predilection either for the Grecian or the Gothic. The world is wide, and
affords room for a great diversity of objects. Narrow and blindly adopted
prepossessions will never constitute a genuine critic or connoisseur, who
ought, on the contrary, to possess the power of dwelling with liberal
impartiality on the most discrepant views, renouncing the while all
personal inclinations.

For our present object, the justification, namely, of the grand division
which we lay down in the history of art, and according to which we
conceive ourselves equally warranted in establishing the same division in
dramatic literature, it might be sufficient merely to have stated this
contrast between the ancient, or classical, and the romantic. But as there
are exclusive admirers of the ancients, who never cease asserting that all
deviation from them is merely the whim of a new school of critics, who,
expressing themselves in language full of mystery, cautiously avoid
conveying their sentiments in a tangible shape, I shall endeavour to
explain the origin and spirit of the _romantic_, and then leave the
world to judge if the use of the word, and of the idea which it is
intended to convey, be thereby justified.

The mental culture of the Greeks was a finished education in the school of
Nature. Of a beautiful and noble race, endowed with susceptible senses and
a cheerful spirit under a mild sky, they lived and bloomed in the full
health of existence; and, favoured by a rare combination of circumstances,
accomplished all that the finite nature of man is capable of. The whole of
their art and poetry is the expression of a consciousness of this harmony
of all their faculties. They invented the poetry of joy.

Their religion was the deification of the powers of nature and of the
earthly life: but this worship, which, among other nations, clouded the