Shakspeare and Milton, and Dante and Goethe; but there is nothing
to hinder our having men just as great. Those who are to come will
only bore in different directions, and find new deposits.
Shakspeare and Milton were great writers, but the fields they
occupied were their own. They do not resemble each other in any
particular. Dante and Goethe were great writers, but there are no
points of resemblance between them. When Scott was issuing his
wonderful series of novels, it seemed to his cotemporaries, I
suppose, that there was no field left for a successor; yet
Dickens, in the next generation, won as many readers and as much
admiration as he, in a field whose existence Scott never
suspected. Very different is the world of thought from the world
of matter, in the fact that its deposits are found in no
particular spot. The mind can go out in quest of thought in no
direction without reward; and every man receives from his age
motive and culture which peculiarly prepare him for the work of
supplying its needs. There are some who seem to think that the
golden age of literature is past--that nothing modern is worthy of
notice, and that it is one of the vices of the age that we discard
so much the teachings of the literary fathers. But the world of
thought is exhaustless, and we have only to produce a finer
civilization than the world has ever seen, to secure, as its
consummate flower, a literature of corresponding excellence.

What has been said of the world of matter and the world of
thought, may be said, and is implied, of the world of men. We are
accustomed to say that great emergencies make great men. But this
is not true. Great men are always found to meet great emergencies:
but God makes them, and leads them through a course of discipline
which prepares them for their work. It is one of the remarkable