more pretentious poetry shall have passed away. Neither criticism nor
contemporary popularity can decide such questions.

Scott himself seemed to take a true view. In a letter to Miss Seward, he
said:--

"The immortality of poetry is not so firm a point in my creed as the
immortality of the soul."

'I've lived too long,
And seen the death of much immortal song.'

"Nay, those that have really attained their literary immortality have
gained it under very hard conditions. To some it has not attached till
after death. To others it has been the means of lauding personal vices
and follies which had otherwise been unremembered in their epitaphs; and
all enjoy the same immortality under a condition similar to that of
Noureddin in an Eastern tale. Noureddin, you remember, was to enjoy the
gift of immortality, but with this qualification,--that he was subjected
to long naps of forty, fifty, or a hundred years at a time. Even so
Homer and Virgil slumbered through whole centuries. Shakspeare himself
enjoyed undisturbed sleep from the age of Charles I., until Garrick
waked him. Dryden's fame has nodded; that of Pope begins to be drowsy;
Chaucer is as sound as a top, and Spenser is snoring in the midst of his
commentators. Milton, indeed, is quite awake; but, observe, he was at
his very outset refreshed with a nap of half-a-century; and in the midst
of all this we sons of degeneracy talk of immortality! Let me please my
own generation, and let those who come after us judge of their facts and
my performances as they please; the anticipation of their neglect or
censure will affect me very little."