pleasure of the greatest number,' it is certain that less
stringent forms of reproduction are required and justified. The
great majority of readers cannot bring either leisure or taste,
or information sufficient to take them through a large mass (at
any rate) of ancient verse, not even if it be Spenser's or
Milton's. Manners and modes of speech, again, have changed; and
much that was admissible centuries since, or at least sought
admission, has now, by a law against which protest is idle,
lapsed into the indecorous. Even unaccustomed forms of spelling
are an effort to the eye;--a kind of friction, which diminishes
the ease and enjoyment of the reader.

These hindrances and clogs, of very diverse nature, cannot be
disregarded by Poetry. In common with everything which aims at
human benefit, she must work not only for the 'faithful': she
has also the duty of 'conversion.' Like a messenger from heaven,
it is hers to inspire, to console, to elevate: to convert the
world, in a word, to herself. Every rough place that slackens
her footsteps must be made smooth; nor, in this Art, need there
be fear that the way will ever be vulgarized by too much ease,
nor that she will be loved less by the elect, for being loved
more widely.

Passing from these general considerations, it is true that a
selection framed in conformity with them, especially if one of
our older poets be concerned, parts with a certain portion of the
pleasure which poetry may confer. A writer is most thoroughly to
be judged by the whole of what he printed. A selector inevitably
holds too despotic a position over his author. The frankness of
speech which we have abandoned is an interesting evidence how the