and
AEschylus in ancient times--Dante, Michael Angelo, Ariosto, and Shakspeare
in modern, belong to this exalted class. Each in his own department has
struck out a new range of thought, and created a fresh brood of ideas,
which, on "winged words," have taken their flight to distant regions, and
to the end of the world will never cease to delight and influence mankind.
Subsequent ages may refine their images, expand their sentiments, perhaps
improve their expression; but they add little to the stock of their
conceptions. The very greatness of their predecessors precludes fresh
creations: the furrows of the ancient wheels are so deep that the modern
chariot cannot avoid falling into them. So completely in all persons of
education are the great works of antiquity incorporated with thought, that
they arise involuntarily with every exercise of the faculty of taste, and
insensibly recur to the cultivated mind, with all that it admires, and
loves, and venerates.

But though originality of conception, the creation of imagery, and the
invention of events belong to early ages, delicacy of taste, refinement of
sentiment, perfection of expression, are the growth of a more advanced
period of society. The characters which are delineated by the hand of
Genius in early times, are those bold and original ones in which the
features are distinctly marked, the lines clearly drawn, the peculiarities
strongly brought out. The images which are adopted are those which have
first occurred to the creative mind in forming a world of fancy: the
similes employed, those which convey to the simple and unlettered mind the
clearest or most vivid conception of the idea or event intended to be
illustrated. Valour, pride, resolution, tenderness, patriotism, are the
mental qualities which are there portrayed in imaginary characters, and
called forth by fictitious events: and it is this first and noblest
delineation of mental qualities in an historical gallery which has
rendered the _Iliad_ immortal. The images and similes of Homer are drawn
from a close observation of nature, but they are not very varied in their
range: he paints every incident, every occurrence, every feature, but he
is not much diversified in conception, and surprisingly identical in
expression. His similes of a boar beset by hunters, of a lion prowling
round a fold and repelled by the spear of the shepherd, of a panther
leaping into a herd of cattle, are represented in the same words whe