God created them. His age wanted them, and he had the insight into
the world of thought which enabled him to enter in and lead them
out. The reason why we have not had any great dramatist since, is,
that succeeding ages have not needed one. The great men of later
ages have not recognized the drama as a want of their particular
time. I am aware that there is nothing in this to feed human
pride, but I do not recognize food for human pride as a want of
any age.

We are in the habit of talking of the old authors; and we read
them as if we supposed them wiser than ourselves. We try to feed
on the thought which they discovered, but it is in the main very
innutritious fodder, and the world is learning the fact. We read
and reverence old books less, and read and regard newspapers a
great deal more. The thought which our own age produces is that
which we are learning to prize most. We buy beautiful editions of
Scott, but we read Dickens and Thackeray and Mrs. Stowe, in weekly
and monthly numbers. Milton, in half-calf, stands upon the shelves
of our library undisturbed, while we cut the leaves of "Festus;" and
Keats and Byron and Shelley are all pushed aside that we may
converse with Longfellow and Mrs. Browning. It is not, perhaps,
that the later are the greater, but, being informed with the spirit
of the age in which we have our life, moving among the facts which
concern us, and conscious of our want, they apprehend the true
relations of their age to the world of thought around them. They see
where the sources of oil are exhausted, and bore for new deposits.
It is a comfort to know that they can never bore in vain.

We may be sure that literature will always be as fresh as it has
been. It is possible that we may never have greater men than