430 The Field of Monuments : a Vision. [APRIL, 



the sun sinks low, and the journey across the waste is long and weary/' 

 We accordingly quickened our steps, and soon approaching the group, 

 which, however, was not concentrated, but scattered over a considerable 

 space, I remarked about a dozen of pillars, more elevated than the rest ; 

 all of them of vast altitude, some of them towering almost beyond the 

 reach of vision, but no two among the twelve precisely equal in height. 

 I read the names of Milton, Shakspeare, Moliere, Cervantes, Corneille, 

 Petrarch, Tasso, Spencer, Bacon, Dante. 



" Let us pause here/' said my companion, as we reached the pillar 

 upon which was inscribed the name of Milton. 



" I perceive," said I, " that this monument is not eclipsed in height 

 by any that surrounds it/' 



" Why should it be eclipsed," returned my companion ; " for is not 

 the production of a great epic poem the highest effort of the human race ? 

 It embraces within itself the rudiments of every other species of poetry. 

 In the invention and disposition of the plot, and in sustaining the chief 

 and subordinate characters, the dramatic art is largely required : in the 

 episodes, are demanded the endowments of the lyric muse ; while the 

 conduct of the narrative calls for all the gifts of the descriptive and 

 didactic poet/' 



" Tell me one thing," said I ; " how is it, since such various and such 

 exalted qualifications are required by the poet who attempts the epic, 

 that the nearest approaches which have been made towards perfection 

 should have been in the infancy of the respective languages in which the 

 attempt has been made with success ; the works of Homer, Milton, and 

 Dante, were each of them the first fruits of a language just emerged 

 from barbarism." 



" There is an epoch," replied my companion, " in the history of a 

 language, when alone it is competent to sustain the weight of the highest 

 production to which the mind is able to give birth ; and if no genius 

 sufficiently mighty to achieve this undertaking should arise in that par- 

 ticular era, the language will never afterwards boast of this highest 

 effort of the poetic power." 



" I should imagine," said I, glancing at the same time up the gigantic 

 column, " that this pillar is meant to commemorate perfection." 



" Perfection," replied my companion, " belongs not to human efforts ; 

 unbounded as was the genius of Milton, extraordinary as was his learn- 

 ing, splendid as was his subject, and immense the resources with which 

 he came to it, stored as he was with a perfect knowledge of all the great 

 models of antiquity, the treasures of the early Italian, and the powers 

 and facilities of his own unrivalled tongue, it may yet be said that Mil- 

 ton has not entirely succeeded in the object of his work. The pure 

 illimitable attributes of the f great first cause least understood' baffle the 

 feeble powers of man, and are contemplated with sentiments of awe, 

 which even the loftiest flights weaken and debase." . 



" But," said I, " were not the same difficulties opposed to the epic 

 poets of the ancient world ?" 



" No," said my companion ; " the mythology of the Greeks and 

 Romans does not oppose the same difficulties ; their gods were carnal 

 gods, fraught with human passions and human failings, and differed in 

 nothing from the inhabitants of your * sin-worn mould,' except in being 

 gifted with superhuman powers, and present immortality." 



" These/' said my companion, glancing towards the other lofty pillar 



