he Gothic Architecture, as distinguished from the
cheerful, smiling beauty of the Classic. Such is the difference
between the spirit of Classic Art and the spirit of Gothic Art.[13]

[13] Schlegel has a passage that hits the core of the matter:
"Rousseau recognized the contrast in Music, and showed that
rhythm and melody was the ruling principle of ancient as harmony
is of modern music. On the imaging arts, Hemsterhuys made this
ingenious remark, that the ancient painters were perhaps too
much of sculptors, modern sculptors too much of painters. This
touches the very point of difference; for the spirit of
collective ancient art and poetry is plastic, as that of the
modern is picturesque." And again: "The Pantheon is not more
different from Westminster Abbey or the Church of St. Stephen at
Vienna than the structure of a tragedy of Sophocles from a drama
of Shakespeare. The comparison between these two wonderful
productions of poetry and architecture might be carried still
further." Coleridge also has some very choice remarks on the
subject: "I will note down the fundamental characteristics which
contradistinguish the ancient literature from the modern
generally, but which more especially appear in prominence in the
tragic drama. The ancient was allied to statuary, the modern
refers to painting. In the first there is a predominance of
rhythm and melody; in the second, of harmony and counterpoint.
The Greeks idolized the finite, and therefore were masters of
all grace, elegance, proportion, fancy, dignity, majesty,--of
whatever, in short, is capable of being definitely conveyed by
defined forms and thoughts; the moderns revere the infinite, and
affect the indefinite as a vehicle of the infinite; hence their
passions, their obscure hopes and fears, their wandering through
the unknown, their grander moral feelings, their more august
conception of man as man, their future rather than their
past,--in a word, their sublimity."

Now, taking these two things together, namely, the historic spirit and
method, and also the breadth and amplitude of matter and design, both
of which belong to the Gothic Drama, and are indeed of its
nature;--taking these together, it cannot but be seen, I think, that
the work must have a much larger scope, a far more varied and
expansive scene, than is consistent with the Minor Unities