Virgil, Tasso, and Raphael, | 401 |
Ping-Kee's View of the Stage, | 415 |
The Midnight Watch, | 424 |
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, | 448 |
Marston; or, the Memoirs of a Statesman. Part XVI., | 461 |
Betham's Etruria Celtica, | 474 |
Suspiria de Profundis: being a Sequel to the Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, | 489 |
North's Specimens of the British Critics. No. III.—Dryden, | 503 |
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Originality of conception and fidelity of observation in general mark theefforts of genius in the earlier ages of society; and it is then,accordingly, that those creative minds appear which stamp their ownimpress upon the character of a whole people, and communicate to theirliterature, in the most distant periods, a certain train of thought, acertain class of images, a certain family resemblance. Homer, Phidias, andÆschylus in ancient times—Dante, Michael Angelo, Ariosto, and Shakspearein modern, belong to this exalted class. Each in his own department hasstruck out a new range of thought, and created a fresh brood of ideas,which, on "winged words," have taken their flight to distant regions, andto the end of the world will never cease to delight and influence mankind.Subsequent ages may refine their images, expand their sentiments, perhapsimprove their expression; but they add little to the stock of theirconceptions. The very greatness of their predecessors precludes freshcreations: the furrows of the ancient wheels are so deep that the modernchariot cannot avoid falling into them. So completely in all persons ofeducation are the great works of antiquity incorporated with thought, thatthey arise involuntarily with every exercise of the faculty of taste, andinsensibly recur to the cultivated mind, with all that it admires, andloves, and venerates.
But though originality of conception, the creation of imagery, an