, the same faults, as we esteem them, are
conspicuous, arising from a too close imitation of nature, and a
carelessness in rejecting images or objects which are of an ordinary
or homely description. Dante was incomparably more learned than
either: he followed Virgil in his descent to the infernal regions; and
exhibits an intimate acquaintance with ancient history, as well as
that of the modern Italian states, in the account of the characters he
meets in that scene of torment. But in his own line he was entirely
original. Homer and Virgil had, in episodes of their poems, introduced
a picture of the infernal regions; but nothing on the plan of Dante's
_Inferno_ had before been thought of in the world. With much of the
machinery of the ancients, it bears the stamp of the spiritual faith
of modern times. It lays bare the heart in a way unknown even to Homer
and Euripides. It reveals the inmost man in a way which bespeaks the
centuries of self-reflection in the cloister which had preceded it. It
is the basis of all the spiritual poetry of modern, as the _Iliad_ is
of all the external imagery of ancient, times.

In this respect there is a most grievous impediment to genius in
later, or, as we term them, more civilized times, from which, in
earlier ages, it is wholly exempt. Criticism, public opinion, the
dread of ridicule--then too often crush the strongest minds. The
weight of former examples, the influence of early habits, the halo of
long-established reputation, force original genius from the untrodden
path of invention into the beaten one of imitation. Early talent feels
itself overawed by the colossus which all the world adores; it falls
down and worships, instead of conceiving. The dread of ridicule
extinguishes originality in its birth. Immense is the incubus thus
laid upon the efforts of genius. It is the chief cause of the
degradation of taste, the artificial style, the want of original
conception, by which the literature of old nations is invariably
distinguished. The early poet or painter who portrays what he feels or
has seen, with no anxiety but to do so powerfully and truly, is
relieved of a load which crushes his subsequent compeers to the earth.
Mediocrity is ever envious of genius--ordinary capacity of original
thought. Such envy in early times is innocuous or does not exist, at
least to the extent which is felt as so baneful in subsequent periods.
But in a refined and enlightened age, its influence becomes