which it limits and circumscribes them. But no man can be a true critic or
connoisseur without universality of mind, without that flexibility which
enables him, by renouncing all personal predilections and blind habits, to
adapt himself to the peculiarities of other ages and nations--to feel
them, as it were, from their proper central point, and, what ennobles
human nature, to recognise and duly appreciate whatever is beautiful and
grand under the external accessories which were necessary to its
embodying, even though occasionally they may seem to disguise and distort
it. There is no monopoly of poetry for particular ages and nations; and
consequently that despotism in taste, which would seek to invest with
universal authority the rules which at first, perhaps, were but
arbitrarily advanced, is but a vain and empty pretension. Poetry, taken in
its widest acceptation, as the power of creating what is beautiful, and
representing it to the eye or the ear, is a universal gift of Heaven,
being shared to a certain extent even by those whom we call barbarians and
savages. Internal excellence is alone decisive, and where this exists, we
must not allow ourselves to be repelled by the external appearance.
Everything must be traced up to the root of human nature: if it has sprung
from thence, it has an undoubted worth of its own; but if, without
possessing a living germ, it is merely externally attached thereto, it
will never thrive nor acquire a proper growth. Many productions which
appear at first sight dazzling phenomena in the province of the fine arts,
and which as a whole have been honoured with the appellation of works of a
golden age, resemble the mimic gardens of children: impatient to witness
the work of their hands, they break off here and there branches and
flowers, and plant them in the earth; everything at first assumes a noble
appearance: the childish gardener struts proudly up and down among his
showy beds, till the rootless plants begin to droop, and hang their
withered leaves and blossoms, and nothing soon remains but the bare twigs,
while the dark forest, on which no art or care was ever bestowed, and