Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/103

 A. w. schlegel's general survey of the drama. 85 I will endeavour, by means of an example borrowed from another art, that of architecture, to illustrate what I mean by this harmonious recognition of seeming opposites. In the middle ages there prevailed, and in the latter centuries of that sera developed itself to the most perfect maturity, a style of architecture which has been denominated Gothic, but ought to have been called Old-German. When, upon the revival of classic antiquity in general, imitation of the Grecian architecture came up, which often indeed was but too injudiciously applied, without regard had to difference of climate and to the destination of the edifices, the zealots for this new taste con- demned the Gothic style altogether, reviled it as tasteless, gloomy, barbarous. In the Italians, if anywhere, this was excusable : considering their many hereditary remains of ancient structures, and also their climatical affinity with the Greeks and Romans, partiality for ancient architecture lay, as it were, in their very blood. But we northern people are not to be so easily talked out of those powerful, solemn impressions which fail upon us at the very entering into a Gothic cathedral. Eather we will endeavour to account for these impressions and to justify them. A very little attention will satisfy us that the Gothic architecture bespeaks not only extraordinary mechanical skill, but a marvellous outlay of inventive genius ; upon still closer contemplation we shall recognize its profound significance, and perceive that it forms a complete finished S3'stem in itself quite as much as does that of the Greeks. To apply this to the matter in hand. The Pantheon is not more different from Westminster Abbey or St. Stephen's in Vienna, than is the structure of a tragedy of Sophocles from that of a play of Shakespeare. The comparison between these miracles of poetry and architecture might be carried out still further. But really does admira- tion of the one necessitate us to have a mean esteem of the other? Cannot we admit that each in its own kind is gi'eat and admirable, though this is, and is meant to be, quite another thing from that? It were worth making the attempt. We do not wish to argue any man out of his preference for the one or the other. The world is wide, and has room enough in it for many things that differ, without their interfering with one another. But a preference originating in views directed to one side alone of the question, a preference conceived one knows not why nor wherefore, is not what makes a connoisseur. No : the true connoisseur is he who can suspend his mind, free and unconstrained, in liberal contemplation of discrepant principles and tendencies, re- nouncing the while his own individual partialities. It might suffice for our present purpose, to have thus barely indicated the exist- ence of this striking contrast between the antique or classical and the romantic. But as exclusive admirers of the ancients still persist in maintaining that every deviation from these models is a mere whim of the "new school" of critics, who speak in a mysterious way about it, but cannot manage to make it dependent upon any valid idea, I will endeavour to give an explanation of the origin and spirit of the romantic, and then let it be determined whether the use of the term and recognition of the thing be thereby justified. The mental culture of the Greeks was a finished education in the school of nature. Of a beautiful and noble race, gifted with impressible senses and a cheerful spirit, under a mild sky, they lived and bloomed in perfect health of being, and, favoured by a rare combination of circumstances, achieved all that could be achieved by the limitary creature man. Their whole system of art and poetry is the manifestation of this harmony of all powers. They invented the poetry of joy. Their religion consisted in deification of nature in its various powers, and of the earthly life: but this worship, which fancy, among other nations, darkened with hideous shapes hardening the heart to cruelty, assumed among this people a form of