his epistles to Martha Blount and Dr. Arbuthnot. None the less, the
general philosophy of Young's remarks is sound enough. We should reverence
tradition in literature, but not superstitiously. Too much awe of the old
masters may easily scare a modern into hiding his talent in a napkin.
True, we are not in much danger of servitude to tradition in literature
to-day. We no longer imitate the ancients; we only imitate each other. On
the whole, we wish there was rather more sense of the tradition in
contemporary writing. The danger of arbitrary egoism is quite as great as
the danger of classicism. Luckily, Young, in stating the case against the
classicists, has at the same time stated perfectly the case for
familiarity with the classics. "It is," he declares, "but a sort of noble
contagion, from a general familiarity with their writings, and not by any
particular sordid theft, that we can be the better for those who went
before us," However we may deride a servile classicism, we should always
set out assuming the necessity of the "noble contagion for every man of
letters."

The truth is, the man of letters must in some way reconcile himself to the
paradox that he is at once the acolyte and the rival of the ancients.
Young is optimistic enough to believe that it is possible to surpass them.
In the mechanic arts, he complains, men are always attempting to go beyond
their predecessors; in the liberal arts, they merely try to follow them.
The analogy between the continuous advance of science and a possible
continuous advance in literature is perhaps, a misleading one. Professor
Gilbert Murray, in _Religio Grammatici_, bases much of his argument on a
denial that such an analogy should be drawn. Literary genius cannot be
bequeathed and added to as a scientific discovery can. The modern poet
does not stand on Shakespeare's shoulders as the modern astronomer stands
on Galileo's shoulders. Scientific discovery is progressive. Literary
genius, like religious genius, is a miracle less dependent on time. None
the less, we may reasonably believe that literature, like science, has
ever new worlds to conquer--that, even if AEschylus and Shakespeare cannot
be surpassed, names as great as theirs may one day be added to the roll of
literary fame. And this will be possible only if men in each generation
are determined, in the words of Goldsmith, "bravely to shake off
admiration, and, undazzled by the splendour of another's reputation, to
chalk