ery plain and calm diction, when known to proceed from a resolved and
impassioned man.

It is especially with reference to the drama, and its characteristics in
any given nation, or at any particular period, that the dependence of
genius on the public taste becomes a matter of the deepest importance. I
do not mean that taste which springs merely from caprice or fashionable
imitation, and which, in fact, genius can, and by degrees will, create for
itself; but that which arises out of wide-grasping and heart-enrooted
causes, which is epidemic, and in the very air that all breathe. This it
is which kills, or withers, or corrupts. Socrates, indeed, might walk arm
in arm with Hygeia, whilst pestilence, with a thousand furies running to
and fro, and clashing against each other in a complexity and agglomeration
of horrors, was shooting her darts of fire and venom all around him. Even
such was Milton; yea, and such, in spite of all that has been babbled by
his critics in pretended excuse for his damning, because for them too
profound excellencies,--such was Shakespeare. But alas! the exceptions
prove the rule. For who will dare to force his way out of the crowd,--not
of the mere vulgar,--but of the vain and banded aristocracy of intellect,
and presume to join the almost supernatural beings that stand by
themselves aloof?

Of this diseased epidemic influence there are two forms especially
preclusive of tragic worth. The first is the necessary growth of a sense
and love of the ludicrous, and a morbid sensibility of the assimilative
power,--an inflammation produced by cold and weakness,--which in the boldest
bursts of passion will lie in wait for a jeer at any phrase, that may have
an accidental coincidence in the mere words with something base or
trivial. For instance,--to express woods, not on a plain, but clothing a
hill, which overlooks a valley, or dell, or river, or the sea,--the trees
rising one above another, as the spectators in an ancient theatre,--I know
no other word in our language (bookish and pedantic terms out of the
question), but _hanging_ woods, the _sylvae superimpendentes_ of Catullus;
yet let some wit call out in a slang tone,--"the gallows!" and a peal of
laughter would damn the play. Hence it is that so many dull pieces have
had a decent run, only because nothing unusual above, or absurd below,
mediocrity furnished an occasion,--a spark for the explosive materials
collected behind the orchestra. But it woul