, being inspired, are
scarcely to be viewed as human competitors), how much is there in
Homer, _intrinsically_ in Homer, stripped of his fine draperies of
time and circumstance, in the naked Homer, disapparelled of the pride,
pomp, and circumstance of glorious antiquity, to remunerate a man for
his labour in acquiring Greek? Men think very differently about what
_will_ remunerate any given labour. A fool (professional _fool_) in
Shakspeare ascertains, by a natural process of logic, that a
'remuneration' means a _testern_, which is just sixpence; and two
remunerations, therefore, a testoon, or one shilling. But many men
will consider the same service ill paid by a thousand pounds. So, of
the reimbursement for learning a language. Lord Camden is said to have
learned Spanish, merely to enjoy Don Quixote more racily. Cato, the
elder Cato, after abusing Greek throughout his life, sat down in
extreme old age to study it: and wherefore? Mr. Coleridge mentions an
author, in whom, upon opening his pages with other expectations, he
stumbled upon the following fragrant passage--'But from this frivolous
digression upon philosophy and the fine arts, let us return to a
subject too little understood or appreciated in these sceptical
days--the subject of _dung_.' Now, _that_ was precisely the course of
thought with this old censorious Cato: So long as Greek offered, or
seemed to offer, nothing but philosophy or poetry, he was clamorous
against Greek; but he began to thaw and melt a little upon the charms
of Greek--he 'owned the soft impeachment,' when he heard of some
Grecian treatises upon _beans_ and _turnips_; and, finally, he sank
under its voluptuous seductions, when he heard of others upon DUNG.
There are, therefore, as different notions about a 'remuneration' in
this case, as the poor fool had met with it in _his_ case. We,
however, unappalled by the bad names of 'Goth,' 'Vandal,' and so
forth, shall honestly lay before the reader _our_ notions.

When Dryden wrote his famous, indeed matchless, epigram upon the three
great masters (or reputed masters) of the Epopee, he found himself at
no loss to characterize the last of the triad--no matter what
qualities he imputed to the first and the second, he knew himself safe
in imputing them all to the third. The mighty modern had everything
that his predecessors were ever _thought_ to have, as well as
something beside.[5] So he expressed the surpassing grandeur of
Milton, by saying that