12-i POETKY 



as well as danger in an endeavor to concentrate in a single subject those 

 various powers which, rising from different points, naturally move 

 in different directions." But genius is genius precisely because it 

 knows how to overcome apparently insuperable difficulties. If it had 

 not been for the authority of Sir Joshua, apparently on the other 

 side, I should have ventured to suggest that the particular combina- 

 tion of qualities he supposes was to be found in the statue of the 

 Apollo Belvedere, and I am at least confident that it is well within 

 the reach of poetry, which of all the arts is the one with most capacity 

 for the imitation of contrary qualities in action. 



It is not too much to say that in English Poetry the reconciliation 

 of contraries is the character impressed on the works of a long suc- 

 cession of great poets, who have been so conscious of the strife of 

 principles in their own sphere, and of the dominant tendencies in the 

 spirit of their age, that they have each known how to imitate in an 

 ideal form the movement of life in Nature and Society. "We see, 

 for example, the principle at work in the Vision of Piers the Plowman, 

 in which the poet's powerful but confused attempt to work out an 

 ideal scheme of harmony between Church and State so strikingly 

 anticipates the actual course of events at the Reformation. We see it, 

 too, in the brilliant, vivacious, squabbling company of Chaucer's pil- 

 grims to the shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury, the representatives 

 of so many opposing interests and so many distinct orders in society, 

 yet all united by the sense of a common religious duty to be per- 

 formed, and already so far advanced in the art of self-government as 

 to be willing to compose their quarrels under the general and mod- 

 e-rating guidance of the host of The Tabard. The most profound and 

 comprehensive conception of the mingled tragedy and comedy of 

 life ever expressed in poetry is to be found in the dramas of Shakes- 

 peare, in whose goniu? the elements are so mixed that it is difficult 

 to say whether the spirit of the ancient Church, of the Eeformation, 

 or of Humanism, is the stronger. The Satires of Pope, faithfully 

 reflecting in this respect the genius of the eighteenth century, seem 

 almost to eliminate the mediaeval element from the national imag- 

 ination, in a purely civic development of the principle of the Renais- 

 sance: but in Byron and Tennyson the spirit of individual liberty 

 returns on the top of the lido, seeking, under the guise of mediaeval 

 forms, to express, its revolt against the classic and aristocratic con- 

 vention- of the eighteenth century, without, however, losing sight of 

 the historic conflict of principles in English Poetry. 



In future lectures I shall hope to illustrate the working of this law 

 of national character more fully and particularly from the practice 

 of our most representative poets. Meantime, let me say a few con- 

 cluding words about the kind of test we ought to apply, to see whether 

 the law i= fulfilled in any work of contemporary English poetry that 



