APPENDIX A LXIII 



Keats a surgeon's apprentice, Shakespeare had no regular education, 

 all three sprang from, the people; Byron was a nobleman; Shelley 

 belonged to the gentry; Milton and Tennyson were the products of a 

 complete university training. Genius rises superior to conditions of 

 birth, and, being instinctively in harmony with the universal conscious- 

 ness of mankind, transcends the local and particular and illuminates 

 all it touches with 



The light that never was on sea or land, 



the inspiration " and the poet's dream.'' 



Herein lies the difficulty of the immediate appreciation of the 

 highest class of poetry. That in it which is universal appeals eventu- 

 ally to all sorts and conditions of men in all times and places; but, 

 in the meantime, it is judged by the local and particular element — the 

 time-spirit which environs us. Hence the gravest mistakes, both of 

 appreciation and depreciation, have been made, and even the French 

 Academy has not been infallible. Glover's " Leonidas " was received 

 with a general chorus of praise ; it is now practically unknown ; Bailey's 

 " Festus " was supposed to be a poem for all time, but is never |men- 

 tioned now; as for Tupper's " Proverbial Philosophy," no book in recent 

 times has had so great a sale, it is now most deservedly buried beyond 

 hope. On the other hand, " Paradise Lost " fell flat on the public 

 which restored the Stuarts, while Butler's ""' Hudibras " was received 

 with acclaim. "We all know how long Wordsworth, Browning, and 

 Tennyson had to wait for general recognition. Such errors manifest 

 the overpowering influence of transitory conditions on literary judg- 

 ments. Some of Kipling's work will suffer from the same cause, and 

 probably in proportion to its present popularity. 



The principles of poetry were laid down by Aristotle in his 

 " Poetics," and Horace in his ''Art of Poetry." Art, including poetic 

 art, Aristotle defined as an imitation of nature. He did not mean by 

 that a simple repetition or representation of nature; but that the poet 

 is in a true sense a maker, and, while he creates after the manner land 

 on the lines of nature, he adds something from the ideal world of his 

 imagination — something higher, which nature was aiming at but did 

 not attain. In illustration, take our own national emblem, the maple 

 leaf. There are no two mature leaves precisely alike — there is some- 

 thing particular in each, but the variations are within fixed limits. Yet 

 nature had in view an ideal form which may be seen in a young leaf 

 as it unfolds. So also Turner reproduces nature, but the landscape 

 is glorified by his genius. In lik:e manner a great portrait painter 



