The cannons of proficiency in the art of poetry. 

 

 

 

1) The three primary requisites of poetical genius: An eye that can see nature, a heart that can feel nature, and a resolution that can follow nature. 

 

2) The three final intentions of poetry: Increase in goodness, increase of understanding, and increase of delight. 

 

3) The three properties of just imagination: What may be, what ought to be, what is seemly to be. 

 

4) The three indispensables of poetical language: Purity, copiousness, and ease. 

 

5) Three things which ought to be well understood in poetry: The great, the little, and their correspondents. 

 

6) The three dignities of poetry: The praise of goodness, the memory of what is remarkable, and the invigoration of the affections. 

 

7) The three purities of poetry: Pure truth, pure language, and pure conception. 

 

8) Three things that poetry should thoroughly be: Thoroughly learned, thoroughly animated, and thoroughly natural. 

 

 

 

Institutional Triads. 

 

 

 

1) The three ultimate objects of Bardism: To reform morals and customs; to secure peace; and praise all that is good and excellent. 

 

2) The three joys of the Bards of the Dominion of Canada: The increase of knowledges; the reformation of manners; and the triumph of peace over devastation and pillage. 

 

3) The three splendid honours of the Bards of the Dominion of Canada: The triumph of learning over ignorance; the triumph of reason over irrationality; and the triumph of peace over devastation and pillage. 

 

4) The three attributes (or necessary and congenial duties) of the Bards of the Dominion of Canada: To manifest the truth, and diffuse knowledges of it; to perpetuate the praise of all that is good and excellent; and to make peace prevail over disorder and violence. 

 

5) The three necessary, but reluctant duties, of the Bards of the Dominion of Canada: Secrecy for the sake of peace and public good; invective lamentation required by justice; and the unsheathing of the sword against lawlessness and depredation. 

 

6) There are three avoidant injunctions on a Bard: To avoid sloth because they are folk given to investigation; to avoid contention, because they are folk of discretion and reason. -Institutional triads- 

 

 

 

 

 

Sentences of Bardism, from the book of Ieuan, the son of Hywel Swrdwal. 

 

 

 

1) That does not exist, from which a greater amount of good than of evil can be produced; since it cannot be otherwise in virtue of God's power, wisdom, and love. 

 

2) The existence of that which does good to some, and does no harm to others, is safe; since there is more utility from it, than if it had not existed; and God will not permit possible good to be lost. 

 

3) Of that which is neither good nor bad, neither the existence nor non-existence is safe for man. For nothing in reason is known of it. Others say, that it is the material of everything. However, there is only God that knows its good and evil, its utility and inutility, and whether the good or evil be the greater. 

 

4) Where a great good to all, without harm to anyone, can be comprehended, it cannot be but that it is in existence, since otherwise the three principle attributes of God, namely, knowledge, wisdom, and mercy, would not stand without being opposed by distress and necessity: Therefore Bardism is true. 

 

5) Truth cannot be had from that in which every truth cannot consist, and which will not consist in every truth, for truth cannot be had from what will contradict or withstand that which is true. 

 

6) It is true that, according to justice, there should be the best of all things. 

 

7) It is true that, according to love, there should be the best of all things. 

 

8) It is true that according to power, there should be the best of all things. 

 

9) It is true that according to wisdom and knowledge, there should be the best of all things. 

 

10) It is true that there cannot be in God other than all knowledge, all wisdom, all power, all love, and all justice, without restraint, without measure, without cessation, without end. Therefore, in respect of the power of God, it cannot but be that the best of all things are in existence: and it cannot be otherwise in respect of his knowledge; and it cannot but be, in respect of his love, justice, and wisdom, that the best of all things are in existence. 

 

11) It is true that God can accomplish the best of all things; on that account, it cannot but be that the best of all things are in existence. 

 

12) According to justice, there should be ability in justice; therefore, in respect of justice, there cannot but be that ability belongs to justice. 

 

13) In respect of knowledge, there ought to be power in knowledge, and in knowing what is best; therefore there is power in knowing what is best. 

 

14) According to love, there should be what is most merciful; therefore, by the love of God, what is most merciful is in existence in every essence. 

 

15) God, in respect of his power, wisdom, knowledge, and love, can produce the best of all things, the most just of all things, and the most kind of all things; therefore it cannot but be that the best of all things are in existence. 

 

16) It cannot but be that the extreme limits of goodness, and what is good, are in God; on that account, there cannot but be that the extreme of all goodness, and all that is good, is, and may be found, from God and by God, through his infinite grace and love. 

 

17) There cannot be a God, that does not possess all power, all love, all wisdom, all knowledge, all justice, and all goodness. And it cannot but be that whatever those, who possess these things do, is found to be without distress, without necessity. 
 

 

And thus it ends.