Page:Studies of a Biographer 1.djvu/90

 these little achievements; deduce from them what must have been the characteristics of Byrom's mind and temperament; and finally, by appealing to facts, show how strikingly the à priori reasoning would be confirmed by experience. I think that a little ingenuity might enable an ambitious critic to give plausibility to such a procedure; but I prefer to take a humbler method, for which sufficient materials have been lately provided. Byrom, I may remark, in the first place, is hardly thought, even by his warm admirers, to be other than a second-rate poet: nor need I appeal to the Latin grammar to prove that second-rate poetry is not generally worth reading. The reason is, I suppose, that a second-rate poet only does badly what has been done well, whereas even a tenth-rate historian or philosopher may be giving something new. That reason, at least, will do sufficiently well to suggest why an exception may be made in favour of some second-rate poetry. There are cases in which poetry not of the highest class reveals a charm of character peculiar to itself, though not of the highest kind. We cannot help loving the writer, though we admit that he was not a Dante, or a Shakespeare, nor even—in this case the comparison is more to the purpose—