passages concerning this art of all arts from notable
thinkers.

In his introduction to Ward's admirable selections from "The English
Poets," Matthew Arnold--critic and poet--to whom allusion has already
been made, says:

"The future of poetry is immense, because in poetry, where it is
worthy of its high destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an
ever surer and surer stay....

"We are here invited to trace the stream of English poetry. But
whether we set ourselves, as here, to follow only one of the several
streams that make the mighty river of poetry, or whether we seek to
know them all, our governing thought should be the same. We should
conceive of poetry worthily, and more highly than it has been the
custom to conceive of it. We should conceive of it as capable of
higher uses, and called to higher destinies, than those which in
general men have assigned to it hitherto. More and more mankind will
discover that we have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to
console us, to sustain us....

"But if we conceive thus highly of poetry, we must also set our
standard for poetry high, since poetry, to be capable of fulfilling
such high destinies, must be poetry of a high order of excellence.

... The best poetry is what we want; the best poetry will be found
to have a power of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing
else can. A clearer, deeper sense of the best in poetry, and of the
strength and joy to be drawn from it, is the most precious benefit
which we can gather from a poetical collection such as the present."

Macaulay in his brilliant essay on Milton, which, published in the
_Edinburgh Review_ in 1825, gave him instant recognition as "a new
literary power," set up an interesting theory. A few extracts will
give it:--

"Milton, it is said, inherited what his predecessors created; he lived
in an enlightened age; he received a finished education; and we must
therefore, if we would form a just estimate of his powers, make large
deductions for these advantages.

"We venture to say, on the contrary, paradoxical as the remark may
appear, that no poet has ever had to struggle with more unfavorable
circumstances than Milton....

"We think that, as civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily
declines. Therefore, though we admire those great works of imagination
which have appeared in dark ages, we do not admire them the more
because they have appeared in dark ages. On the contrary, we