Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia
with their practices on the road. They heard me with cold indifference,
and showed no tokens of shame or sorrow.
“They then urged their request with the offer of a bribe, but what I
would not do for kindness I would not do for money, and refused them, not
because they had injured me, but because I would not enable them to
injure others; for I knew they would have made use of my credit to cheat
those who should buy their wares.
“Having resided at Agra till there was no more to be learned, I travelled
into Persia, where I saw many remains of ancient magnificence and
observed many new accommodations of life. The Persians are a nation
eminently social, and their assemblies afforded me daily opportunities of
remarking characters and manners, and of tracing human nature through all
its variations.
“From Persia I passed into Arabia, where I saw a nation pastoral and
warlike, who lived without any settled habitation, whose wealth is their
flocks and herds, and who have carried on through ages an hereditary war
with mankind, though they neither covet nor envy their possessions.”
CHAPTER X
IMLAC’S HISTORY (_continued_)—A DISSERTATION UPON POETRY.
“WHEREVER I went I found that poetry was considered as the highest
learning, and regarded with a veneration somewhat approaching to that
which man would pay to angelic nature. And yet it fills me with wonder
that in almost all countries the most ancient poets are considered as the
best; whether it be that every other kind of knowledge is an acquisition
greatly attained, and poetry is a gift conferred at once; or that the
first poetry of every nation surprised them as a novelty, and retained
the credit by consent which it received by accident at first; or whether,
as the province of poetry is to describe nature and passion, which are
always the same, the first writers took possession of the most striking
objects for description and the most probable occurrences for fiction,
and left nothing to those that followed them but transcription of the
same events and new combinations of the same images. Whatever be the
reason, it is commonly observed that the early writers are in possession
of nature, and their followers of art; that the first excel in strength
and invention, and the latter in elegance and refinement.
“I was desirous to add my name to this illustrious fraternity. I read
all the poets of Persia and Arabia, and was able to repeat by memory the
volumes that are suspended in the mosque of Mecca. But I soon found that
no man was ever great by imitations. My desire of excellence impelled me
to transfer my attention to nature and to life. Nature was to be my
subject, and men to be my auditors. I could never describe what I had
not seen. I could not hope to move those with delight or terror whose
interests and opinions I did not understand.
“Being now resolved to be a poet, I saw everything with a new purpose; my
sphere of attention was suddenly magnified; no kind of knowledge was to
be overlooked. I ranged mountains and deserts for images and
resemblances, and pictured upon my mind every tree of the forest and
flower of the valley. I observed with equal care the crags of the rock
and the pinnacles of the palace. Sometimes I wandered along the mazes of
the rivulet, and sometimes watched the changes of the summer clouds. To
a poet nothing can be useless. Whatever is beautiful and whatever is
dreadful must be familiar to his imagination; he must be conversant with
all that is awfully vast or elegantly little. The plants of the garden,
the animals of the wood, the minerals of the earth, and meteors of the
sky, must all concur to store his mind with inexhaustible variety; for
every idea is useful for the enforcement or decoration of moral or
religious truth, and he who knows most will have most power of
diversifying his scenes and of gratifying his reader with remote
allusions and unexpected instruction.
“All the appearances of nature I was therefore careful to study, and
every country which I have surveyed has contributed something to my
poetical powers.”
“In so wide a survey,” said the Prince, “you must surely have left much
unobserved. I have lived till now within the circuit of the mountains,
and yet cannot walk abroad without the sight of something which I had
never beheld before, or never heeded.”
“This business of a poet,” said Imlac, “is to examine, not the
individual, but the species; to remark general properties and large
appearances. He does not number the streaks of the tulip, or describe
the different shades of the verdure of the forest. He is to exhibit in
his portraits of nature such prominent and striking features as recall
the original to every mind, and must neglect the minuter discriminations,
which one may have remarked and another have neglected, for those
characteristics which are alike obvious to vigilance and carelessness.
“But the knowledge of nature is only half the task of a poet; he must be
acquainted likewise with all the modes of life. His character requires
that he estimate the happiness and misery of every condition, observe the
power of all the passions in all their combinations, and trace the
changes of the human mind, as they are modified by various institutions
and accidental influences of climate or custom, from the sprightliness of
infancy to the despondence of decrepitude. He must divest himself of the
prejudices of his age and country; he must consider right and wrong in
their abstracted and invariable state; he must disregard present laws and
opinions, and rise to general and transcendental truths, which will
always be the same. He must, therefore, content himself with the slow
progress of his name, contemn the praise of his own time, and commit his
claims to the justice of posterity. He must write as the interpreter of
nature and the legislator of mankind, and consider himself as presiding
over the thoughts and manners of future generations, as a being superior
to time and place.
“His labour is not yet at an end. He must know many languages and many
sciences, and, that his style may be worthy of his thoughts, must by
incessant practice familiarise to himself every delicacy of speech and
grace of harmony.”
CHAPTER XI
IMLAC’S NARRATIVE (_continued_)—A HINT OF PILGRIMAGE.
IMLAC now felt the enthusiastic fit, and was proceeding to aggrandise his
own profession, when then Prince cried out: “Enough! thou hast convinced
me that no human being can ever be a poet. Proceed with thy narration.”
“To be a poet,” said Imlac, “is indeed very difficult.”
“So difficult,” returned the Prince, “that I will at present hear no more
of his labours. Tell me whither you went when you had seen Persia.”
“From Persia,” said the poet, “I travelled through Syria, and for three
years resided in Palestine, where I conversed with great numbers of the
northern and western nations of Europe, the nations which are now in
possession of all power and all knowledge, whose armies are irresistible,
and whose fleets command the remotest parts of the globe. When I
compared these men with the natives of our own kingdom and those that
surround us, they appeared almost another order of beings. In their
countries it is difficult to wish for anything that may not be obtained;
a thousand arts, of which we never heard, are continually labouring for
their convenience and pleasure, and whatever their own climate has denied
them is supplied by their commerce.”
“By what means,” said the Prince, “are the Europeans thus powerful? or
why, since they can so easily visit Asia and Africa for trade or
conquest, cannot the Asiatics and Africans invade their coast, plant
colonies in their ports, and give laws to their natural princes? The
same wind that carries them back would bring us thither.”
“They are more powerful, sir, than we,” answered Imlac, “because they are
wiser; knowledge will always predominate over ignorance, as man governs
the other animals. But why their knowledge is more than ours I know not
what reason can be given but the unsearchable will of the Supreme Being.”
“When,” said the Prince with a sigh, “shall I be able to visit Palestine,
and mingle with this mighty confluence of nations? Till that happy
moment shall arrive, let me fill up the time with such representations as
thou canst give me. I am not ignorant of the motive that assembles such
numbers in that place, and cannot but consider it as the centre of wisdom
and piety, to which the best and wisest men of every land must be
continually resorting.”
“There are some nations,” said Imlac, “that send few visitants to
Palestine; for many numerous and learned sects in Europe concur to
censure pilgrimage as superstitious, or deride it as ridiculous.”
“You know,” said the Prince, “how little my life has made me acquainted
with diversity of opinions; it will be too long to hear the arguments on
both sides; you, that have considered them, tell me the result.”
“Pilgrimage,” said Imlac, “like many other acts of piety, may be
reasonable or superstitious, according to the principles upon which it is
performed. Long journeys in search of truth are not commanded. Truth,
such as is necessary to the regulation of life, is always found where it
is honestly sought. Change of place is no natural cause of the increase
of piety, for it inevitably produces dissipation of mind. Yet, since men
go every day to view the fields where great actions have been performed,
and return with stronger impressions of the event, curiosity of the same
kind may naturally dispose us to view that country whence our religion
had its beginning, and I believe no man surveys those awful scenes
without some confirmation of holy resolutions. That the Supreme Being
may be more easily propitiated in one place than in another is the dream
of idle superstition, but that some places may operate upon our own minds
in an uncommon manner is an opinion which hourly experience will justify.
He who supposes that his vices may be more successfully combated in
Palestine, will perhaps find himself mistaken; yet he may go thither
without folly; he who thinks they will be more freely pardoned,
dishonours at once his reason and religion.”
“These,” said the Prince, “are European distinctions. I will consider
them another time. What have you found to be the effect of knowledge?
Are those nations happier than we?”
“There is so much infelicity,” said the poet, “in the world, that scarce
any man has leisure from his own distresses to estimate the comparative
happiness of others. Knowledge is certainly one of the means of
pleasure, as is confessed by the natural desire which every mind feels of
increasing its ideas. Ignorance is mere privation, by which nothing can
be produced; it is a vacuity in which the soul sits motionless and torpid
for want of attraction, and, without knowing why, we always rejoice when
we learn, and grieve when we forget. I am therefore inclined to conclude
that if nothing counteracts the natural consequence of learning, we grow
more happy as out minds take a wider range.
“In enumerating the particular comforts of life, we shall find many
advantages on the side of the Europeans. They cure wounds and diseases
with which we languish and perish. We suffer inclemencies of weather
which they can obviate. They have engines for the despatch of many
laborious works, which we must perform by manual industry. There is such
communication between distant places that one friend can hardly be said
to be absent from another. Their policy removes all public
inconveniences; they have roads cut through the mountains, and bridges
laid over their rivers. And, if we descend to the privacies of life,
their habitations are more commodious and their possessions are more