little from their right end, they should presently have bin called to this account; Quid ad rem? your Work may be Prety, but not to our Purpose. But when such Admirable Events, as were well worth Poetical expression, decreased, and worldly cares did multiply, as men in∣creased: the divine art of Poetry, which admits not many competent Judges in any age, was counted no better then a matter of meer delight, or recreation; and for this reason the Prodigious Representations of it, so Monstrously dis∣proportionable to the truth represented (because oft times more pleasant to men wearied with other studies or imployments, then the bare narration of the truth) were never reformed. And so at length, that Audacious Licenti∣ousnesse of Fictions, for moving delight, did in the judgement of posterity disparage the very patterns or Prototypes of Poetical representations, where∣unto later Poems had been framed: As many Tall Fellows in this present age, if they should see the true image or picture of some Ancient Giants, would swear that the painter had plaied the Poet: were it not that the dead bodies or limbs of some Ancient people, lately digged out of the ground, did by their unusual bignesse teach us to estimate (as we say) Ex pede Herculem, how great others might have been, whose big limbs and bones have not come unto this Ages sight.

6 But most of these strange Events were such, as did continue no longer then while they were a doing, wherefore we must seek out the true propor∣tion of these Heavenly Bodies, by their shadows, represented in the later Pro∣fane Poets. The Original and manner of whose digression from the paterns of the Ancient Divine Poets, or rather from Divine truth, the pattern of Ancient Poetrie it self, was partly as you have heard, partly as follow∣eth.

7 Gods wonderful works have been more plenteous in Asia, then in other parts of the world; more plentiful in Judea, and the Regions about it, then mother parts of Asia; most plentiful in them, about the Israelites deliverance * 1.7 out of Egypt. In that time and in the ages before, or immediately succeeding it, Artificial learning was very scant; and Characters, either not invented, or their use very rare in most places. The fresh memory of such wonders pre∣supposed; the lively image either of inch licentiousnesse in coining fables, or confounding true Histories with the mixture of false and unnatural circum∣stances, (as these wants every where in all times naturally breed) we may clearly behold in the modern Turks: who are as abundant in Prodigious Fa∣bles, as defective in good learning; and for want of printing, or neglect of writing, have no perfect Character of the worlds Fashion in times past, nor any distinct order of former Events. It is but a petty solecisme among them, to affirm that Job the Huss••ite was chief Justice; and Alexander the Great, Lieute∣nent general unto King Solomon.

8 The like confusion of times and places might be more incident unto the Asiatick Nations, before Alexanders time, because their Ancestors had been

acquainted with more strange events, latelier forepast then the modern Turks are. Now alwayes the more strange the events be, the more ready they be to Mount upon the Wings of Fame; and once so mounted, the more apt to receive increase in every Circumstance, and vary their shape, whilest they flie onely from mouth to mouth in the open air, not fashioned or limit∣ed at their first birth, by some visible Character, or permanent Stamp set upon them.

9 From this vicinity of true wonders in Jury, or thereabouts, were the Medes, Persians, and Syrians, so much addicted to Fabulous narrations, that their delight in such traditions did make their later writers ambitious in the skill of coining wonders; as Strabo tels us. And Greece, as it received Arti∣ficial * 1.8 learning first from Asia, so did it drink in this humour with it. For the traditions of Gods Miracles in Jury, and the Regions about it, having been far spread, when Greece began first to tattle in Artificial learning, the Grecians (Alwayes Children in true Antiquitie, as the Egyptian Priest told one of their Philosophers) were apt to counterfeit the form of Ancient Truths, and mis∣apply it to unseemly matters, or foolish purposes; as children will be doing that in homlier stuff, which they see their elders do in better. Finally, the same humour which yet raigns amongst men, might possess most of the Hea∣then. There is no famous Event that fals out, (though it be but a notable Jest) but in a short time, is ascribed to a great many more, then have any affinity with it. As many of Diogenes conceits have been fathered upon Tarle∣ton: and what the Christians say of S. George, the Turks ascribe to * 1.9 Chederley. If it be any story concerning way-faring men; every Hostler, Tapster, or Chamberlain, will tell you that it fell out in their Town, or in the Countrey thereabouts. And though you hear it in twenty several places, yet shall you have alwayes some new tricks of addition put upon it. In like manner did the reports of sundry events, which either fell out, only in Jury, or upon occasion of Gods people, flie about the world, sometime with cut and man∣gled, but most usually with enlarged, Artificial wings, as if the same had been acted every where, or the like invented upon every occasion.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Strabo Lib. 1. Fol. 15.
• * 1.2

  —〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• * 1.3

  Hom. odys. 3.
• b 1.4

  Strato Ibid.
• c 1.5

  Plat. lib. 10. de Repub.
• * 1.6

  Psal. 34. 8.
• * 1.7

  〈1 paragraph〉〈1 paragraph〉
• * 1.8

  Strabo. Lib. 11. Fol. 107.
• * 1.9

  Or Chederles Busbequius. ibid.