Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/199

Rh time of Herodotus that was worth saving. Only the masterpieces, large and small, were copied and recopied, and treasured in men's hearts and homes. And those were. The ugly statues, also, went to ruin. It is the Venus of the Louvre that is piously buried when danger threatens, whether in Melos or by the Seine; and it is she who always rises again and comes to light. Doubtless we have the most beautiful dramas of even Æschylus and Sophocles, and some of the choicest verse of even Æolian and Dorian lyrists. Belief in this is not shaken by the recovery of classical fragments through our archæological explorations; for, if something fresh and fair—a portion of the Antiope, for instance—is occasionally gained, it is surprising how many passages from works already in our hands are quoted in the writings upon new-found tablets and papyri. Time and fate could not destroy the blooms of the anthology, the loveliest Syracusan idyls, the odes of Catullus and Horace. By chance something less attractive has remained: we keep Ausonius and Quintus on the archaic shelves, but they have no life; they are not cherished and quoted, they cannot be said to endure.

All service is in a sense acceptable, and hence the claim that the intent, rather than the outcome, Motive and accomplish-ment. crowns the work. Thus Browning in his paper on Shelley and in certain poems shows himself to be a pure idealist in his estimate of art. Professor A. H. Smyth explains that the object of