If I translate it, 't is nonsense, yet I understand it perfectly, and it will, I dare say, outlive much wiser things in my memory. It is the very function of poetry to free us from that witch's circle of common sense which holds us fast in its narrow enchantment. In this disenthralment, language and verse have their share, and we may say that language also is capable of a certain idealization. Here is a passage from the XXXth song of Drayton's "Poly-Olbion": Which Copland scarce had spoke, but quickly every Hill Upon her verge that stands, the neighbouring valleys fill; Helvillon from his height, it through the mountains threw, From whom as soon again, the sound Dunbalrase drew, From whose stone-trophied head, it on to Wendrosse went, Which tow'rds the sea again, resounded it to Dent, That Broadwater therewith within her banks astound, In sailing to the sea, told it in Egremound. This gave a hint to Wordsworth, who, in one of his "Poems on the Naming of Places," thus prolongs the echo of it: Joanna, looking in my eyes, beheld That ravishment of mine, and laughed aloud. The Rock, like something starting from a sleep, Took up the Lady's voice, and laughed again; The ancient Woman seated on Helm-crag Was ready with her cavern; Hammar-scar, And the tall steep of Silver-how, sent forth A noise of laughter; southern Loughrigg heard, And Fairfield answered with a mountain tone; Helvellyn far into the clear blue sky Carried the Lady's voice,--old Skiddaw blew His speaking-trumpet;--back out of the clouds Of Glaramara southward came the voice; And Kirkstone tossed it from his misty head. Now, this passage of Wordsworth I should call the idealization of that of Drayton, who becomes poetical only in the "stone-trophied head of Dunbalrase"; and yet the thought of both poets is the same. Even what is essentially vulgar may be idealized by seizing and dwelling on the generic characteristics. In "Antony and Cleopatra" Shakespeare makes Lepidus tipsy, and nothing can be droller than the drunken gravity with which he persists in proving himself capable of bearing his part in the conversation. We seem to feel the whirl in his head when we find his mind revolving round a certain fixed point to which he clings as to a post. Antony is telling stories of Egypt to Octavius, and Lepidus, drawn into an eddy of the talk, interrupts him: _Lepidus_: You gave strange serpents there. _Antony_ [_trying to shake him off_]: Ay, Lepidus. _Lepidus_: Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the operation of your sun: so is your crocodile. _Antony_ [_thinking to get rid of him_]: They are so. Presently Lepidus has revolved again, and continues, as if he had been contradicted: Nay, certainly, I have heard the Ptolemies' pyramises are very goodly things; without contradiction, I have heard that.