Every age says to its poets, like a mistress to her lover, "Tell me what
I am like"; and he who succeeds in catching the evanescent expression
that reveals character--which is as much as to say, what is intrinsically
human--will be found to have caught something as imperishable as human
nature itself. Aristophanes, by the vital and essential qualities of his
humorous satire, is already more nearly our contemporary than Moliere;
and even the _Trouveres_, careless and trivial as they mostly are, could
fecundate a great poet like Chaucer, and are still delightful reading.
The Attic tragedy still keeps its hold upon the loyalty of scholars
through their imagination, or their pedantry, or their feeling of an
exclusive property, as may happen, and, however alloyed with baser
matter, this loyalty is legitimate and well bestowed. But the dominion of
the Shakespearian is even wider. It pushes forward its boundaries from
year to year, and moves no landmark backward. Here Alfieri and Leasing
own a common allegiance; and the loyalty to him is one not of guild or
tradition, but of conviction and enthusiasm. Can this be said of any
other modern? of robust Corneille? of tender Racine? of Calderon even,
with his tropical warmth and vigor of production? The Greeks and he are
alike and alone in this, and for the same reason, that both are
unapproachably the highest in their kind.
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