erable with the hoar of innumerable
ages. No modern production can have the same atmosphere of sentiment
around it, as the remains of classical antiquity. But then our moderns
may console themselves with the reflection, that they will be old in
their turn, and will either be remembered with still increasing honours,
or quite forgotten!

I would speak of the living poets as I have spoken of the dead (for I
think highly of many of them); but I cannot speak of them with the same
reverence, because I do not feel it; with the same confidence, because I
cannot have the same authority to sanction my opinion. I cannot be
absolutely certain that any body, twenty years hence, will think any
thing about any of them; but we may be pretty sure that Milton and
Shakspeare will be remembered twenty years hence. We are, therefore, not
without excuse if we husband our enthusiasm a little, and do not
prematurely lay out our whole stock in untried ventures, and what may
turn out to be false bottoms. I have myself out-lived one generation of
favourite poets, the Darwins, the Hayleys, the Sewards. Who reads them
now?--If, however, I have not the verdict of posterity to bear me out
in bestowing the most unqualified praises on their immediate successors,
it is also to be remembered, that neither does it warrant me in
condemning them. Indeed, it was not my wish to go into this ungrateful
part of the subject; but something of the sort is expected from me, and
I must run the gauntlet as well as I can. Another circumstance that adds
to the difficulty of doing justice to all parties is, that I happen to
have had a personal acquaintance with some of these jealous votaries of
the Muses; and that is not the likeliest way to imbibe a high opinion of
the rest. Poets do not praise one another in the language of hyperbole.
I am afraid, therefore, that I labour under a degree of prejudice
against some of the most popular poets of the day, from an early habit
of deference to the critical opinions of some of the least popular. I
cannot say that I ever learnt much about Shakspeare or Milton, Spenser
or Chaucer, from these professed guides; for I never heard them say much
about them. They were always talking of themselves and one another. Nor
am I certain that this sort of personal intercourse with living authors,
while it takes away all real relish or freedom of opinion with regard to
their contemporaries, greatly enhances our respect for themselve