ummaries of novels and plays in a school history of literature. Even
Mr. Gosse himself, if I remember right, in his _Life of Swinburne_,
described one of the chapters as "unreadable." The book as a whole is not
that. But it unquestionably shows us some of the minor Elizabethans by fog
rather than by the full light of day.

VIII.--THE OFFICE OF THE POETS

There is--at least, there seems to be--more cant talked about poetry just
now than at any previous time. Tartuffe is to-day not a priest but a
poet--or a critic. Or, perhaps, Tartuffe is too lively a prototype for the
curates of poetry who swarm in the world's capitals at the present hour.
There is a tendency in the followers of every art or craft to impose it on
the world as a mystery of which the vulgar can know nothing. In medicine,
as in bricklaying, there is a powerful trade union into which the members
can retire as into a sanctuary of the initiate. In the same way, the
theologians took possession of the temple of religion and refused
admittance to laymen, except as a meek and awe-struck audience. This
largely resulted from the Pharisaic instinct that assumes superiority over
other men. Pharisaism is simply an Imperialism of the spirit--joyless and
domineering. Religion is a communion of immortal souls. Pharisaism is a
denial of this and an attempt to set up an oligarchy of superior persons.
All the great religious reformations have been rebellions on the part of
the immortal souls against the superior persons. Religion, the reformers
have proclaimed, is the common possession of mankind. Christ came into the
world not to afford a career to theological pedants, but that the mass of
mankind might have life and might have it more abundantly.

Poetry is in constant danger of suffering the same fate as religion. In
the great ages of poetry, poetry was what is called a popular subject. The
greatest poets, both of Greece and of England, took their genius to that
extremely popular institution, the theatre. They wrote not for pedants or
any exclusive circle, but for mankind. They were, we have reason to
believe, under no illusions as to the imperfections of mankind. But it was
the best audience they could get, and represented more or less the same
kind of world that they found in their own bosoms. It is a difficult thing
to prove that the ordinary man can appreciate poetry, just as it is a
difficult thing to prove that the ordinary man has an immortal soul. But
th