Page 142 of 1391

The obscurities of early Greek poets arose necessarily out of the

state of language and logic which existed in their age. They are

not examples to be followed by us; for the use of language ought

in every generation to become clearer and clearer. Like

Shakespere, they were great in spite, not in consequence, of

their imperfections of expression. But there is no reason for

returning to the necessary obscurity which prevailed in the

infancy of literature. The English poets of the last century were

certainly not obscure; and we have no excuse for losing what they

had gained, or for going back to the earlier or transitional age

which preceded them. The thought of our own times has not

out-stripped language; a want of Plato's 'art of measuring' is

the rule cause of the disproportion between them.