, though both have had many of them. But no one,
apparently, ever thinks of trying to tilt in Shakespeare's Titanic
armour.

MORAL SPIRIT.

Much of what may need to be said on this topic will come in more fitly
in speaking of particular plays and characters. A few observations of
a very inclusive scope will be sufficient here.

And I will begin by saying that soundness in this respect is the
corner-stone of all artistic excellence. Virtue, or the loving of
worthy objects, and in a worthy manner, is most assuredly the highest
interest of mankind;--an interest so vital and fundamental, that
nothing which really conflicts with it, or even postpones it to any
other regards, can possibly stand the test of any criticism rooted in
the principles of human nature. To offend in this point is indeed to
be guilty of all: things must be substantially right here, else there
can be nothing right about them. So that, if an author's moral
teaching or moral influence be essentially bad; or even if it be
materially loose and unsound, so as to unstring the mind from thinking
and doing that which is right; nay, even if it be otherwise than
positively wholesome and elevating as a whole; then I more than admit
that no amount of seeming intellectual or poetical merit ought to
shield his workmanship from reprobation, and this too on the score of
art. But then, on the other hand, I must insist that our grounds of
judgment in this matter be very large and liberal; and that to require
or to expect a poet to teach better morals than are taught by Nature
and Providence argues either a disqualifying narrowness of mind in us,
or else a certain moral valetudinarianism which poetry is not bound to
respect. For a poet has a right to the benefit of being tried by the
moral sense and reason of mankind: it is indeed to that seat of
judgment that every great poet virtually appeals; and the verdict of
that tribunal must be an ultimate ruling to us as well as to him.

But one of the first things to be considered here is the natural
relation of Morality to Art. Now I believe Art cannot be better
defined than as the creation or the expression of the Beautiful. And
truth is the first principle of all Beauty. But when I say this, I of
course imply that truth which the human mind is essentially
constituted to receive as such. And in that truth the moral element
holds, constitutionally, the foremost place. I mean, that the human
mind draws and cannot but draw