ented, the most inimitable. Had Bunyan
and Defoe been educated gentlemen, they would probably have published
translations and imitations of French romances "by a person of quality."
I am not sure that we should have had Lear if Shakspeare had been able
to read Sophocles.

But these circumstances, while they foster genius, are unfavourable to
the science of criticism. Men judge by comparison. They are unable to
estimate the grandeur of an object when there is no standard by which
they can measure it. One of the French philosophers (I beg Gerard's
pardon), who accompanied Napoleon to Egypt, tells us that, when he first
visited the great Pyramid, he was surprised to see it so diminutive. It
stood alone in a boundless plain. There was nothing near it from which
he could calculate its magnitude. But when the camp was pitched beside
it, and the tents appeared like diminutive specks around its base, he
then perceived the immensity of this mightiest work of man. In the same
manner, it is not till a crowd of petty writers has sprung up that the
merit of the great masterspirits of literature is understood.

We have indeed ample proof that Dante was highly admired in his own and
the following age. I wish that we had equal proof that he was admired
for his excellencies. But it is a remarkable corroboration of what has
been said, that this great man seems to have been utterly unable to
appreciate himself. In his treatise "De Vulgari Eloquentia" he talks
with satisfaction of what he has done for Italian literature, of the
purity and correctness of his style. "Cependant," says a favourite
writer of mine,(Sismondi, Literature du Midi de l'Europe.) "il n'est
ni pur, ni correct, mais il est createur." Considering the difficulties
with which Dante had to struggle, we may perhaps be more inclined than
the French critic to allow him this praise. Still it is by no means his
highest or most peculiar title to applause. It is scarcely necessary to
say that those qualities which escaped the notice of the poet himself
were not likely to attract the attention of the commentators. The fact
is, that, while the public homage was paid to some absurdities with
which his works may be justly charged, and to many more which were
falsely imputed to them,--while lecturers were paid to expound and
eulogise his physics, his metaphysics, his theology, all bad of their
kind--while annotators laboured to detect allegorical meanings of which
the author never dre