Steal access thro' our senses to our minds._ [1]


[Footnote 1: Sir John Davies on the Immortality of the Soul, sect. iv.
The words and lines in italics (_between_) are substituted to apply
these verses to the poetic genius. The greater part of this latter
paragraph may be found adopted, with some alterations, in the 'Biographia
Literaria', vol. ii. c. 14; but I have thought it better in this
instance and some others, to run the chance of bringing a few passages
twice over to the recollection of the reader, than to weaken the force
of the original argument by breaking the connection. Ed.]





GREEK DRAMA.

It is truly singular that Plato,--whose philosophy and religion were but
exotic at home, and a mere opposition to the finite in all things,
genuine prophet and anticipator as he was of the Protestant Christian
aera,--should have given in his Dialogue of the Banquet, a justification
of our Shakspeare. For he relates that, when all the other guests had
either dispersed or fallen asleep, Socrates only, together with
Aristophanes and Agathon, remained awake, and that, while he continued
to drink with them out of a large goblet, he compelled them, though most
reluctantly, to admit that it was the business of one and the same
genius to excel in tragic and comic poetry, or that the tragic poet
ought, at the same time, to contain within himself the powers of comedy.
[1] Now, as this was directly repugnant to the entire theory of the