Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/181

Rh. This is why it has been said that "the strength of Shakespeare lay in the fact Art's new departures. that he had no taste; he was not a man of letters." But men of letters now accept Shakespeare as their highest master. Thus every new movement or method in art has the added form of strangeness at first,—of a true romanticism. In time this, too, becomes classicism and academic. The mediocrities, the dullards of art, are ever the camp-followers of its shining soldiery. In every campaign, under every mode that a genius brings into vogue, they ultimately pitch their ragged tents; and even if they do not sink the cause into disrepute, they make in time a new departure necessary. In the greatest work, however, there will be found always a fresh originality that is not radically opposed to principles already established; you will have a union of classicism and romanticism.

Any poem or painting which produces a serious and lasting impression will in the end be The æsthetic canon. found to have a beauty, not merely of its own, but allied to universal types and susceptible of logical analysis. Its royal stamp will be detected by the expert. Gainsay this, and you count out a host of the elect brotherhood who make this the specific test,—who will forego other elements (as in religion the Church passes over minor matters if you accept its one essential) and concentrate their force upon the dogma tersely expressed by Poe when he defined poetry as