ent of the Tartufe is not less enjoyed for the exposure
of the Hypocrisy it denounces. We need not demand from Shakespeare or
from Moliere other morality than that which Genius unconsciously throws
around it--the natural light which it reflects; but if some great
principle which guides us practically in the daily intercourse with men
becomes in the general lustre more clear and more pronounced, we gain
doubly, by the general tendency and the particular result.

*[I use the word Poet in its proper sense, as applicable to any
writer, whether in verse or prose, who invents or creates.]

Long since, in searching for new regions in the Art to which I am a
servant, it seemed to me that they might be found lying far, and rarely
trodden, beyond that range of conventional morality in which Novelist
after Novelist had entrenched himself--amongst those subtle recesses in
the ethics of human life in which Truth and Falsehood dwell undisturbed
and unseparated. The vast and dark Poetry around us--the Poetry of
Modern Civilisation and Daily Existence, is shut out from us in much,
by the shadowy giants of Prejudice and Fear. He who would arrive at the
Fairy Land must face the Phantoms. Betimes, I set myself to the task of
investigating the motley world to which our progress in humanity--has
attained, caring little what misrepresentation I incurred, what
hostility I provoked, in searching through a devious labyrinth for the
foot-tracks of Truth.

In the pursuit of this object, I am, not vainly, conscious that I have
had my influence on my time--that I have contributed, though humbly
and indirectly, to the benefits which Public Opinion has extorted from
Governments and Laws. While (to content myself with a single example)
the ignorant or malicious were decrying the moral of Paul Clifford, I
consoled myself with perceiving that its truths had stricken deep--that
many, whom formal essays might not reach, were enlisted by the picture
and the popular force of Fiction into the service of that large and
Catholic Humanity which frankly examines into the causes of crime, which
ameliorates the ills of society by seeking to amend the circumstances
by which they are occasioned; and commences the great work of justice
to mankind by proportioning the punishment to the offence. That work,
I know, had its share in the wise and great relaxation of our Criminal
Code--it has had its share in results yet more valuable, because leading
to more compre