

EVOLUTIONARY PRINCIPLES 49 



latent in the partially exhausted type. To create a new type, 

 while the old one is existent, baffles human ingenuity, because 

 the type is an expression of the people's mind, and has its 

 roots deep down in the stuff of national character. Men 

 cannot escape the influences of their age ; it is not their fault 

 if they belong to the obscure period of origins or to the sorry 

 period of decadence. All have not the good fortune to be 

 born in the prime and mature splendour of their nation's art. 

 After meridian accomplishment, a progressive deterioration of 

 the type becomes inevitable and cannot be arrested. Are we, 

 for example, to suppose that in the age of Vasari and Bron- 

 zino at Florence there were not painters equal in artistic gifts 

 to Ghirlandajo, Botticelli, Fra Bartolommeo ? The supposi- 

 tion is absurd when we call to mind the profusion of such 

 natures born in Florence during the fifteenth century. So 

 far as capacity goes, there must have been abundance of 

 good craftsmen. The reason why these did not manifest 

 their genius on the same lines is that Painting had per- 

 formed its curve, fulfilled its cycle, displayed its several 

 aspects, effloresced, and been exhausted. In other words, 

 there was no longer the old type to use. Is it credible that 

 in England, after Davenant, there were not men of equal 

 calibre with Webster and Beaumont ? No ; but such men 

 could not produce Romantic dramas, because the Romantic 

 Drama, as a type, had been accomplished. Their genius was 

 compelled to seek other means of self -manifestation. Without 

 the theory I am attempting to demonstrate, I do not see how 

 we are to explain the fact that a nation like the English or 

 the Greek at one very brief period of its existence, some fifty 

 years perhaps, exhibits a marvellous fecundity of dramatic 

 power, while before and afterwards, although the theatre con- 

 tinues, production of the same quality ceases. The reason 

 why Italian Romantic poetry passed away in caricature and 

 parody is, not that there was nobody in Italy capable of 

 writing Romantic epics, and nobody who cared to read them, 

 but that the thing itself, which had originated with the 

 obscure street-singers of Roland, to which Boccaccio had 

 contributed form, which Pulci and Boiardo had developed 



