eriod of dreariness and decay, agreeably reminds us
of the splendour of its June. A second harvest is gathered in; though,
growing on a spent soil, it has not the heart of the former. Thus, in
the present age, Monti has successfully imitated the style of Dante;
and something of the Elizabethan inspiration has been caught by several
eminent countrymen of our own. But never will Italy produce another
Inferno, or England another Hamlet. We look on the beauties of the
modern imaginations with feelings similar to those with which we see
flowers disposed in vases, to ornament the drawing-rooms of a capital.
We doubtless regard them with pleasure, with greater pleasure, perhaps,
because, in the midst of a place ungenial to them, they remind us of the
distant spots on which they flourish in spontaneous exuberance. But we
miss the sap, the freshness, and the bloom. Or, if we may borrow another
illustration from Queen Scheherezade, we would compare the writers
of this school to the jewellers who were employed to complete the
unfinished window of the palace of Aladdin. Whatever skill or cost could
do was done. Palace and bazaar were ransacked for precious stones. Yet
the artists, with all their dexterity, with all their assiduity, and
with all their vast means, were unable to produce anything comparable
to the wonders which a spirit of a higher order had wrought in a single
night.

The history of every literature with which we are acquainted confirms,
we think, the principles which we have laid down. In Greece we see
the imaginative school of poetry gradually fading into the critical.
Aeschylus and Pindar were succeeded by Sophocles, Sophocles by
Euripides, Euripides by the Alexandrian versifiers. Of these last,
Theocritus alone has left compositions which deserve to be read. The
splendour and grotesque fairyland of the Old Comedy, rich with such
gorgeous hues, peopled with such fantastic shapes, and vocal alternately
with the sweetest peals of music and the loudest bursts of elvish
laughter, disappeared forever. The master-pieces of the New Comedy are
known to us by Latin translations of extraordinary merit. From these
translations, and from the expressions of the ancient critics, it is
clear that the original compositions were distinguished by grace and
sweetness, that they sparkled with wit, and abounded with pleasing
sentiment; but that the creative power was gone. Julius Caesar called
Terence a half Menander,--a sure proof th