disadvantages to which those of modern times are are not subjected. If, like Virgil, they had chosen the same time for their action with Homer, they could not transfer to it the heroic spirit of their own day, at least, in its noblest development, they could not make a Cato or a Brutus cotemporary with an Achilles or an Ajax;—they must evoke the heroic spirits of other days, spirits reluctant to obey the spells employed by the magicians of another age. Virgil, as well as every other poet whose action lies in times very far distant from his own, has not the greatest difficulty to overcome, in exhibiting characters moved by those same affections and sympathies which unite the ceaseless generations of men, in giving to the slumbering past the emotions of the present; but in adapting to the story of a former age, and perhaps foreign nation, that peculiar system of manners which constitutes the outward development of the heroic spirit, and of which no mind, but such as has been subjected to its actual influence, can either strongly feel or vividly describe. These manners perish with their age, - there is no hand of enchantment to wave over them and convert them, like the fabled city of Arabian romance, into living stone; no convulsion of nature, like that which covered Pompeii, to wrap them in a veil which future ages might withdraw, and permit them, untouched by the hand of time, to stand unimpaired

amid the ruins of the past, and gaze with wonder on the new-risen generations of men. But if, like Lucan, they took their subject from the hands of History, the skepticism of a more advanced age deprived them of the use of machinery, and consequently of the power of exciting that admiration, which is the leading aim of the epic poem.

need not stop to show how ridiculous Iris would have appeared on the plains of Pharsalia bringing a sword to Pompey, or Venus coming to snatch him away in a cloud. It is evident that the poet, forced to follow in the same path with the historian, must feel the bonds of reality continually restraining and checking his native energies.

These difficulties the influence of Christianity overcame, but subjected the epic poet to others still more discouraging, as I shall endeavor to show by a brief reference to Tasso, Dante, and Milton.

The subject chosen by Tasso, and the time of the action of his poem, bore the same relation to Christian civilization as Homer's did to Grecian. It was the only age in which the heroic Christian character could be fully manifested in outward action. This resulted from a peculiar state of the mind which, as we have said in regard to heroic manners, perishes with its age, with the circumstances that called it forth. It was a new development of the Homeric spirit modified by Christianity. The interest as in

the Iliad and neid is all without, and this it is which gives to the poem of Tasso, as to the other two, the true epic interest, and adds a dignity to the manners of these poems belonging to no other, where the subject is taken from the common events of life. The subject, too, as it presented a scene for the display of action resulting from a purer faith, possesses a dignity far surpassing that of his two great predecessors. Thus fortunate in his subject and in the time of his action, he was equally favored by the popular belief of his age. By the superstition of his own time he was enabled to oppose with success the light of reality which was thrown around his subject by history, and give to it that supernatural interest, which is found so capable of exciting admiration. However, in our cooler moments, we may laugh at his magicians and their incantations, as they are not mere embodied abstractions, like, Voltaire's agents, but founded on the actual belief of his day, they will always possess a reality to the mind; and, when in reading we have yielded for a time to our feelings, will again assert their power. We have placed Tasso before Dante, in order of time, because he has given an earlier development, of the heroic character. He would, doubtless, have possessed as well as Virgil, whom he has so closely followed, greater originality, and more strongly ex

hibited that development, had he lived nearer the age he endeavored to portray.

The effect of Christianity was to make the individual mind the great object of regard, the centre of eternal interest, and transferring the scene of action from the outward world to the world within, to give to all modern literature the dramatic tendency, – and as the mind of Homer led him to sing of the physical conflicts of his heroes with visible gods without; so the soul of the modern poet, feeling itself contending with motives of godlike power within, must express that conflict in the dramatic form, in the poetry of sentiment. Were the present a fit opportunity, Shakspeare might afford us still farther illustrations of this truth, and especially in the character of Hamlet, of whom a critic has truly said, 66 we love him not, we think of him not, because he is witty, because he was melancholy, because he was filial; but we love him because he existed, and was himself. This is the sum total of the impression. I believe that of every other character, either in tragic or epic poetry, the story makes part of the conception; but of Hamlet the deep and permanent interest is the conception of himself. This seems to belong not to the character being more perfectly drawn, but to there being a more intense conception of individual human life, than perhaps in any other human composition."

The Sartor Resartus, Lamartine's Pilgrimage, Wordsworth's poem on the Growth of an Individual Mind, all obey the same law, which is, that as Christianity influences us, we shall lay open to the world what has been long hidden, what has before been done in the secret corners of our own bosoms; the knowledge of which can alone make our intercourse with those about us different from what it is too fast becoming, an intercourse of the eye and the ear and the hand and the tongue. This may serve to reveal to us more clearly the principle which led to the selection of the subjects of all the great epic poems of modern times; for it was only by making man the subject, around which might be gathered the material forms of grandeur and beauty, that an interest could be imparted to the epic corresponding to that of the drama. The poem of Tasso forms the only exception to this remark, and this, as we have shown, does but confirm our observation; for it represents the mind essentially pagan, yet moved by Christianity, and finding, like the Greek, all its motive for action without. Our interest in the poem is consequently much less than in those which exhibit the later developments of the Christian heroic character.

By removing the bounds of time, Christianity has, I think, rendered every finite subject unsuited for an epic poem. The Christian creed, in opening the