s the human mind
within a certain sphere of belief, but it predisposes the mind to adopt
one faith rather than another. An aristocratic people will always be
prone to place intermediate powers between God and man. In this respect
it may be said that the aristocratic element is favorable to poetry.
When the universe is peopled with supernatural creatures, not palpable
to the senses but discovered by the mind, the imagination ranges
freely, and poets, finding a thousand subjects to delineate, also find
a countless audience to take an interest in their productions. In
democratic ages it sometimes happens, on the contrary, that men are as
much afloat in matters of belief as they are in their laws. Scepticism
then draws the imagination of poets back to earth, and confines them to
the real and visible world. Even when the principle of equality does
not disturb religious belief, it tends to simplify it, and to divert
attention from secondary agents, to fix it principally on the Supreme
Power. Aristocracy naturally leads the human mind to the contemplation
of the past, and fixes it there. Democracy, on the contrary, gives men
a sort of instinctive distaste for what is ancient. In this respect
aristocracy is far more favorable to poetry; for things commonly grow
larger and more obscure as they are more remote; and for this twofold
reason they are better suited to the delineation of the ideal.

After having deprived poetry of the past, the principle of equality
robs it in part of the present. Amongst aristocratic nations there are a
certain number of privileged personages, whose situation is, as it were,
without and above the condition of man; to these, power, wealth, fame,
wit, refinement, and distinction in all things appear peculiarly to
belong. The crowd never sees them very closely, or does not watch them
in minute details; and little is needed to make the description of such
men poetical. On the other hand, amongst the same people, you will meet
with classes so ignorant, low, and enslaved, that they are no less fit
objects for poetry from the excess of their rudeness and wretchedness,
than the former are from their greatness and refinement. Besides, as
the different classes of which an aristocratic community is composed
are widely separated, and imperfectly acquainted with each other, the
imagination may always represent them with some addition to, or some
subtraction from, what they really are. In democratic communities, wh