complexity and agglomeration of horrors, was shooting her darts of fire
and venom all around him. Even such was Milton; yea, and such, in spite
of all that has been babbled by his critics in pretended excuse for his
damning, because for them too profound, excellencies,--such was
Shakspeare. But alas! the exceptions prove the rule. For who will dare
to force his way out of the crowd,--not of the mere vulgar,--but of the
vain and banded aristocracy of intellect, and presume to join the almost
supernatural beings that stand by themselves aloof?

Of this diseased epidemic influence there are two forms especially
preclusive of tragic worth. The first is the necessary growth of a sense
and love of the ludicrous, and a morbid sensibility of the assimilative
power,--an inflammation produced by cold and weakness,--which in the
boldest bursts of passion will lie in wait for a jeer at any phrase,
that may have an accidental coincidence in the mere words with something
base or trivial. For instance,--to express woods, not on a plain, but
clothing a hill, which overlooks a valley, or dell, or river, or the
sea,--the trees rising one above another, as the spectators in an
ancient theatre,--I know no other word in our language, (bookish and
pedantic terms out of the question,) but 'hanging' woods, the 'sylvae
superimpendentes' of Catullus [2]; yet let some wit call out in a slang
tone,--"the gallows!" and a peal of laughter would damn the play. Hence
it is that so many dull pieces have had a decent run, only because
nothing unusual above, or absurd below, mediocrity furnished an
occasion,--a spark for the explosive materials collected behind the
orchestra. But it would take a volume of no ordinary size, however
laconically the sense were expressed, if it were meant to instance the
effects, and unfold all the causes, of this disposition upon the moral,
intellectual, and even physical character of a people, with its
influences on domestic life and individual deportment. A good document