lish sixteenth centuries, and the alembicated exquisiteness of Catullus
and Carew; he does not dislike Webster because he is not Dryden, or Young
because he is not Spenser; he does not quarrel with Sophocles because he is
not AEschylus, or with Hugo because he is not Heine. But at the same time it
is impossible for him not to recognise that there are certain periods where
inspiration and accomplishment meet in a fashion which may be sought for in
vain at others. These are the great periods of literature, and there are
perhaps only five of them, with five others which may be said to be almost
level. The five first are the great age of Greek literature from AEschylus
to Plato, the great ages of English and French literature in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, the whole range of Italian literature from Dante
to Ariosto, and the second great age of English from the _Lyrical Ballads_
to the death of Coleridge. It is the super-eminent glory of English that it
counts twice in the reckoning. The five seconds are the Augustan age of
Latin, the short but brilliant period of Spanish literary development, the
Romantic era in France, the age of Goethe in Germany, including Heine's
earlier and best work, and (with difficulty, and by allowance chiefly of
Swift and Dryden) the half century from the appearance of _Absalom and
Achitophel_ to the appearance of _Gulliver_ and _The Dunciad_ in England.
Out of these there are great men but no great periods, and the first class
is distinguished from the second, not so much by the fact that almost all
the greatest literary names of the world are found in it, as because it is
evident to a careful reader that there was more of the general spirit of
poetry and of literature diffused in human brains at these times than at
any other. It has been said more than once that English Elizabethan
literature may, and not merely in virtue of Shakespere, claim the first
place even among the first class. The full justification of this assertion
could only be given by actually going through the whole range of the
literature, book in hand. The foregoing pages have given it as it were in
_precis_, rather than in any fuller fashion. And it has been thought better
to devote some of the space permitted to extract as the only possible
substitute for this continual book-in-hand exemplification. Many subjects
which might properly form the subject of excursus in a larger history have
been perforce omitted, the obje