he Greek and Modern
school.] The inherent excellencies of the ancient Greek poetry may yet
remain to be accounted for from other causes; but this one principle was
adequate to produce the most distinguishing qualities of the pagan
literature, while it is distinctly the very same principle, acting in
different circumstances, which has given birth to the opposite character
of the modern school of invention. [Sidenote: Middle-Age knowledge of
vast extent, but never thorough.] During the period which witnessed the
gradual rise of that anomalous fabric of poetry, from whose prostrate
fragments the perfected literature of Christian Europe has been erected,
knowledge (I am uttering no paradox) was of vast extent; it embraced
many different ages and many distant regions: but it was also
universally imperfect; much was known in part, but nothing wholly.
[Sidenote: So it invested History with incongruous attributes.] Hence
proceeded the specific difference of that widely-spread form of poetical
invention, namely, the super-abundance and incongruity of attributes
with which [70:1]it invested historical truth; and it is not very
difficult to discover why many of those attributes have never thoroughly
amalgamated with the principal mass. The various sources from which the
materials of the romantic poetry were drawn, present themselves at once
to every mind. [Sidenote: Early modern poets invented a national and
original literature,] By the peculiar state of their knowledge, and the
rude activity of spirit which was its consequence, the early poets of
modern Europe were prepared to invent a species of literature which
should be strictly national in its subjects, and in its essential parts
wholly original. That new branch was exposed, however, to modifications
of various kinds. One temptation to introduce foreign elements, by which
its authors were assailed, was singularly strong, and can scarcely in
any other instance have operated on a literature arising in
circumstances otherwise so favourable to originality, as those in whic