Page:Essays and Studies - Swinburne (1875).pdf/231

 and ineffaceable mark to bear witness of their work, as Dante or Milton, Goethe or Shelley, each in his special fashion.

It is no bad way of testing an opinion held vaguely but sincerely to take it up and rub it, as it were, against the: opinion of some one else, who is clearly worth agreeing with or disagreeing. Mr. Arnold, with whose clear and critical spirit it is always good to come in contact, as disciple or as dissenter, has twice spoken of Shelley, each time, as I think, putting forth a brilliant error, shot through and spotted with glimpses of truth. Byron and Shelley, he says, "two members of the aristocratic class," alone in their day, strove "to apply the modern spirit" to English literature. "Aristocracies are, as such, naturally impenetrable by ideas; but their individual members have a high courage and a turn for breaking bounds; and a man of genius, who is the born child of the idea, happening to be born in the aristocratic ranks, chafes against the obstacles which prevent him from freely developing it." To the truth of this he might have cited a third witness; for of the English poets then living, three only were children of the social or political idea, strong enough to breathe and work in the air of revolution, to wrestle with change and hold fast the new liberty, to believe at all in the godhead of people or peoples, in the absolute right and want of the world, equality of justice, of work and truth and life; and these three came all out of the same rank, were all born into one social sect, men of historic blood and name, having nothing to ask of revolution, nothing (as the phrase is now) to gain by freedom, but leave to love and serve the light for the light's sake.