it appears to us that both begin most beautifully and end faultily; a perfect Apollo sinking (if we may be pardoned a pun, intelligible only to a foreigner) into a phébus.

"Or view the Lord of the unerring bow,
The god of life and poesy and light-
The sun in human limbs arrayed and brow
All radiant from his triumph in the fight.
The shaft hath just been shot-the arrow bright
With an immortal vengeance; in his eye
And nostril beautiful disdain* and might
And majesty, flash their full lightnings by
Developing in that one glance, the deity.'

The words in italics do not appear to us either in keeping with the image of the Apollo, or appropriate in themselves. "Majesty flashing its lightnings," might be of questionable propriety, i. e. sobriety, any where-most especially, however, is it so, when applied to this statue. So the epithet "full" seems to be quite out of place-and the "by" at the end of the line is clearly there only for the rhyme. We may be wrong, but the pleasure we have uniformly derived from this beautiful stanza, has always been in some degree marred by these imperfections, as they seem to us. But the second is more objectionable.

"But in his delicate form-a dream of love
Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose breast
Longed for a deathless lover from above
And maddened in that vision—are exprest
All that ideal beauty ever bless'd

The mind within its most unearthly mood,
When each conception was a heavenly guest—
A ray of immortality-and stood,

Star-like around, until they gathered to a god."

These last three lines may be fine: there may be some secret meaning in them which we do not seize: we own, however, that they have always appeared to us vague, mystical and extravagant. Of one thing we are very sure, they contribute nothing either to the distinctness or vividness of that image of beauty, which it was the object of the poet to bring out as strongly as possible, and are not like any thing that is to be found in Greek poetry-not excepting the odes of Pindar, or the choruses of the tragedians. Is it good as "romantic" writing?

This fine line is a reminiscence—in part.

"Oh what a deal of scorn looks beautiful In the contempt and anger of that lip.”—Shakspeare. VOL. VII.---NO. 13. 3

This last allusion leads us to remark upon that distinction between the "classical" and "romantic" styles, which Byron, in one of the passages quoted above, alludes to as a novel, and condemns as an absurd, one. We are glad to hear an opinion which we ventured to advance in our first number,* confirmed by so high an authority-for if any writer has a claim to a high place in the new school, it is undoubtedly Byron. The distinction now alluded to, originated in Germany. It was seized by Madame de Staël with avidity, as well adapted to her purposes of metaphysical, mystical and ambitious declamation, and it has since been entertained with more respect than we conceive it deserves, in the literary circles of Europe. A. W. Schlegel in his valuable Lectures upon Dramatic Poetry, makes it the basis of all his comparisons between the ancients and the moderns in that art. His main object is to account for the simplicity of the Greek drama, and its close adherence to the three unities, as well as the rigid exclusion from it of every thing comic and incongruous, on principles which shall explain the difference between that style and the complicated and irregular plots and tragi-comic mixtures of Calderon and Shakspeare, without supposing any inferiority in the latter. It was not enough for him to say, that ancient taste was too fastidious; or that ancient criticism was more severe, as the modern is more indulgentthat the former exacted of genius more than it can perform, at least without a sacrifice of much of its power and enthusiasmwhile the latter unshackles "the muse of fire" and gives it full scope and boundless regions to soar in-and that this is the reason, in short, why Macbeth and Othello are so much better (as we say they are) than the Orestiad or the Edipus'. This did not suit with Schlegel's way of thinking, first, because he was a good scholar, and knew better; and next and principally, because he was a German philosopher, and therefore bound to explain the phenomenon by some subtile process of reasoning of his own invention. This he has attempted to do, and the result (as we understand it) is, that in all the arts of taste, the genius of modern times is essentially different from that of the Greeks, and requires, for its gratification, works of a structure totally distinct from those which he admits to have been the best imaginable models of the classic style.

The principle, by which it is attempted to account for this mighty revolution in art and criticism, is religion. That of the Greeks we are told was "the deification of the powers of nature and of earthly life." Under a southern sky, amidst the

Article I.-Classical Learning.

sweets of a genial and radiant climate, genius naturally dreams of joy and beauty, and the forms with which a poetical fancy peopled heaven, were fashioned upon those with which it was familiar on earth. A gay, sensual, and elegant mythology, grew up under its plastic hands-its visions of ideal perfection were embodied in the idols of superstitious worship,-and Venus, Apollo, Minerva, Hercules, &c. have been individualized as images of certain attributes, and identified with the conceptions of all mankind, by the master-pieces which they may be said to have patronized, since they were created to adorn their temples or to grace their festivals. But this system of religious adoration was confined to the present life, addressed itself exclusively to the senses, exacted of the worshipper only forms and oblations, and confirmed him in the tranquil self-complacency or the joyous spirit which the face of nature and the circumstances of his own condition inspired. Christianity was, in all these particulars, the very opposite of Paganism. It added to the material world, a mysterious world of spirits-it substituted the infinite for the finite, an endless future for the transitory present-at the end of every vista in life, it presents the grave, and it has shrouded the grave itself in a deeper gloom, and made death emphatically the King of Terrors. But Schlegel has expressed himself so well upon this subject, that we are tempted to quote a long passage from him:

"Among the Greeks, human nature was in itself all suffi'cient; they were conscious of no wants, and aspired at no higher 'perfection than that which they could actually attain by the 'exercise of their own faculties. We, however, are taught by 'superior wisdom, that man, through a high offence, forfeited the 'place for which he was originally destined: and that the whole 'object of his earthly existence is to strive to regain that situation 'which if left to his own strength, he could never accomplish. 'The religion of the senses had only in view the possession of outward and perishable blessings; and immortality, in so far as it was believed, appeared in an obscure distance like a shadow, a faint dream of this bright and vivid futurity. The very reverse of all this is the case with the Christian: every 'thing finite and mortal is lost in the contemplation of infinity; 'life has become shadow and darkness, and the first dawning of 'our real existence is beyond the grave. Such a religion must ' awaken the foreboding, which slumbers in every feeling heart, 'to the most thorough consciousness, that the happiness after "which we strive, we can never here obtain: that no external object can ever entirely fill our souls, and that every mortal ' enjoyment is but a fleeting and momentary deception. When

'the soul resting, as it were, under the willows of exile, 'breathes out its longing for its distant home, the prevailing 'character of its song must be melancholy. Hence the poetry 'of the ancients was the poetry of enjoyment, and ours is that 'of desire; the former has its foundation in the scene which is 'present, while the latter hovers between recollection and hope. 'Let us not be understood to affirm that every thing flows in 'one strain of wailing and complaint, and that the voice of 'melancholy must always be loudly heard. As the austerity of 'tragedy was not incompatible with the joyous views of the 'Greeks, so the romantic poetry can assume every tone, even 'that of the most lively gladness; but still it will always in some 'shape or other, bear traces of the source from which it originat'ed. The feeling of the moderns is, upon the whole, more intense, 'their fancy more incorporeal, and their thoughts more contempla'tive."*

Now, we are disposed to assent, in general, to the justness of these observations. We think that modern literature does differ from that of the Greeks in its complexion and spirit-that it is more pensive, sombre and melancholy, perhaps we may add, more abstract and metaphysical-and it has, no doubt, been "sicklied o'er" with this sad hue, by the influence of a religious faith which connects morality with worship, and teaches men to consider every thought, word and action of their lives as involving, in some degree, the tremendous issues of eternity. Macchiavelli has a similar theory of his own. He refers the existence of democratic government among the ancients, and the almost total absence of it in his time, to the same cause. The spirit of polytheism he conceives to have been bold, hardy and masculine, that of Christianity to be so meek, lowly, and self-abasing as to fit its professors for any sort of imposition or contumely.† This notion has been signally refuted by the history of the last three centuries-especially by the exploits of our Puritan and Huguenot ancestors--but the theory of the Florentine secretary is, in practical matters, very much what Schlegel's is in literature. Certainly we are more given to spiritualizing than the Greeks were-sensible objects suggest moral reflections more readily-the external world is treated as if it were the symbol of the invisible, and the superiority of mind to matter, of the soul to the body, is almost as much admitted by the figures of rhetoric and poetry, as in the dogmas of philosophy. There were no Herveys and Dr. Youngs at Athens. The spirit, we repeat it is changed-the

associations which natural objects suggest, are different, of course--but does this alter, in any essential degree, the forms of beauty? Does it affect the proportions which the parts of a work of art ought to bear to each other and to the whole? Does it so far modify the relations of things that what would be fit and proper in a poem, an oration, a colonnade, a picture, if it were ancient, is misplaced and incongruous now? In short, has the philosophy of literature and the arts, the reason, the logic-which controls their execution and results as much as it does the conclusions of science, though in a less palpable manner-undergone any serious revolution? Schlegel and the rest of the same school affirm that such a revolution has taken place. Their favourite illustration of it is, as we have already remarked, the drama and the unities; Shakspeare and Sophocles are the great representatives of the "romantic" and the "classical"-and they compare the former to painting which is various, the latter, to sculpture, which is of course characterized by singleness and simplicity. "Why," say they "are the Greek and romantic poets so different in their practice, with respect to place and time." The question is an interesting one. Many solutions may be offered; and the very last we should adopt would be the following: which, indeed, so far as it is intelligible, is only a different way of asserting the same thing; in other words, a very palpable petitio principii. The principal cause of the difference is the plastic spirit 'of the antique and the picturesque spirit of the romantic poetry. 'Sculpture directs our attention exclusively to the groupe exhi'bited to us, it disentangles it as far as possible from all exter'nal accompaniments, and where they can be altogether dis'pensed with, they are indicated as lightly as possible. Paint'ing, on the other hand, delights in exhibiting in a minute manner, along with the principal figures, the surrounding locality ' and all the secondary objects, and to open to us in the back 'ground, a prospect into a boundless distance; light and perspective are its peculiar charms. Hence the dramatic, and ' especially, the tragic art of the ancients annihilates in some 'measure, the external circumstances of space and time; while 'the romantic drama adorns by their changes its more diversified 'pictures. Or to express myself in other terms, the principles 'of antique poetry is ideal, that of the romantic mystical; the 'former subjects, space and time, to the internal free activity of 'the mind; the latter adores these inconceivable essences as supernatural powers, in whom something of the divinity has 'its abode."*

* Dramatic Lit.-Lect. ix. p. 348.