commonplace, as witness, for example, the more moving and
imaginative passages of the English Bible. On this point consult
Gummere's 'Beginnings of Poetry,' Chapter ii (Rhythm as the Essential
Fact of Poetry, especially pp. 56-60); Watts's article 'Poetry' in the
Encyclopaedia Britannica; and the _Publications of the Modern Language
Association_, xx. 4.

J. CONDITIONS FAVORABLE TO TRAGEDY

10. These considerations may explain to us why the production of a great
tragedy is almost an impossibility in our own time. The age most
favourable to it would seem to be one in which men stand on the edge of
an old and but half-known world--as Aeschylus and Sophocles stood on the
edge of the mythologic, Shakespeare on that of the feudal world--an age
of sufficient culture and reflection for men to be conscious of the
glory they have left behind, while yet civilisation has not reached the
stage of acquiescence in things as they are, and scepticism as to all
beyond them. Those great situations furnished by the mysterious past, in
which passion quits the earth, soon lose their charm, and with the reign
of wonder that of tragedy ceases. At Athens it gives place to the new
comedy, whose highest boast was to copy present life ([Greek: o Menandre
kai Bie, poteros ar' humon poteron apemimesato];):[10] in modern Europe
it has yielded to the novel.

FOOTNOTE:

[10] A saying of Aristophanes, the Grammarian, quoted by Syrianus on
Hermogenes, IV. 101. It may be translated: "O Menander and Life! Which
of you copies the other?"

II. THE NOVEL AN INFERIOR FORM OF ART

A. BEGINNINGS OF THE NOVEL

11. The novel in its proper shape did not come to the birth in England
till the time of Fielding and Richardson, but it had long been in
process of formation. The seventeenth century at its close had lost the
tragic impulse of its youth. The ecstatic hope of a new world, combined
with the sad and wondering recollection of the old, which had raised the
human spirit to the height of the Shakesperian tragedy, had died out,
and the age had become eminently satisfied with itself. Wits,
philosophers, and poets, alike were full of the present time. While the
wits complimented each other on their superiority to the weaknesses of
mankind, they made no scruple of indulging those weaknesses in their own
persons. It was part of their business to do so, for it was part of
"life." The only difference between them and other men was that they