196 SfrlNBURNE S TRAGEDIES. 



the change of a word or in the order of a period to have 

 been foisted on Sir Thomas Malory as his own composition. 

 The choosing a theme which JEschylus had handled in one 

 of his lost tragedies is justified by a certain -&amp;lt;9Eschylean 

 flavour in the treatment. The opening, without deserving to 

 be called a mere imitation, recalls that of the &quot; Agamemnon,&quot; 

 and the chorus has often an imaginative lift in it, an ethereal 

 charm of praise, of which it is the highest praise to say that 

 it reminds us of him who soars over the other Greek 

 tragedians like an eagle. 



But in spite of many merits, we cannot help asking our 

 selves, as we close the book, whether &quot;Atalanta&quot; can be 

 called a success, and if so, whether it be a success in the 

 right direction. The poem reopens a question which in 

 some sort touches the very life of modern literature. We 

 do not mean to renew the old quarrel of Fontenelle s day 

 as to the comparative merits of ancients and moderns. 

 That is an affair of taste, which does not admit of any 

 authoritative settlement. Our concern is about a principle 

 which certainly demands a fuller discussion, and which is 

 important enough to deserve it. Do we show our apprecia 

 tion of the Greeks most wisely in attempting the mechanical 

 reproduction of their forms, or by endeavouring to compre 

 hend the thoughtful spirit of full-grown manhood in which 

 they wrought, to kindle ourselves by the emulation of it, 

 and to bring it to bear with all its plastic force upon our 

 wholly new conditions of life and thought 1 It seems to us 

 that the question is answered by the fact, patent in the 

 history of all the fine arts, that every attempt at reproduc 

 ing a bygone excellence by external imitation of it, or even 

 by applying the rules which analytic criticism has formu 

 lated from the study of it, has resulted in producing the 

 artificial, and not the artistic. That most subtile of all 

 essences in physical organisation, which eludes chemist, 

 anatomist, and microscopist, the life, is in aesthetics not less 

 shy of the critic, and will not come forth in obedience to 

 his most learned spells ; for the very good reason that it 

 cannot, because in all works of art it is the joint product of 



