all these lists is that they seek to
single out an arbitrary number of works of the highest distinction,
instead of trying to find out the few men of supreme genius who were
actually the makers of acknowledged masterpieces. It is of no
consequence whether we hold that 'Hamlet' or 'Macbeth' is the most
splendid example of Shakspere's surpassing endowment, or whether we
consider the 'Fourth Symphony' or the 'Seventh' the completest
expression of Beethoven's mastery of music. What it is of consequence
for us to recognize and to grasp effectually is that Shakspere and
Beethoven are two of the indisputable chiefs, each in his own sphere.
What it imports us to realize is that there is in every art a little
group of supreme leaders; they may be two or three only; they may be
half a dozen, or, at the most, half a score; but they stand in the
forefront, and their supremacy is inexpugnable for all time.

Every one recognizes to-day that "certain poets like Dante and
Shakspere, certain composers like Beethoven and Mozart, hold the
foremost place in their art." So Taine insisted, adding that this
foremost place is also "accorded to Goethe, among the writers of our
century; to Rembrandt among the Dutch painters; to Titian among the
Venetians." And then Taine asserted also that "three artists of the
Italian renascence, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael, rise,
by unanimous consent, far above all others."

No doubt this list of supreme leaders in the arts is unduly scanted; but
there is wisdom in Taine's parsimony of praise. The great names he has
here selected for signal eulogy are those whose appeal is universal and
whose fame far transcends the boundaries of any single race.

It may have been from Sainte-Beuve that Taine inherited his catholicity
of taste and his elevation of judgment; and it was due to the influence
of Sainte-Beuve also that Matthew Arnold attained to a breadth of vision
denied to most other British critics. Arnold invited us to "conceive of
the whole group of civilized nations as being, for intellectual and
spiritual purposes, one great confederation whose members have a due
knowledge both of the past out of which they all proceed, and of one
another." He went on to suggest that for any artist or poet "to be
recognized by the verdict of such a confederation as a master is indeed
glory, a glory which it would be difficult to rate too highly. For what
could be more beneficent, more salutary? The world i