Their poetry seems to maintain a very high, though not so
disproportionate a rank, in the comparison. Perhaps Shakespeare, from
the variety and comprehension of his genius, is to be considered,
on the whole, as the greatest individual mind, of which we have
specimens remaining. Perhaps Dante created imaginations of greater
loveliness and energy than any that are to be found in the ancient
literature of Greece. Perhaps nothing has been discovered in the
fragments of the Greek lyric poets equivalent to the sublime and
chivalric sensibility of Petrarch.--But, as a poet. Homer must be
acknowledged to excel Shakespeare in the truth, the harmony, the
sustained grandeur, the satisfying completeness of his images, their
exact fitness to the illustration, and to that to which they belong.
Nor could Dante, deficient in conduct, plan, nature, variety, and
temperance, have been brought into comparison with these men, but
for those fortunate isles laden with golden fruit, which alone
could tempt any one to embark in the misty ocean of his dark and
extravagant fiction.

But, omitting the comparison of individual minds, which can afford
no general inference, how superior was the spirit and system of
their poetry to that of any other period! So that had any other
genius equal in other respects to the greatest that ever enlightened
the world, arisen in that age, he would have been superior to all,
from this circumstance alone--that had conceptions would have assumed
a more harmonious and perfect form. For it is worthy of observation,
that whatever the poet of that age produced is as harmonious and
perfect as possible. In a drama, for instance, were the composition
of a person of inferior talent, it was still homogeneous and free
from inequalities it was a whole, consistent with itself. The
compositions of great minds bore throughout the sustained stamp of