use none of the ancient pictures have been preserved.
Yet of all their fine arts, it was music of which the Greeks were
themselves most proud. Its traditionary effects were far more powerful
than any which we experience from the compositions of our times. And
now for their poetry, Cadurcis. It is in poetry, and poetry alone,
that modern nations have maintained the majesty of genius. Do we equal
the Greeks? Do we even excel them?'

'Let us prove the equality first,' said Cadurcis. 'The Greeks excelled
in every species of poetry. In some we do not even attempt to rival
them. We have not a single modern ode, or a single modern pastoral. We
have no one to place by Pindar, or the exquisite Theocritus. As for
the epic, I confess myself a heretic as to Homer; I look upon the
Iliad as a remnant of national songs; the wise ones agree that the
Odyssey is the work of a later age. My instinct agrees with the result
of their researches. I credit their conclusion. The Paradise Lost is,
doubtless, a great production, but the subject is monkish. Dante is
national, but he has all the faults of a barbarous age. In general the
modern epic is framed upon the assumption that the Iliad is an orderly
composition. They are indebted for this fallacy to Virgil, who called
order out of chaos; but the Aeneid, all the same, appears to me an
insipid creation. And now for the drama. You will adduce Shakspeare?'

'There are passages in Dante,' said Herbert, 'not inferior, in my
opinion, to any existing literary composition, but, as a whole, I will
not make my stand on him; I am not so clear that, as a lyric poet,
Petrarch may not rival the Greeks. Shakspeare I esteem of ineffable
merit.'

'And who is Shakspeare?' said Cadurcis. 'We know of him as much as we
do of Homer. Did he write half the plays attributed to him? Did he
ever write a single whole play? I doubt it. He appears to me to have
been an inspired adapter for the theatres, which were then not as
good as barns. I take him to have been a botcher up of old plays.
His popularity is of modern date, and it may not last; it would have
surprised him marvellously. Heaven knows, at present, all that bears
his name is alike admired; and a regular Shaksperian falls into
ecstasies with trash which deserves a niche in the Dunciad. For my
part, I abhor your irregular geniuses, and I love to listen to the
little nightingale of Twickenham.'

'I have often observed,' said Herbert, 'that writers of an unbr