{70} _That Plato banished poets from his ideal Republic_. {71} Which authority certain barbarous and insipid writers would wrest into meaning that poets were to be thrust out of a state. {72} Ion is a rhapsodist, in dialogue with Socrates, who cannot understand why it is that his thoughts flow abundantly when he talks of Homer. “I can explain,” says Socrates; “your talent in expounding Homer is not an art acquired by system and method, otherwise it would have been applicable to other poets besides. It is a special gift, imparted to you by Divine power and inspiration. The like is true of the poet you expound. His genius does not spring from art, system, or method: it is a special gift emanating from the inspiration of the Muses. A poet is light, airy, holy person, who cannot compose verses at all so long as his reason remains within him. The Muses take away his reason, substituting in place of it their own divine inspiration and special impulse . . . Like prophets and deliverers of oracles, these poets have their reason taken away, and become the servants of the gods. It is not they who, bereft of their reason, speak in such sublime strains, it is the god who speaks to us, and speaks through them.” George Grote, from whose volumes on Plato I quote this translation of the passage, placed “Ion” among the genuine dialogues of Plato. {73} _Guards_, trimmings or facings. {74} _The Second Summary_. {75} _Causes of Defect in English Poetry_. {76} From the invocation at the opening of Virgil’s _Æneid_ (line 12), “Muse, bring to my mind the causes of these things: what divinity was injured . . . that one famous for piety should suffer thus.” {77} The Chancellor, Michel de l’Hôpital, born in 1505, who joined to his great political services (which included the keeping of the Inquisition out of France, and long labour to repress civil war) great skill in verse. He died in 1573. {78} Whose heart-strings the Titan (Prometheus) fastened with a better clay. (Juvenal, _Sat._ xiv. 35). Dryden translated the line, with its context— “Some sons, indeed, some very few, we see Who keep themselves from this infection free, Whom gracious Heaven for nobler ends designed, Their looks erected, and their clay refined.” {79} The orator is made, the poet born. {80} What you will; the first that comes. {81} “Whatever I shall try to write will be verse.” Sidney quotes from memory, and adapts to his context, Tristium IV. x. 26. “Sponte sua carmen numeros veniebat ad aptos, Et quod temptabam dicere, versus erat.” {82} _His_ for “its” here as throughout; the word “its” not being yet introduced into English writing.