With the single exception of Burke, however, the critics of the eighteenth century labored under a misapprehension no less blind than the moral obsession which twisted Elizabethan criticism. In the eighteenth century critics were prone to confuse the spiritual element in the poet's nature with intellectualism, and the sensuous element with emotionalism. Such criticism tended to drive the poet either into an arid display of wit, on the one hand, or into sentimental excess, on the other, and the native English distrust of emotion led eighteenth century critics to praise the poet when the intellect had the upper hand. But surely poets have made it clear enough that the intellect is not the distinctive characteristic of the poet. To be intelligent is merely to be human. Intelligence is only a tool, poets have repeatedly insisted, in their quarrel with philosophers. In proportion as one is intelligent within one's own field, one excels, poets would admit. If one is intelligent with respect to fisticuffs one is likely to become a good prize-fighter, but no matter how far refinement of intelligence goes in this direction, it will not make a pugilist into a poet. Intelligence must belong likewise, in signal degree, to the great poet, but it is neither one of the two essential elements in his nature. Augustan critics starved the spiritual element in poetry, even while they imagined that they were feeding it, for in sharpening his wit the poet came no nearer expressing the "poor soul, the center of his sinful earth" than when he reveled in emotion. We no longer believe that in the most truly poetic nature the intelligence of a Pope is joined with the emotionalism of a Rousseau. We believe that the spirituality of a Crashaw is blent with the sensuousness of a Swinburne. Nineteenth century criticism, since it is almost entirely the work of poets, should not be thus at odds with the conception of the poet expressed in poetry. But although nineteenth century prose criticism moves in the right direction, it is not entirely adequate. The poet is not at his best when he is working in a prose medium. He works too consciously in prose, hence his intuitive flashes are not likely to find expression. After he has tried to express his buried life there, he himself is likely to warn us that what he has said "is well, is eloquent, but 'tis not true." Even Shelley, the most successful of poet-critics, gives us a more vivid comprehension of the poetical balance of sense and spirit through his poet-heroes than through _The Defense of Poetry_, for he is almost exclusively concerned, in that essay, with the spiritual aspect of poetry. He expresses, in fact, the converse of Dryden's view in that he regards the sensuous as negation or dross merely. He asserts: