ve
been superior to any other; provided that, in that age, by some rare
and happy chance, a few just men, capable of judging in the sphere of
his achievements, had been born at the same time with him; just as
when, according to a beautiful Indian myth, Vischnu becomes incarnate
as a hero, so, too, Brahma at the same time appears as the singer of
his deeds; and hence Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa are incarnations of
Brahma.

In this sense, then, it may be said that every immortal work puts its
age to the proof, whether or no it will be able to recognize the merit
of it. As a rule, the men of any age stand such a test no better than
the neighbors of Philemon and Baucis, who expelled the deities they
failed to recognize. Accordingly, the right standard for judging the
intellectual worth of any generation is supplied, not by the great
minds that make their appearance in it--for their capacities are the
work of Nature, and the possibility of cultivating them a matter of
chance circumstance--but by the way in which contemporaries receive
their works; whether, I mean, they give their applause soon and with
a will, or late and in niggardly fashion, or leave it to be bestowed
altogether by posterity.

This last fate will be especially reserved for works of a high
character. For the happy chance mentioned above will be all the more
certain not to come, in proportion as there are few to appreciate
the kind of work done by great minds. Herein lies the immeasurable
advantage possessed by poets in respect of reputation; because their
work is accessible to almost everyone. If it had been possible for Sir
Walter Scott to be read and criticised by only some hundred persons,
perhaps in his life-time any common scribbler would have been
preferred to him; and afterwards, when he had taken his proper place,
it would also have been said in his honor that he was _in advance of
his age_. But if envy, dishonesty and the pursuit of personal aims are
added to the incapacity of those hundred persons who, in the name of
their generation, are called upon to pass judgment on a work, then
indeed it meets with the same sad fate as attends a suitor who pleads
before a tribunal of judges one and all corrupt.

In corroboration of this, we find that the history of literature
generally shows all those who made knowledge and insight their goal
to have remained unrecognized and neglected, whilst those who
paraded with the vain show of it received the admira