way through the Dark Ages, yet, when we have finished it, the
bubble collapses, the little heavens which had been framed about us roll
away, and most rarely does a character remain poetically significant in
the mind.

A contrast of any page of an epic with one of a romance will show
their essential unlikeness. Note, for instance, the beginning of the
"Gerusalemme Liberata." The first stanza presents "the illustrious
captain who warred for Heaven and saved the sepulchre of Christ,--the
many deeds which he wrought by arms and by wisdom,--his great toil, and
his glorious achievement. Hell opposed him, the mingled populations
of Asia and Africa leagued against him,--but all in vain, for Heaven
smiled, and guided the wandering bands beneath his sacred ensigns." Such
are the splendid elements of the poem, outlining in a stanza the finest
type, objects, and scenery of mediaeval heroism. The second stanza
invokes the Muse,--"Not thou whose brow was wreathed with the unenduring
bays of Helicon, but thou who in angelic choirs hast a golden crown set
with immortal stars,--do thou breathe celestial ardor into the poet's
heart!" Then follows an allusion to a profound matter of temper and
experience. He prays that "the Muse will pardon, if sometimes he adorn
his page with other charms than her own; for thus, perhaps, he may
win the world to his higher meanings, shrouding severe truths in soft
verses. As the rim of the bitter cup is sweetened which is extended to
the sick child, so may he, by beauties not quite Christian, attract
mankind to read his whole poem to their health." Such is the stately
soaring of the epical Muse, the Muse of ideal history. Scholars find
Greece completely prefigured in Homer, and the time may come when Dante
and Tasso shall be the leading authorities for the history of the Middle
Ages, and Milton for that of the ages of Protestantism.

In such comparison novels are insignificant and imbecile. Though, like
"Contarini Fleming," they may begin with a magnificent paragraph, and
fine passages be scattered through the volumes, they are yet rarely
stories of ideas as well as persons, rarely succeed in involving events
of more than temporary interest, and rarely, perhaps, should be called
great mental products.

Not less strikingly does the difference between the epic and the novel
appear in their different uses. The one is the inspiration of great
historical action, the other of listless repose. The statesman,