Again, it may be well to mention also that an American authority insists
on elevating Voltaire also, as the earliest of the modern masters of
history.

So we find that the supreme historians are three at the least, and at
most four or five, just as the supreme poets are four, the supreme
masters of prose are perhaps six, and the supreme orators are only two.
And if we apply the same standards, if we disregard personal and
provincial and national predilections and preferences, if we try to take
the verdict of the cosmopolitan tribunal, we should find that the
supreme dramatists are but three--Sophocles, Shakspere, and Molière.
These three only were at once playwrights of contemporary popularity,
masters of dramaturgic craftsmanship, creators of character independent
of their own personality, makers of plays which deal with themes of an
import at once permanent and universal, and poets also, each with his
own philosophy of life.

Others there are who unite some of these qualifications, but none who
can make good a right to be ranked with the mighty three. It is true
that the power of Æschylus is as undeniable as the pathos of Euripides;
but it is always the clear-eyed Sophocles whom Aristotle accepted as the
master of all who strive for distinction in the theater. And
Aristophanes, with all his exuberance of humor and all his lyric
elevation, is, after all, too local and too temporary to be ranked with
the broad-minded Molière. So also Calderon, whom the polemic Schlegel
wisht to promote to an equality with the very greatest of dramatic
poets, is too careless of form and too medieval in spirit. Promotion
must also be denied, for one reason or another, to Ben Jonson, to
Corneille and Racine, to Schiller, to Alfieri, and to Victor Hugo.
However ardently their claims may be urged by their compatriots, the