auty? In this point of view, too, a saying
of Goethe's, which has staggered several, may have meaning: 'The
Beautiful,' he intimates, 'is higher than the Good: the Beautiful
includes in it the Good.' The _true_ Beautiful; which however, I have
said somewhere, 'differs from the _false_ as Heaven does from
Vauxhall!' So much for the distinction and identity of Poet and
Prophet.--

In ancient and also in modern periods we find a few Poets who are
accounted perfect; whom it were a kind of treason to find fault with.
This is noteworthy; this is right: yet in strictness it is only an
illusion. At bottom, clearly enough, there is no perfect Poet! A vein
of Poetry exists in the hearts of all men; no man is made altogether
of Poetry. We are all poets when we _read_ a poem well. The
'imagination that shudders at the Hell of Dante,' is not that the same
faculty, weaker in degree, as Dante's own? No one but Shakspeare can
embody, out of _Saxo Grammaticus_, the story of _Hamlet_ as Shakspeare
did: but every one models some kind of story out of it; every one
embodies it better or worse. We need not spend time in defining. Where
there is no specific difference, as between round and square, all
definition must be more or less arbitrary. A man that has _so_ much
more of the poetic element developed in him as to have become
noticeable, will be called Poet by his neighbours. World-Poets too,
those whom we are to take for perfect Poets, are settled by critics in
the same way. One who rises _so_ far above the general level of Poets
will, to such and such critics, seem a Universal Poet; as he ought to
do. And yet it is, and must be, an arbitrary distinction. All Poets,
all men, have some touches of the Universal; no man is wholly made of
that. Most Poets are very soon forgotten: but not the noblest
Shakspeare or Homer of them can be remembered _forever_;--a day comes
when he too is not!

Nevertheless, you will say, there must be a difference between true
Poetry and true Speech not poetical: what is the difference? On this
point many things have been written, especially by late German
Critics, some of which are not very intelligible at first. They say,
for example, that the Poet has an _infinitude_ in him; communicates an
_Unendlichkeit_, a certain character of 'infinitude,' to whatsoever he
delineates. This, though not very precise, yet on so vague a matter is
worth remembering: if well meditated, some meaning will gradually be
found in i