rstition; we must perceive when his work comes
short, when it drops out of the class of the very best, and we must
rate it, in such cases, at its proper value. But the use of this
negative criticism is not in itself, it is entirely in its enabling us
to have a clearer sense and a deeper enjoyment of what is truly
excellent. To trace the labour, the attempts, the weaknesses, the
failures of a genuine classic, to acquaint oneself with his time and
his life and his historical relationships, is mere literary
dilettantism unless it has that clear sense and deeper enjoyment for
its end. It may be said that the more we know about a classic the
better we shall enjoy him; and, if we lived as long as Methuselah and
had all of us heads of perfect clearness and wills of perfect
steadfastness, this might be true in fact as it is plausible in theory.
But the case here is much the same as the case with the Greek and Latin
studies of our schoolboys. The elaborate philological groundwork which
we require them to lay is in theory an admirable preparation for
appreciating the Greek and Latin authors worthily. The more thoroughly
we lay the groundwork, the better we shall be able, it may be said, to
enjoy the authors. True, if time were not so short, and schoolboys'
wits not so soon tired and their power of attention exhausted; only, as
it is, the elaborate philological preparation goes on, but the authors
are little known and less enjoyed. So with the investigator of
'historic origins' in poetry. He ought to enjoy the true classic all
the better for his investigations; he often is distracted from the
enjoyment of the best, and with the less good he overbusies himself,
and is prone to over-rate it in proportion to the trouble which it has
cost him.

The idea of tracing historic origins and historical relationships
cannot be absent from a compilation like the present. And naturally
the poets to be exhibited in it will be assigned to those persons for
exhibition who are known to prize them highly, rather than to those who
have no special inclination towards them. Moreover, the very
occupation with an author, and the business of exhibiting him, disposes
us to affirm and amplify his importance. In the present work,
therefore, we are sure of frequent temptation to adopt the historic
estimate, or the personal estimate, and to forget the real estimate;
which latter, nevertheless, we must employ if we are to make poetry
yield us its fu