What is this mysterious increment, that must be added to aspiration before it becomes poetically creative? So far as a mere layman can understand it, it is a sudden arrest, rather than a satisfaction, of the poet's longing, for genuine satisfaction would kill the aspiration, and leave the poet heavy and phlegmatic. Inspiration, on the contrary, seems to give him a fictitious satisfaction; it is an arrest of his desire that affords him a delicate poise and repose, on tiptoe, so to speak. [Footnote: Compare Coleridge's statement that poetry is "a more than usual state of emotion with more than usual order." _Biographia Literaria_, Vol. II, Chap. I, p. 14, ed. Henry Nelson Coleridge.] Does not the fact that inspiration works in this manner account for the immemorial connection of poetic creativeness with Bacchic frenzy? To the aspiring poet wine does not bring his mistress, nor virtue, nor communion with God, nor any object of his longing. Yet it does bring a sudden ease to his craving. So, wherever there is a romantic conception of poetry, one is apt to find inspiration compared to intoxication. Such an idea did not, of course, find favor among typical eighteenth century writers. Indeed, they would have seen more reason in ascribing their clear-witted verse to an ice-pack, than to the bibulous hours preceding its application to the fevered brow. We must wait for William Blake before we can expect Bacchus to be reinstated among the gods of song. Blake does not disappoint us, for we find his point of view expressed, elegantly enough, in his comment on artists, "And when they are drunk, they always paint best." [Footnote: _Artist Madmen: On the Great Encouragement Given by the English Nobility and Gentry to Correggio, etc_.] As the romantic movement progresses, one meets with more lyrical expositions of the power in strong drink. Burns, especially, is never tired of sounding its praise. He exclaims, There's naething like the honest nappy. * * * * * I've seen me daist upon a time I scarce could wink or see a styme; Just ae half mutchkin does me prime; Aught less is little, Then back I rattle with the rhyme As gleg's a whittle. [Footnote: _The First Epistle to Lapraik_.] Again he assures us, But browster wives and whiskey stills, They are my muses. [Footnote: _The Third Epistle to Lapraik_.] Then, in more exalted mood: O thou, my Muse, guid auld Scotch drink! Whether through wimplin' worms thou jink, Or, richly brown, ream o'er the brink In glorious faem, Inspire me, till I lisp and wink To sing thy name. [Footnote: _Scotch Drink_.] Keats enthusiastically concurs in Burns' statements. [Footnote: See the _Sonnet on the Cottage Where Burns Was Born_, and _Lines on the Mermaid Tavern_.] Landor, also, tells us meaningly, Songmen, grasshoppers and nightingales Sing cheerily but when the throat is moist. [Footnote: _Homer_; _Laertes_; _Agatha_.]