appears very plausible and damaging at first sight. We notice it
in order to exhibit De Quincey's marvellous sagacity in detecting the
true relation of things: he utterly dissipated the force of the cavil by
simply stating the actual bearings of the two classes of poetry. Ancient
poetry was darkly austere and practical; the imagination was fettered by
a grim austerity; the merely passionate--that which proceeds from the
sphere of the sensibilities alone--finds no resting place in its vast
domain; but in the poetry of Milton the element of passion is
triumphant; hence Bentley, with his icy, critical, matter-of-fact
temperament, could never appreciate Milton's majestic flights. We cannot
refrain from quoting, at this point, De Quincey's acute and beautiful
parallel between Grecian and English tragedy:

'The kind of feeling which broods over the Grecian tragedy, and to
court which the tragic poets of Greece naturally spread all their
canvas, was more nearly allied to the atmosphere of death than of
life. This expresses rudely the character of awe and religious
horror investing the Greek theatre. But to my own feeling the
different principle of passion which governs the Greek conception
of tragedy, as compared with the English, is best conveyed by
saying that the Grecian is a breathing from the world of sculpture,
the English a breathing from the world of painting. What we read in
sculpture is not absolutely death, but still less is it the fulness
of life. We read there the abstraction of a life that reposes, the
sublimity of a life that aspires, the solemnity of a life that is
thrown to an infinite distance. This last is the feature of
sculpture which seems most characteristic: the form which presides
in the most commanding groups 'is not dead, but sleepeth:' true;
but it is the sleep of a life sequestrated, solemn, liberated from
the bonds of time and space, and (as to both alike) thrown (I
repeat the words) to a distance which is infinite. It affects us
profoundly, but not by agitation. Now, on the other hand, the
breathing life--life kindling, trembling, palpitating--that life
which speaks to us in painting--this is also the life that speaks
to us in English tragedy. Into an English tragedy even festivals of
joy may enter; marriages, and baptisms, or commemorations of
national trophies: which, or anythi