time and genius, might develop into a poetical growth,
doubtless less pure, but certainly more complex in its harmonies, and of
a more expressive form of beauty. The history of our ancient poetry,
traced in a few lines by Boileau, clearly shows to what degree he either
ignored or misrepresented it. The singular, confused architecture of
Gothic cathedrals gave those who saw beauty in symmetry of line and
purity of form but further evidence of the clumsiness and perverted taste
of our ancestors. All remembrances of the great poetic works of the
Middle Ages is completely effaced. No one supposes in those barbarous
times the existence of ages classical also in their way; no one imagines
either their heroic songs or romances of adventure, either the rich
bounty of lyrical styles or the naive, touching crudity of the Christian
drama. The seventeenth century turned disdainfully away from the
monuments of national genius discovered by it; finding them sometimes
shocking in their rudeness, sometimes puerile in their refinements.
These unfortunate exhumations, indeed, only serve to strengthen its cult
for a simple, correct beauty, the models of which are found in Greece and
Rome. Why dream of penetrating the darkness of our origin? Contemporary
society is far too self-satisfied to seek distraction in the study of a
past which it does not comprehend. The subjects and heroes of domestic
history are also prohibited. Corneille is Latin, Racine is Greek; the
very name of Childebrande suffices to cover an epopee with
ridicule.--_Pellissier_, pp. 7-8.

[3] "Epistle to Augustus."

[4] "Epistle of Augustus."

[5] _I.e._, learning.

[6] "Life of Dryden."

[7] "Epistle to Augustus."

[8] The tradition as to Chaucer, Spenser, and Milton is almost equally
continuous. A course of what Lowell calls "penitential reading," in
Restoration criticism, will convince anyone that these four names already
stood out distinctly, as those of the four greatest English poets. See
especially Winstanley, "Lives of the English Poets," 1687; Langbaine, "An
Account of the English Dramatic Poets," 1691; Dennis, "Essay on the
Genius and Writings of Shakspere," 1712; Gildon, "The Complete Art of
Poetry," 1718. The fact mentioned by Macaulay, that Sir Wm. Temple's
"Essay on Ancient and Modern Learning" names none of the four, is without
importance. Temple refers by name to only three English "wits," Sidney,
Bacon, and Selden. This very superficia