es
of Mariolatry. The practical induction of Bacon, Earl of Verulam, was
the death-warrant of the fruitless deductive philosophy which had
culminated in the vagaries of Scholasticism. The Declaration of
Independence and the Federation of the States were the iconoclast which
slew the phantom of the divine necessity of kings. It is thus evident
that iconoclasm abounds, and there will be no marvel if it have a place
in literature.

Innovation is a practical synonym of iconoclasm; for an innovation is
putting the new in the place of the old. In ancient literature and
literatures, prose was an innovation as regards poetry; and later,
rhyme was an innovation in the domain of poesy, and an innovation of
such a sort that against it the master-poet, Milton, lifted up his
voice in solemn protest, and the solitary epic in English literature is
a perpetual protestation against the custom. Shakespeare was an
innovator of the laws of the drama when he violated unities of time and
place; and in a sense the drama was an innovation on narrative poetry,
and the novel an iconoclast in its attitude to the drama.

The iconoclasm in literature in our time is objective rather than
subjective; and attention to the spirit of the age will give a
practical comprehension of this iconoclastic spirit.

It must be observed that the literature of an age is largely the
product of that age. Times create literatures. The literature of any
period, in an emphatic sense, will be directly and easily traceable to
something in that age for its peculiarity.

The Iliad and Odyssey were necessities of the age which gave them
birth. In so far as a literature is purely human, in so far will it be
stamped with the seal of the times, customs, and thoughts in the midst
of which it bloomed into beauty. In early Greek times an epic without
its gods and demigods, without resounding battle-shout and din of
mighty conflict, had been an anachronism for which there could have
been offered no apology. The splendid era of Pericles demanded the
tragedy, and such a tragedy as only Aeschylus and Sophocles could
originate; while the foibles of an earlier era made the comedy
imperative. On like principles, the writings of Lucretius are not
enigmatical, but easy of explanation.

The age which made possible the revels of Kenilworth, made possible
also the splendor, like that of setting suns, which characterizes the
"Faerie Queen." And the prowess, the achievement, t