If his analyses and criticisms are keen and graceful, they are
unreliable and contradictory, for he was often influenced by private
piques, and unpardonable egotism, and the opinions of those whose favor
he courted. He was Byron without Byron's wonderful perceptions of
nature, Byron's consciousness of the good.
And is it from a genius like this that our literature has taken its
tone? Heaven forbid! Wee Apollos there may be, 'the little Crichtons of
the hour,' who twist about their brows the cypress sprays that have
fallen from this perverted poet's wreath, and fancy themselves crowned
with the laurel of a nation's applause. But these men are not types of
our literature. The truly great mind is never molded by the idol of a
day, a clique, a sect. Pure-hearted and strong the man must be whose
hands take hold of the palaces of the world's heart, who grasps the
spirit of the coming time. Errors may be forgiven, vices may be
forgotten, where only a noble aim has influenced, as a true creative
genius gleamed.
But larger constellations have appeared in our literary sky, that burn
with undimmed lustre even beside that great morning star that rose above
the horizon of the Middle Ages.
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