Europe like the blast of an archangel's trumpet, than from king to
peasant there arose an enthusiasm for knowledge; the discovery of a
manuscript became the subject of an embassy; Erasmus read by moonlight,
because he could not afford a torch, and begged a penny, not for the
love of charity, but for the love of learning. The three great points of
attention were religion, morals, and taste; men of genius as well as men
of learning, who in this age need to be so widely distinguished, then
alike became copyists of the ancients; and this, indeed, was the only
way by which the taste of mankind could be improved, or their
understandings informed. Whilst Dante imagined himself a humble follower
of Virgil, and Ariosto of Homer, they were both unconscious of that
greater power working within them, which in many points carried them
beyond their supposed originals. All great discoveries bear the stamp of
the age in which they are made;--hence we perceive the effects of the
purer religion of the moderns, visible for the most part in their lives;
and in reading their works we should not content ourselves with the mere
narratives of events long since passed, but should learn to apply their
maxims and conduct to ourselves.

Having intimated that times and manners lend their form and pressure to
genius, let me once more draw a slight parallel between the ancient and
modern stage, the stages of Greece and of England. The Greeks were
polytheists; their religion was local; almost the only object of all
their knowledge, art and taste, was their gods; and, accordingly, their
productions were, if the expression may be allowed, statuesque, whilst
those of the moderns are picturesque. The Greeks reared a structure,
which in its parts, and as a whole, fitted the mind with the calm and
elevated impression of perfect beauty and symmetrical proportion. The
moderns also produced a whole, a more striking whole; but it was by
blending materials and fusing the parts together. And as the Pantheon is