sympathy with his hearers--that he should talk the language
which they understand, and adopt the traditions, conventions, and
symbols with which they are already more or less familiar. A generally
accepted tradition is as essential as the impulse which comes from the
influx of new ideas. But the happy balance which enables the new wine to
be put into the old bottles is precarious and transitory. The new ideas
as they develop may become paralysing to the imagery which they began by
utilising. The legends of chivalry which Spenser turned to account
became ridiculous in the next generation, and the mythology of Milton's
great poem was incredible or revolting to his successors. The machinery,
in the old phrase, of a poet becomes obsolete, though when he used it,
it had vitality enough to be a vehicle for his ideas. The imitative
tendency described by Bagehot clearly tends to preserve the old, as much
as to facilitate the adoption of a new form. In fact, to create a really
original and new form seems to exceed the power of any individual, and
the greatest men must desire to speak to their own contemporaries. It is
only by degrees that the inadequacy of the traditional form makes itself
felt, and its successor has to be worked out by a series of tentative
experiments. When a new style has established itself its representatives
hold that the orthodoxy of the previous period was a gross superstition:
and those who were condemned as heretics were really prophets of the
true faith, not yet revealed. However that may be, I am content at
present to say that in fact the development of new literary types is
discontinuous, and implies a compromise between the two conditions which
in literature correspond to conservatism and radicalism. The
conservative work is apt to become a mere survival: while the radical
may include much that has the crudity of an imperfect application of new
principles. Another point may be briefly indicated. The growth of new
forms is obviously connected not only with the intellectual development
but with the social and political state of the nation, and there comes
into close connection with other departments of history. Authors, so far
as I have noticed, generally write with a view to being read. Moreover,
the reading class is at most times a very small part of the population.
A philosopher, I take it, might think himself unusually popular if his
name were known to a hundredth part of the population. But even poe