Of their music we know little; but the effects
which it is said to have produced, whether they be attributed to
the skill of the composer, or the sensibility of his audience, are
far more powerful than any which we experience from the music of
our own times; and if, indeed, the melody of their compositions
were more tender and delicate, and inspiring, than the melodies of
some modern European nations, their superiority in this art must
have been something wonderful, and wholly beyond conception.
Their poetry seems to maintain a very high, though not so
disproportionate a rank, in the comparison. Perhaps Shakespeare, from
the variety and comprehension of his genius, is to be considered,
on the whole, as the greatest individual mind, of which we have
specimens remaining. Perhaps Dante created imaginations of greater
loveliness and energy than any that are to be found in the ancient
literature of Greece. Perhaps nothing has been discovered in the
fragments of the Greek lyric poets equivalent to the sublime and
chivalric sensibility of Petrarch.--But, as a poet. Homer must be
acknowledged to excel Shakespeare in the truth, the harmony, the
sustained grandeur, the satisfying completeness of his images, their
exact fitness to the illustration, and to that to which they belong.
Nor could Dante, deficient in conduct, plan, nature, variety, and
temperance, have been brought into comparison with these men, but
for those fortunate isles laden with golden fruit, which alone
could tempt any one to embark in the misty ocean of his dark and
extravagant fiction.
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