Page:In the dozy hours, and other papers.djvu/161

 Rh ? This is a pleasant opinion to entertain, but it is apt to be a little misleading. The old gods are not so readily dislodged, and their festal board is not a round table at which all guests hold equal rank. If you thrust Balzac or Tolstoi by the side of Shakespeare, the great poet, it has been well said, will, in his infinite courtesy, move higher and make room. But you cannot bid them change seats at your discretion. Parnassus is not the exclusive pasture ground of the Frenchman or of the Muscovite. "Homer often nods, but, in 'Taras Bulba,' Gogol never nods," I read not long ago in a review. The inference is plain, and quite in harmony with much that we hear every day; but how many times already has Homer been outstripped by long forgotten competitors! It is not indeed the nameless critic of the newspapers who gives utterance to these startling statements. They are signed and countersigned in magazines, and occasionally republished in fat volumes for the comfort and enlightenment of posterity. The real curiosities of criticism have ever emanated from men bearing the symbol of authority. It was no anonymous reviewer